[AIM log] [Hell hath no fury like a pissed off redhead] [Shikamaru + Tayuya] [Closed]

[supine_sky]

[Warnings: Rated PG-13 for violence, language--with Tayuya, it's occupational hazard--and...honestly, I'm involved and my chaste logs are few and far in between. Backdated to after this thread.]

'Actions speak louder than words' her ass.

Rage was a comforting fizz that bubbled along her skin, sending tangible sparks in a spinning flurry along her nerves and behind her eyes. Anger lined her belly snugly, tightening and wriggling as it settled firmly down in place.

Tayuya was mad. And pissed. And frustrated beyond belief, with pride she needed to defend.

Only he could be so infuriating - only he could take her enforced solitude and break it so completely, shattering the barriers she had carefully erected when she had felt herself being lost in whatever it was that always passed between them. The rage sending dull red hazes across her senses was a knee jerk reaction to the sheer confusion she'd been savagely keeping under wraps and since that loss of control was directly connected with him, the obvious solution had been to remove the cause directly from her life.

Fat lot of good that had done.

The implication that she was afraid - hiding - had been the thing to break her ice, completely and utterly, the spur that drove her to stalk across the hallway to slam an abrupt hand flat against the sloppy red paint, a knock that was practically a strike. She certainly looked the picture of murderous intent, all ruffled hair and narrow eyes combined with blue shirt worn open in a vaguely masculine style over a darker vest, tattered and faded denim hiding bare feet from view (he wasn't worth shoes, dammit!) The jeans were enough to drown in, baggy and weighed down by the chains at her hips.

Tayuya was unintentionally dressed for war and one only prayed that it was indeed Shikamaru who opened the door because whoever was unlucky enough to do so would be on the receiving end of some rather heated vengeance.

And, this time, it wouldn't be a kiss.

Spikes of agitation flaring beneath Shikamaru’s flesh were a troublesome constant reminder of how out of his habitat she had driven him. He rarely felt the need to defend his pride, rarely bothered to take up verbal or physical arms against those who underestimated him. His old man knew precisely how to get beneath his skin, yet he was far removed from that situation. He wasn’t being a girl about this, he had every right to feel mixed up over their turbulent relationship and it was completely validated for him to bring it up.

Wasn’t it?

The drum of war sounded against his door stirred him from his room, cross-legged beneath his laptop. He scowled, unraveling the band around his wrist into his hair and tugging on a sweater before padding over to the source of noise. Throwing the latch and opening it--who else would it be, anyways--he folded his arms and squared his shoulders, his expression curdled by frustration. Upper lip lined, bridge of his nose minutely creased and strict eyebrows reading anger with little room for misinterpretation. Everything else was secondary, stored away to writhe in his gut, especially his desire to shake that rejection and ignore it.

“Oi.”

Tayuya had been fuming as she'd glowered at the unwavering surface of the door, but when it was pulled open from within and she was met by a familiar face and its usual collection of irritated creases, that changed...

...but not for the better.

If she had been angry before, seeing the object of said rage solid and physical and defiant before her just fanned the furnace in her stomach, the flames of anger, not lust.

It was his fault.

Entirely his fault.

Never having been one for self-control, or self-restraint or self-anything for that matter, her action should have been predictable in its sheer unpredictability. Nails, however short, bit into her palm as she balled one hand into a fist tight enough to hurt herself, the muscles in her upper arm contracting and tensing.

'Oi' he said. 'Oi' indeed.

Tayuya wasn't good with words - never had been and never would be - so there was nothing she could say to convey this anger, this frustration, this sense of falling way too far and way too fast, of needing to back off and hide from the world. All of that - the rage, the confusion, the sheer sense of want that she tried to fight down - was very easily translated into her own language, however.

The feel of skin meeting skin as she landed him a solid one in the eye was extremely satisfying, yet not at the same time. Moments before her fist, with full intentions of cracking bone, had come into contact with his nose (her primary target since she knew the blinding pain of a broken nose and her irritation was channeled into a need to hurt) her will had wavered, her strength with it. Her aim had slipped (yeah right) and her intended force had faded as well, the blow landing on the equally painful, but less susceptible to damage area that was the line of hard bone above his eye.

