Author's Notes: Set in the future. WARNING: mature content.

Watching Paint Dry

By Nessie

“Aren't you bored?

She turned her blond head to show him a wry smile. “You're only asking that because you are.”

Nara Shikamaru regarded her with the facial expression of one who is forced to suffer slowly. “And you're sure there has to be two coats?”

“Yes.” Temari folded her arms and crossed the sheet-draped room to him. The walls she had attacked using a paintbrush instead of a fan had been transformed from dull white to a soft, warm gold color. “I told you I wanted to repaint. If you didn't want to spend so much time on it, maybe you shouldn't have picked out such a huge house.”

Her husband only mumbled something that sounded like “far away from my mother” before mimicking her stance – arms crossed, legs set apart – and staring her down, though with considerably less heat. “I could bring the Shogi board in here.”

“You would win...no.”

Shikamaru's sigh came heavily. “Temari, we are watching paint dry.”

“What's really amazing,” said the woman who hailed from Sand, “is that the whole time you've been complaining, I've been washing paint off myself, and you haven't given a single sign of noticing.”

Shikamaru stopped, took in the cloth in her hand; how it dripped warm water down her cheek, neck, below the collar of her shirt. Silently, his mouth formed an insightful O.

“Idiot,” Temari remarked even as Shikamaru covered the short distance between them and plucked the cloth from her hand.

“You've got paint all over you.” There was no more than a note of eagerness in his tone, but Shikamaru certainly did not sound bored.

Temari's grin resurfaced. “Exactly.”