A (very) late submission to week two nejitenmonth on tumblr… sorry y'all. but hey it's here now, and i've got three chapters already and i'm looking at one more at least.
this is a short story set in the magic au that i've been "writing" only get this! this is technically a behind-the-scenes to the sequel of the au! i'm writing short stories based on the sequel i already have in mind based on a story i haven't even written yet! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Anyway, i do not own naruto. please note this story has a high T rating, borderline M.
Neji didn't even know that a person could read angrily, but Tenten had always been good at surprising him.
Cautiously, he slid into the bed next to her. Most of the time her anger wasn't directed at him- in fact, very often she would seek him out to make her feel better (thought of course she would deny it vehemently)- but in the few occasions her anger had no palpable cause, he always preferred to tread lightly.
Tenten ignored him for a few moments, before throwing her scroll to the side and demanding, "I'm not moving that much slower, right?"
Neji frowned. "Moving slower…? Tenten, were you trying to spar with Gai-sensei again?"
"...No."
"You know that at this point in your pregnancy we agreed you would stop."
"I changed my mind." Moodily, she kicked the scroll off the bed. "It seems like all anyone will let me do is eat and sleep and sit demurely." She raised her eyes to meet his, something more vulnerable showing in her gaze.
"I'm just so sick of it."
Neji's face tightened, and he felt a stab of remorse for what Tenten had been subjugated to ever since she married into the Hyūga Clan. More than once, he'd caught her baring her teeth in a dangerous smile as someone told her that motherhood would make her settle down, make her stop wanting to fight at the Hyūga Priestess's side on the front lines any longer.
The very notion of such a concept only proved to him that Tenten would never be understood by his clan, and likely would never conform to their traditions. She was naturally restless, was constantly on the move. A lifetime spend traveling would not be stifled or cast aside on behalf of parenthood. It would be to Tenten like discarding a part of herself.
He would never ask her to do such a thing, and she knew it. Sometimes he thought it was one of the few things that allowed her to endure such long stretches of time spent in a single city, in a single Compound. To him, she was free to leave, as long as she always came back. And she always did.
Instead of verbalizing the sentiment, he reached out and clasped his hand around Tenten's, tilting his head to rest against hers.
Tenten took the gesture for the silent support he meant it to be, and slid into his embrace with a sigh. Her belly pressed against his abdomen, and he shifted his arm down to press gently against it.
Under his palm, their child fluttered in movement. Tenten made a small sound in the back of her throat and moved her hand to cover his.
"Baby won't do that when I want to impress Lee and Gai, but will do it for you with no prompting. Figures."
"What can I say? I'm very charming."
"See, now that was a good joke."
Neji let out a long-suffering sigh and bent his neck to kiss her temple. She had other ideas, instead reaching to cup his jaw and meet his lips with her own. She opened her mouth and kissed him lazily, but with purpose.
Before Neji quite knew what was happening, he was on his back with Tenten straddling his waist, looking pleased but breathless. He raised a brow and put his hands to her hips, commenting dryly, "Now what will you do?"
"I hadn't worked that part out quite yet. Surprised I made it this far, to be honest."
Neji smirked slightly. "If I may make a suggestion." Neatly, he undid the tie of her yukata and she shrugged it off, the fabric pooling over her legs.
He took in her exposed skin with as neutral an expression as he could. "No breast band today?"
She huffed in exasperation. "They're too much work to put on, plus my breasts got bigger and I outgrew my old ones."
"I see," Neji said, already lifting his hands. "I'd better confirm that for myself."
Tenten eventually decided that the best way to prevent her from killing one of his relatives was to take a final vacation away before she gave birth. He was slightly wary about that particular plan.
"Tenten, you're due very soon, wouldn't it be better to remain where you can get immediate medical attention? Besides, we need to pack." With the imminent arrival of their child, their rooms were not spacious enough anymore. They had been planning on relocating to a set of rooms large enough to hold a nursery.
Tenten didn't seem too bothered by the idea."Sure, sure, sure, we could do that, or you and I could go to a hot springs resort and love up on each other before little Hyūga shows up."
Neji paused with his mouth still open in protest. Frankly, it was a sorely tempting idea. Within the Hyūga Compound, their rooms had a tendency to be entered at any time by relatives- Hanabi in particular dropped by unexpectedly. She adored her Tenten-obasan, and was positively vibrating with excitement at the thought of their baby.
She'd had an uptick in the frequency of her "surprise" visits as Tenten's due date got closer, and while Neji appreciated his cousin's earnest enthusiasm, some private seclusion with his wife would not be remiss.
"Fine," he sighed. "But someplace close."
Tenten snorted. "You're so long-suffering," she said. "As if you're not about to go on a sex-cation."
"You're practically on bedrest, Tenten."
"Uhh, yeah. Sexy bed rest."
He stared at her for a minute. "How can it be that your libido is so high now, when you can barely move? Earlier in your pregnancy you'd smack me if I so much as touched you."
She grinned mischievously. "What can I say? Hormones are a beautiful thing."
