A/N: First one in a while! Sorry, I've been working on a piece for the Shifting Seasons contest in Ten-Squared LJ community. I started this drabble several days ago but only found my muse again today. Enjoy!

Hourglass is Inexistent

There are raindrops and there are tears but then there's that steady stream of notes rushing through your ears and into your rivers of blood. Its flowing rhythms and that steady thump resounding through your chest and in the tiny points of electricity through your systems in intervals that just seem so right. And the melody is simple; inhale-exhale-kill.

But lately there's been a harmony crashing into it that she can't play out and somehow the clashing cymbals seem to fit so well with the tune she thinks she must be going crazy.

(to love is to know madness)

Inhale-exhale-breathe.

It doesn't fit at all well with how she lives, she knows. Kunoichi can't stop for love; they can't stop moving at all, its just rush-rush-rush, fight and kill and hope you won't die too soon. But between the panting and tearing away the rushed moments until she can no longer bleed, she wants to find something. If there's anything in the seconds that his eyes rest on hers and their fingers entwine in that secret wish for the permanence of spring-if there's anything she can do to just be able to feel him and hold that cold touch until it burns-

Well then she would just lay down in the flow of the river and let the tides take her away.

Maybe it doesn't matter how long she lives if it's all just metallic flashes and sparks that flicker out before the darkness calls. She wants to find something-not worth fighting for, just-

Worth holding.

She's always watched the path of her weapons and sent them on their way, knowing the exact destination of desire and not being able to touch it with her own hands. Its like how he watches his birds. He keeps the sky like a record log of flights or maybe dreams, and its only when she watches him, standing still at the bottom of the hourglass that she realizes they are both wishers tossed into the well. They might always be waiting for that ladder and forget they can climb the stone walls. Its always fighting, fighting, fighting for strength and dominance but never moving.

And that makes all the difference.

The things she loves the best are the free moments of relaxation, under the shadows of the leaves they usually run past and just watching the sun spread its rays through the night. She can cherish that and try to savor it, but she knows she has no time. Or does she?...

That day she breaks the glass.

They're done after another day's session of training, her picking up hoards of weapons and wiping blood from a few of them and him retying his hair. She's the only one who's ever seen it unbound and wild, and that secret little picture stops her from giving into the temptation of stealing his elastic. It'd be great to see him just a little unbalanced for once, but she thinks she has a better way of doing that today.

She picks up her last kunai, wiping dirt from its rough black surface and polishing the dull edge. Playfully, she glances at him out of the corner of her eye as he counts the flurry of birds and presses her lips to the metal. It's a cool touch stinging with bitter taste and she reflects with a sly smile she might be feeling it again soon.

He glances at her for a brief second, tracing the curve of her lips with his clear eyes. She tosses it to him and he raises his hand in slight surprise, fingers closing around it automatically but stumbling around the jagged edges and a flash vibrates across pearls. He squints after a moment, like he's not quite sure what just happened or what it is and he raises his white eyes to her, but her slim figure is already retreating into the trees again. Her laughter slips in through the leaves with a spark of amber as she glances back to catch the rare hope faintly lining his eyes.

"It's yours."