She was a violent one - what else should have been expected of a hellcat like her?

She’d kicked at him before, shoved him before, spit threats left and right, but he hadn’t expected her to actually lash out with such ire. Thus his reaction time, deadened by surprise and unlikely opponent, only managed to raise his arms to his collar by the time flesh and bone connected, both eyes tightly closed. He’d coughed out at the white-hot wire of pain, salty fluid adding to the burn as his corresponding arm continued its rise to slash over his face, unharmed eye squinting apart to gauge her.

Well, he certainly looked like the figurative deer caught in the headlights in that moment. His hand instinctively came to gingerly cup over the eye, more to hide the fiercer watering than in its partner as his expression hardened and he came to be very thankful that they were alone.

His free hand caught the edges of her shirt’s open collar, bunching it up and tugging her forward, nursing hand leaving his face to slam the door before pushing her back up against it. Then his voice finally rose uncontrollably.

“The hell does your mind work? You think that proves anything, picks up your pieces?!” He shoved away from her abruptly, storming a pacing path by her before rounding on her again, open palms slamming thin wood above her shoulders on either side of her face and voice lowered, taut and an octave down from usual. “What are you afraid of?”

It was difficult to keep both eyes open, one glazed with a thick layer of tears, yet he kept his intense stare on her nonetheless. If she wanted to run away, he wanted an explanation.

Tayuya gained far too much satisfaction from her strike, just for that brief moment where he looked shocked, half reacting in defence, but not quite fast enough. There wasn't enough of her actually capable of compassion to feel any remorse for the pain she caused him, but it had been more of a warning, a remonstrance on her part than any real blow designed to cause damage - if she'd really felt the urge to beat him down, teeth and feet would have been involved, as well as groin, throat and mouth shots.

Fighting dirty gave her a fantastic rush, but not one that she'd get now.

Seeing his expression harden was, strangely enough, even more satisfying - part of her intrinsic problem with Shikamaru rested upon just how irritatingly laid back he was. To see him flare up like this was exciting, something she always sought (unconsciously as well as the reverse) to provoke.

Having him yell back was infinitely more pleasing than having him take everything she threw at him laying down - his passive sort of apathy had always rubbed her the wrong way, alleviating none of the frustration he so often built up in her.

In a purely primal sense, Tayuya got a thrill out of him grabbing her, treating her with a rough edge she had long since given up in expecting from him, the one she had been more used to and had subtly missed. Spine pressed up against the door, his hands on either side of her face, she squared her shoulders, dark eyes glaring up at him with fire glittering in their depths.

This was what she loved, lived for - the confrontation, the dance for dominance, the levels they'd push each other up just to see one of them beaten down finally.

Fingers of one hand curled into his own sweater, tugging him down slightly to her own level so that they were of the same height, nose to nose, though there was no seduction in the gesture however much of a thrill it sent running across her skin - that was probably just the adrenalin rush, the fine lines of tension running between them in this odd little confrontation.

“I'm not afraid of anything, you piece of shit,” she snarled back, uncaring of thin walls or who might have been in the apartment, “That's the point. You're the one who takes this way too fucking seriously.” A slight shake of her hand, knuckles brushing his throat in a hinted threat.

She didn't expect him to understand. Fuck - she didn't understand, but that wasn't the point. The point was…she'd tell him the point later, once she'd worked that out as well.

“Bullshit.” He tolerated her pull, staying where she kept him in that closeness that had always been like a magnetic pull between them, one with polar sides that switched to push and pull erratically. “You don’t take this lightly and that fucking scares you, doesn’t it? I may not be any expert on this field but I’ve seen it in your eyes, heard it in your voice and--” He tore his eyes from her, turning his face and screwing his eyes shut tightly, accompanied by another shock from his left socket.

Fingers curled against wood until he was pushing his knuckles against it, shoulders hunched up and shuddering minutely. “Fuck, Tayuya.” His voice was completely dead on her name, low and shot with resignation. Continuing would result in quavering, unpredictable tones that he didn’t want to show. Not in front of her. Yet he’d incited her to come and couldn’t rightly ignore that which he bottled, seething for release.