A few days later, he and Tenten made their careful way to a hot spring located a small distance away from Konoha. Much to Neji's aggravation, Tenten insisted on walking for most of the way there, refusing even an enchanted cart.
However, there was something to be said about the entertainment value of watching Tenten waddle determinedly on, hands hiked up to rest on her lower back, brows lowered and mouth scrunched in a stubborn pout.
"Stop laughing at me," she called over her shoulder.
He grinned. "I can't help it if you're the most stubborn, ridiculous person in Konoha."
"Ugh." Tenten stopped short, out of breath. She surveyed the hillside they were about to descend, looking thoughtful. "What if I shifted?"
Involuntarily, his eyes flicked to her protruding belly. He frowned. "Have you shifted while you were pregnant?"
"Yes, but it was so early that I didn't even know yet." She smoothed her hand over her abdomen. "I'm going to try it. We're close enough to the resort that I'm sure it will be fine."
He nodded guardedly. She gave him a sweet, reassuring smile and closed her eyes in concentration. In the next few seconds she shifted into a dhole.
The process of shifting was generally very complicated. It involved changing the caster's entire essence into a new physical form, all the while hanging on to the magical and spiritual traits that formed their soul. Many amateur shape-shifters lost themselves in the process. Tenten was a well-seasoned veteran, but she had an added difficulty of keeping their child safe.
She stood still for a few seconds in her new form. He had seen her shift before, and her form was nearly the same except for its obvious pregnancy. Finally, she let out a soft whuff and trotted forward to brush against his legs. He took it as a sign of reassurance, and the two of them continued walking, this time at a faster pace.
Just before their arrival at the hot springs resort, Tenten shifted back into her human form. She stretched her arms with a happy sigh. "That was nice."
Neji pulled clothing out of their bag and passed it to her. "Is everything…"
She patted her belly. "It's all fine. I actually kept all the baby stuff human, and avoided that conundrum entirely."
He raised his brows, impressed. That must have taken a particular amount of concentration and skill.
Tenten hummed happily to herself as she pulled on her yukata. In some cases, shifters could keep their human clothes in a separate space as they shifted, and then turn back fully clothed. However, Tenten had been concentrating on keeping herself and her child as safe as possible, and likely chosen to disregard it as inconsequential.
Fully clothed, Tenten drew his face down and kissed him firmly for a few seconds before stepping back and giving him a wild grin. He softened at her obvious giddiness. Clearly this was what she had needed.
"All right. Let's go check in!"
Tenten slid into the water with a happy sigh. At Neji's inquiry, they had been directed to one of the cooler springs, where Tenten would be more comfortable. It had an added benefit of being nearly empty as most of the clientele went to the hot springs, so the two of them were in private.
Tenten tilted her head back to rest over the back of her seat. After a moment of consideration, she turned her neck to look at him.
"You know what would be really fun?"
Neji raised a brow. "What."
"Giving me a back rub." She gave him a cheesy smile, her eyes looking impossibly dark and soulful. He gave her a flat look, despite knowing he was going to cave. Immediately. He always did, and they both knew it. At his point putting up any front of resistance was only for his dignity's benefit.
Tenten turned around, and he pressed his fingers firmly into the muscles between her neck and shoulders. She instantly sagged against him, rolling her shoulders slightly with a quiet sigh.
They spent over two hours in the spring before returning to their rooms for the evening and ordering a tray of food to be brought up.
At Neji's suggestion (insistence), they ate by candlelight, their fingers entwined except for every half a minute when Tenten would pull her hand back in order to shovel food into her mouth faster.
Eventually she grew sick of the repeated motions. "Let's make this simple," she announced. She walked around the table and nestled into his side. "There. Cuddling plus eating. My two greatest pleasures. Except for later tonight, ha!"
Neji paused mid-bite, then slowly continued to eat, his face turning pink. Tenten laughed. "You're such a blushing virgin. We've very clearly had sex before, my love."
"There's a difference in speaking so openly about it-"
"Open- what do you mean openly? It's just the two of us here."
Neji ignored her, focused on his rice as his face darkened. Tenten snorted.
"You Hyūgas. Always with the blushing."
"I have fair skin," Neji said primly.
"Yes, I can see all of your veins. I know exactly where to cut you to get you to bleed out fastest."
"You knew that already anyway."
"Aw. You always know just what to say."
They took their time returning to the Hyūga Compound three days later, neither of them really willing to return to the real world. Just out of sight of the gates, Neji drew Tenten aside and kissed her firmly.
"I love you," he told her intensely. "I know that living with my family is hard for you, and it means everything to me that you do it."
Tenten kissed him again. "It's what you do when you love someone. You support them."
Neji thought of his father, writhing on the ground, clutching his skull, of Hinata whimpering over her broken hands, of the seriousness that was already etched into Hanabi's face. "Not always."
She tenderly pressed her lips to his forehead. "It's what I do. An it's what you do. And it's what our child will do."
Three steps back into Konoha, Tenten had her first contraction.
