Move, she commands silently. Move. Please, for the love of God… She stares at her motionless hands, lying limp on the crisp linen hospital sheet, and tries with every fibre in her body to just…
Move, damn it, move.
But to no avail. Tears rise unbidden to her eyes, and she fights to keep them at bay. (Tears show weakness. Tenten is not weak.) She realizes in a panic that she can't even feel her arms, much less control them. Her throat tightens, and she all she can wonder is why. Of all the parts of her body to lose—why her hands? And why both of them?
A choking sound escapes her, and she reflexively tries to bring her hands to her throat, only to find that she cannot. She can't even cover her face when the salt liquid pools in her eyes and blurs her vision, threatening to spill at any time.
(Tenten does not cry. She is strong, she is a kunoichi of Konoha, she plays with sharp things for fun—she does not cry.)
And even as the Hyuuga stands in the doorway, unnoticed by the agonized girl, watching her and analyzing every single emotion that flits across that grief-stricken face—the tears that hover ominously, the clear anguish painted across her features, the terror, the disbelief, the shame—he understands. He cannot help the scorn that fills him, for crying is a weakness, and ninja don't cry, but still… he understands.
She trained so hard, so hard—day after day after grueling, painstaking day. She sweat and bled and worked herself to the point of exhaustion, and she had… had… succeeded. She had built herself up to the point where she could hold her own in a spar with him—granted, she rarely (if ever) could even hope to defeat him, but at times their matches could last for hours, and he would be pleasantly tired when they came to a conclusion. He had, despite himself, been proud of her. Achieving something he himself had thought was nigh impossible. Becoming a talented, commendable ninja—no bloodline limit, not even a clan name, just a piece of well-crafted, sharpened steel and her strong, able hands.
Hands that now lie useless on the hospital bedding.
He, too, wonders why, and a little voice screams back at him—
Fate. It was her destiny from the very beginning to be worthless. She should have known better than to try and deny it.
Fate always finds a way to destroy you, no matter… no matter how hard you try.
He watches her, unsure whether he should alert her to his presence or not—surely, she would be dismayed at the thought of him seeing her in such a state. Somewhere inside he feels the alien—but very human—need to comfort her. To gather her in his arms (his living, moving arms. Arms that are not in a possibly permanent state of paralysis.) and assure her that everything is going to be all right.
This feeling, this need, is unfamiliar and, though he is loath to deny it, frightening. Since when did the great Hyuuga Neji think about anyone other than himself? Since when did he care?
He clears his throat.
Her head jerks up—he notices for the first time that her buns are down, and that it is the first time he has seen her without them. (He had never paid any attention to her when she returned to camp after bathing and tied her hair up, unlike Lee and Gai-sensei, who marveled at her roguish, youthful beauty.) And why would they be up? The hands she would utilize to twist them into shape and pin them in place are dead to her—useless and limp.
Those scarred, beautiful hands…
She stares at him, mournfully wishing she had use of her arms to dash away the treacherous droplets that are silently trickling down her cheeks in glistening streams—mocking her, mocking him.
(For Tenten is his masterpiece, her hard work is his hard work in kind.)
They stare at each other for some time, and the minutes tick away endlessly on the clock hanging on the wall somewhere to his right. He loses count after four and a half, too lost in the rivulets of water making their way down her face while she is powerless to stop them. He thinks to himself that he had never wanted to kill something quite as much as he wants to right now.
He thinks his ears are deceiving him, traitorous things, when she quietly turns her head and whispers in the softest of voices, broken, and ashamed, I'm sorry…
Before he knows what he is doing (he does not even have control over his own body, it seems.) he is walking towards her, not too fast and not too slow, and when he arrives at her bedside, he pauses. After a brief moment he takes her chin in his hand, gently forcing her face to turn towards him—her watery russet gaze meets his cold lavender one.
And then, he does what she cannot.
Slowly, gently, almost timidly (if such a word could be used to describe Hyuuga Neji), he lifts his hand and quickly brushes her tears away with the pad of his thumb, heedless to the fact that they are quickly being replaced by fresh ones, and he tells her, with all the firmness and assuredness of a Hyuuga, that everything will be all right.
A/N: Wow. Another one this fast? I'm on a roll. This is, uh, completely a lurch from my last NejiTen--a dorkily [word, y/n?) schemed crack!fic of sorts, which was all sexual innuendos and smexy arguing. Uh, this is also unedited, written (EVEN EARLIER/LATER) at... Uh, I forgot when I started, but I know right now it's seven forty-five in the morning and no, I have not slept. If you see any typos or grammarfarts, letmeknow. (I can has concrit plz?)
Oh, and don't ask what happened to her hands. I don't know. Battle wound? Useyourimagination... 8D; -shot- Uh. HopeyouenjoyedtheANGST. --Judo