“It’s not like any of this is your doing, I’ve only reached and dragged and shook you and I’m not used to it. You’ve clouded my mind and I can’t get you out of it.” He came to stare at her shoulder, gaze blurred yet sickeningly away of the splotches of darker blue on her shirt. ‘Pathetic’.

He swiped the back of his wrist against the bridge of his nose, wincing before alighting his hands heavily on her shoulders and facing her, jaw locked and expression both defiant and determined.

“Tayuya, I love you. I can’t pretend otherwise.” He closed the distance between them until he’d pushed a kiss onto her, burying his fears into her. There was a reason he hid behind his wall of apathy and he hated her for dragging him out, the force of his anger driving into her mouth.

...Why? Why?! Why did he have to make things that much more complicated? Couldn't he see that this wasn't what she wanted (even when it was) or that it wasn't what she needed (though she did)? It was a word she didn't believe in, didn't trust, belittled at every opportunity because that stupid little emotion called love was what got in the way of the good things in life.

Ignoring the damp spots appearing on her shirt was easy; blocking out his words, less so.

There was only so much she could tune out, so much she could dismiss on the spot as him being pathetic and her just being...there, unable to leave because he had her pressed up against the only exit.

They weren't words that she wanted to hear (was it because there might have been a grain of truth somewhere in them? A truthful part of her whispered that it was more than a grain, more like a desert, but it was only a very small part of herself and her pride buried it under waves of indignation at his insinuations.) She shook her head in denial at it all, a minute movement of her head from side to side, curtained by thick, unruly hair.

She didn't take this lightly.

She was scared.

But, on the other hand, she didn't care and she wasn't scared, and it was hard to distinguish between what was safety mechanism and what was the softer part of her lurking down beneath layers of grit and grime. The instinctive reaction to this typhoon of indecision was to clam up and to close down, to block him out completely...

...and then he knocked the ground out from beneath her feet and sucked the breath out of her lungs, all in a few short seconds.

There was a brief, brief moment where she absorbed his anger totally, taking his violence because that was all she knew, sensing his obscure sort of hate and drinking it in - it was an effort to know that, at least, he was sometimes capable of coming down to her level and, just maybe, that made her feel that tad more satisfactory if he was as human and broken as she was in the end. In that tiny space of time, the fingers at his throat loosened, brushing carefully against his skin in a lost, hopeless way instead of the violent touch from before, while the slick insides of her mouth opened up pliantly for him, boneless beneath him in every sense.

Then a nature too jagged to ever soften properly took over and the moment of beautiful disaster was broken as the heel of her hand shoved against his sternum, pushing him forcefully away from her with all the strength she could muster. A baleful glance was sent in his direction, shoulders heaving with one bare where her shirt had slipped in her exertions, hanging loosely off of the crook of her elbow.

“Fuck you,” she told him harshly, the anger more real than it had ever sounded, her best façade yet because she almost believed it herself. “You're an idiot.” Fear made her callous, insecurity made her cruel as she drew herself up and passed the back of her hand across her lips, wiping him away. “You're imagining things. You haven't seen or heard anything.” Her gaze was deliberately mocking, despite that tiny, soft part of herself beating against a self-locked cage - pride was a jealous gaoler. “You're a decent fuck and you just think you love me.” A beat. “You'd really have shit for brains if it were real.”

Don't argue, don't argue, don't you dare try and say that it's really true...

She might not have been able to cope.

No way in hell would he let her pull the wool over his eyes. For a moment he had melted into her (delicate?) brush at his throat, his grip on her shoulders going from locked to almost kneading before she threw up her front again. He so desperately wanted to know what built it, what great wrongs had caused her such drastic hiding strategies.

His hands went straight into his pockets, head lowered slightly more under the weight of her admonishment than shame or fear. If he quailed beneath that then he’d have never survived the years of childhood and his mother’s sharp tongue, constantly, desperately trying to force him into action. Umber eyes came to hers, brows slightly knitted, rooted to the spot.

“I’d like to think I’m well aware of my own feelings thanks, and it’s not like I asked for any such thing to happen to me. You’re a troublesome, ungainly, noisy and lewd woman and my old man would laugh his ass off if he ever knew I fell for someone like you.” He threw his arms up in the air in frustration, bringing them to rub at the bridge of his nose for lack of a better thing to do with them.

“But there’s something under all that, deep and smooth and raw and I fell in love with that, and the way you look when I piss you off and the sounds you make that get trapped in my throat and...I’d rather have shit for brains than go without it all.”

His hands came to lie limply at his sides, he’d laid his heart out on the floor for her and there wasn’t much more he could do.

She hated him.

She actually hated him for bringing this all up - dammit, why couldn't he have just been satisfied with sex like most men? If he hadn't been so fucking masculine in most aspects, she'd have felt like the man in this strange, messed up relationship, but his mentality baffled her, confused her beyond belief.

Not even three months. Not even three months and they were in over their heads.

Tayuya glowered because she didn't know what else to do, hands balling at her side. Deadlocked - she wanted to storm out, but that would be running away. She wanted to hit him (again) but that would be proving that he was getting to her. She wanted him to kiss her again and that certainly wouldn't solve anything because it was needy and helpless and dependent...all of which she wasn't.

Except when she was.

“Fuck you,” she repeated, for lack of a better or new expletive (why change the old when it served so well?) Dry eyes prickled with something that, while not tears, was certainly some sort of sign of frustration, a desolation she couldn't comprehend through all of the mist and fog clouding her mentality. “If I'm so damn troublesome, or ungainly, or lewd, then go find someone who isn't!” She may not have protested the 'noisy' part, but she threw the rest back in his face, tongue biting around the words as her jaw tightened, eyes all but obscured by that heavy fringe of blooded hair, the rest tangling angrily over her bare shoulder.

There was a lump in her throat that shouldn't have been there - why on earth would he see her as deep, smooth or raw? Why on earth would he want that? Tayuya was fucking fine with herself, no problems there, but she was well aware that she didn't need other people and that other people didn't need her...so why?

Her earlier words sounded hollow now, her suggestion that he simply piss off and find someone sweeter foolish in the face of his profession, but how else was she supposed to respond? What he felt for her…she didn't feel for him. Granted, there was something there, something electric and eclectic and crazy beyond belief, but it was far too soon.

Just why she was resisting that very same sensation was also a mystery, but she also hated the feeling of lagging steps behind him.

A look that just might have been miserable if it had been softer. A hand that raked awkwardly through her hair. A foot that twitched, as if she were going to take a step towards him, but thought better of it.

“I don't get you.” Voiced quietly, tone jagged and uneven - not loving, but not hating either. “How can you just say shit like that and expect me to know what to say back...”

He drew in a deep breath, allowing it to roll through his system as if to cleanse himself. He rubbed at the back of his neck, expression softened in the face of her quietening before rolling his shoulders into a shrug. “You don’t have to say anything. I don’t need you to, don’t want you to.” He retreated a bit further into the apartment, drawing out a chair from the table and sitting, elbows on his open knees as his spine bowed, less able to look at her now.

“It’s not anything huge or serious or absolute, nothing binding or whatever. Just want you to know. I don’t think of you as just a…decent fuck, and if you could ever lower your guard further around me I’d never think any less of you.” His finger pads all came together in a strange orb between his knees.

“I’m no good at talking either, I just wasn’t comfortable with the way things happened after that night...and you didn’t give me a chance to...” He straightened then, raising a finger to her to indicate wait before disappearing into his room for a moment. When he came back he had a light bundle he shoved in her general direction with the air of a boy who’d never given a girl a gift before.

A mute blue t-shirt with a cotton long sleeve laced unfastened within, screened with a stylized skull and crosswords and background gritty noise. On the back, stylized scrawl read; ‘Dead men tell no tales.’

“I didn’t see you on your birthday because I didn’t know if you wanted to see me, or if you were with your ‘rents or whatever.”

“Ain't no guard up,” she retorted, reflexively, almost absently despite the lack of truth in such a phrase, but she was watching him with a peculiar expression - the same one you'd see if you gave a dog peanut butter for the first time and it was trying to work out just exactly what you had given it that was currently stuck to the roof of its mouth, unsure of whether such a sensation was a pleasant one.

Not that Shikamaru was peanut butter, or that Tayuya was a bitch (or maybe she was) but...strange analogies aside, Tayuya was simply at a loss as to what to do with such a guy.

With such a troublesome guy, at that.

The package was unexpected, serving to throw her even further off balance, and she took it gingerly and with a fair degree of suspicion. Blue cotton rested lightly across her limp hands as she looked at it, perplexed to the max even as her lips twitched upon reading the…apt slogan that sprawled across the back of the garment.

It didn't soothe her, not by a long shot, but it was…kind of sweet, in a sort of 'I clearly think you're capable of murder, but I love you anyway' manner.

It suited them, summed them up (not that she'd ever admit it.)

“...Don't expect anything on your birthday,” she told him finally, voice haughty and obviously dismissive, even as numb hands deigned to close around the garment, letting it hang at her side as she folded her arms across her chest. “You steal money from old geezers, but I don't have any to spare.”

It was as close to an apology as she'd ever come, which wasn't even anywhere near to one - right now, an apology was a dot on the horizon from where Tayuya was standing, resplendent in her utter confusion.

She shifted awkwardly on the spot, letting her spine fall back against the door again for lack of a better support as she averted her eyes from where he sat, unsure of how to go about this. Any of this.

“Yeah...that morning,” she started, tone as tentative as someone making their delicate way through quicksand. “I just...y'know...had some chores to do. Had to leave early and you're so fucking lazy, I thought you'd be a grump if I woke you up.” A sniff and a snort and an uncomfortable scratch at the nape of her neck. “So...you shouldn't have worried.”

An easy smirk wound its way wryly over his lips, hands winding their way to his hind pockets. “That is if you can tolerate me ‘til September, it’s a long way off.” He brushed the thought off airily with a wave of his hand, loping to the kitchen and procuring some ice to bundle in a clean counter rag. “And I hear I’m a royal pain in the ass to wake up anyways.” He allowed it to slide, disbelieving the explanation as he cautiously tried to find a comfortable way to press the coolness to his eye.

“Man, I hope I don’t ever piss you off to earn a full-fledged punch from you.” He canted his head at her, a little unsure what to do now, like treading on thin ice. He crossed the distance between her, placing his free hand atop her head and leaning down to kiss the side of her throat. Mostly for reassurance.

“You can come in if you want, watch a movie? Or something, or not.” An easy shrug, deciding that holding the bundle was both tiresome and a bother and so lowering his arm for a moment.

“September?” She snorted, flipping her hair in an action that actually held some trace of femininity. “Too bloody long - I'll have gotten pissed off at you way before that.”

Empty words, unless you counted the attempt at banter...so maybe it was something after all.

“You wouldn't survive a real punch from me, moron,” was her smug reply, lips curving into a smile that, while there, was hardly a reassuring gesture. Tayuya-grins often had that dubious quality of being a terrifying thing to behold. “You're lucky you're not worth the effort to hit properly.”

Her defenses waning slightly, resolve wavering (and partly because her hands were full, or such was her excuse) she allowed the brush of lips against her neck, but she did nudge him away with a bony elbow after a suitably short amount of time had elapsed. “Don't even try that.” An attempt at a glare, ruined by the wispy-soft strands of crimson framing her face, softening the expression despite her best efforts. “I'm still mad at you.”

There were perks to being a woman - the act of being able to withhold anything vaguely sexual was something all of them seemed to be able to pick up instinctively.

There was no trace of sympathy in her gaze as she regarded his minor battle with the ice and his eye because, hell, she considered him lucky to have gotten off with only a slowly blackening eye. She did however relent slightly, tugging the ice from him and fixing him with one of his own signature 'you're troublesome' stares as well as one that said 'you're troublesome for even making me think you're troublesome' because he was far too contagious.

“Here. Idiot.” None too gently, she pushed him in the direction of his chair, a hand pushing him down into it somewhat roughly. “Sit and watch. Honestly...” Deft fingers enfolded the ice within the rag, making a long line with the ice centered in a clump at the middle, with two trailing edges. “You're clearly too wussy to have got into enough fights that you know how to deal with injuries,” she told him mockingly as she bent down slightly, tying the cloth bandanna style around his head so that the ice rested squarely over the offending eye - how ironic that she dealt him both the blow and the somewhat soothing gesture. “It better be a good movie...” Dry tone, laced with amusement as she reached that much further behind his head to tie the knot, knees very deliberately knocking his and providing him with an interesting view of bare throat and clavicles. “Popcorn as well.”

If he'd labeled her as troublesome, then she was damn well going to live up to the reputation.

Willingly bullied back into his chair, he sat with little complaint as he was actually quite used to similar attacks from his mom--usually to fix his hair. “I’ve gotten into a couple.” That was the range of his complaint, though he withheld the fact that he didn’t fight in them, really. He hissed air through his teeth and bit back to keep quiet as she fastened the clever device, his eyes lingering irrevocably on what was so clearly in his vision. Shikamaru had a love affair with the collar bones, nine times out of ten quite content to study them instead of what lay inches beneath on a woman.

Though her subtle swell was also pretty damn disarming. His expression remained resolutely annoyed, shooting back an absent; “can’t watch a movie without popcorn, or at least chips.” His hands sought out her extra shirt to fold and place beyond him on the table before claiming her hips despite her earlier warning, craning forward once she had finished and smothering the hollow between her jagged clavicles with his lips and tongue.

A hand strayed lower onto her thigh; the other following as he carefully maneuvered forward and tugged her bodily to straddle his lap. “My expressions look too cute on you.” Fingers wove into her unruly red mane, urging her closer to crush his mouth against hers, tongue tracing her gums before skating over teeth and palate.

Without giving her much room for argument--literally with her mouth so stolen--his fingers crept into her back pockets to hike her further up his lap and flush against his body. It had been over two full weeks since he’d last seen her and they’d successfully had a complete scene without touching like this, as such he hardly meant to divert her attention so much as craved it.

His habit of maneuvering her without her permission, as if she were some sort of doll, was enough to raise her levels of ire though, but he didn't leave her much space, time or breath to protest in.

The bastard.

Tugged off balance and landing in his lap, Tayuya glowered at his sheer disregard for her previous commandment. What happened to a woman's word being law? Feeling more than a little physically precarious, she wriggled until her balance was regained which, in retrospect, probably wasn't the best move if she aimed to discourage such a lack of respect for her personal space.

Frowning at the comment, she had indeed opened her mouth to protest it, but that was another bad move considering he took quick advantage of her lapse in judgment, swathing tongues together in a way that was quite distracting.

It was all horribly unfair, as well.

…She had to admit that the body contact was something she had found herself recollecting when her mind had wondered in the two weeks since they had last been in the same room as each other (and while physical contact didn't necessarily come with being in the same room, they hadn't yet managed to have a chaste encounter)

So, in view of that, she allowed the lapse, just this once, feet finding purchase on the back legs of the chair as she gave in to the need for an anchor and wrapped an arm around his neck and upper back, hand gripping onto his opposite shoulder as the other tangled in his hair, wary of the makeshift ice-sling. The same object nudged annoyingly at her brow, a shard of icy coolness in her otherwise pleasant heat and she canted her head irritably, trying to avoid the chilly bulge.

This was all before her tolerance for disobedience ran out and she gave his lower lip a final nip, pulling back with a breath that might have been a tad shuddery and a glare with eyes more narrowed than usual. “Bastard,” she remonstrated, a sharp poke being gifted to his belly. “Which part of 'I'm still mad at you' didn't make it through your thick skull?”

Stretching out languidly, bare heels propped apart on the floor and slouching minimally in the chair--which evened out the difference in their height--he smiled tomcattishly at her. “Sorry, I have terrible selective hearing. Old habits die hard.” After pressing against her inner pockets to urge her against a slow rise of his hips, he withdrew and clasped his hands calmly behind his head. “That, and my skull’s half-frozen through, thanks.” A slightly lopsided frown, bare eye darting up as if he were actually attempting to look at his head.

“In any case, I think we have uh...aside from taped cooking shows and movies with dogs as the main characters, The Interpreter, er…Law and Order Special Victims Unit box sets--um, we might be better off digging through Kiba’s lot, he has good taste.” He gave her a withering look, she probably had less than no interest in his fast-hitting, mind-engaging types that required more than full attention.

That and he couldn’t really recall his entire collection with her wriggling like that.

He slid forward, recapturing her to help get them both into a standing position as he jerked a thumb towards the couch area, trundling off into the kitchen to make popcorn. “Movies are under the TV, I’m quite content to watch whatever so long as it isn’t the basics to layering the perfect lasagna, yeah?”

Instinct was everything and instinct had wriggling down to a fine art.

Tayuya was mildly (and only mildly so) impressed that he actually obeyed her the second time around, finding having her feet on the ground much better for her pride, if not for her erratic libido.

It was a strange feeling though - despite having professed that they were only about the physical side, that she was simply in it for the sex, she had the urge to avoid anything intimate and, dare she say it, see if they could survive an encounter together where they actually talked for once.

The thought, so irrational and out of character for her, was almost enough to make her want to grab Shikamaru and shove him back into the chair, but not quite - he was still in the figurative doghouse, or at least he was if he didn’t quit surprising her like that.

Since her resolve was so precarious, the safest option was by far to go and investigate movies. Warily inspecting the ones that belonged to Kiba because, in all honesty, suspicion was probably good where he was concerned, she found them all to be relatively harmless, if completely outside of her range of interest - Tayuya watched very few films and even less television, which probably accounted for her closing her eyes and choosing one at random.

Educated decisions really weren't her thing - that should have been obvious by now.

Movie inserted and currently boring her already with trailers, Tayuya boycotted the couch in a predictable gesture. Instead, she chose to flop down on the floor, one leg bent parallel to the floor to her side while the other cocked upwards, forming a convenient arm rest so that she could prop her chin in the nest her palm made. Slouching happily, her back curved gently against the support the couch made, her only concession towards actually using it for its God-given purpose.

The floor was more comfortable, anyway...

Very tentatively Shikamaru set a popping basket on the stove, not quite trusting the thing altogether. He was deceptively a decent cook, but aluminum on direct heat just didn’t sound right. Waiting with his hands in his pockets and gazing through the opening to the next room to watch the trailers float by, he noticed Tayuya slump out of sight with a broad smile he found himself having a hard time fighting back. Of course she’d pass up the couch.

Kiba and Hana actually were raised by wolves, more or less, and still didn’t spend as much time on the floor.

When the cracking began to slow he removed the suspicious thing to the cutting board, divvying out the fluffy kernels into two bowls and deluging one in liberal amounts of melted butter. Looks were deceiving, he was a healthy eater but when he snacked, he snacked, and somehow miraculously never showed a pound for it. Like Orihime’s strange meals theoretically all went to her breasts, maybe his all went to his brain. Or something.

Tucking his buttery bowl in his elbow and balancing the other and a tiny dish of extra butter, if she liked the stuff, in his other hand, he padded into the common room and arched a brow at how far her leg comfortably stretched to the side. Well. Well that was interesting. “Here.” He set down the bowls before her lap before climbing onto the couch over the armrest, taking advantage of the space and stretching out fully with his upper half nearer to her, bowl cradled on his stomach.

He soon rolled to his side, right cheek cradled on the couch arm as his arm draped off the couch to wind up lulling through her hair.

He could get used to this.

Surprisingly intrigued by the movie once it had started (how so many people could die in the first few minutes was beyond her, but it had certainly snagged her attention) Tayuya certainly wasn't at her most alert and she only greeted his return with an absent nod, eyes narrowed in the direction of the screen. Guy movies…they were so damned odd. With lots of guns.

Not that she was complaining - this was some crazy shit and the fake blood amused her to no end, as well as the repetitive screams of extras doomed to a speedy demise.

Tolerance levels left fairly high as a result of this split attention, the redhead didn't exactly protest when she became hazily aware of fingers threading through her hair and her only action was to turn her head slightly so that they didn't catch too badly on the tangled masses.

Thick hair really was a bitch.

Dismissing the butter completely, Tayuya sat up straighter, crossing her legs so that she could draw the popcorn bowl completely into her lap, spine relaxing from its curve even as her head tilted into his touch.

The peacefulness within the room was only counteracted by the violence on screen and the fact that Shikamaru had a blackening eye as testament to her previous anger - you could almost have deluded yourself into thinking them a normal, sane couple...

...though a sane couple was probably an oxymoron considering just how much anything resembling romance fucked minds up.