Title: Snow Blind
Author: desolate butterfly
Genre: drabble, angst
Pairing: Naruto/Neji
Rating: PG
Summary: Sometimes bloodline limits come with a high price attached.

Neji lifted a hand and felt the small sting of cold as a snowflake melted upon touching his cupped palm. He shifted the liquid in his hand and stepped further out onto the porch, disregarding the way his bare toes curled at the contact with the frozen ground.

It the distance, a few ravens scolded each other, fighting over the stale bread that had been tossed into the snow drifts beside the house down the street. Neji could count them, could count their ink-black feathers. Three ravens. Six-hundred and twenty-four feathers. Twelve-thousand, two-hundred and eighty-three snowflakes...eighty-four...eighty-five...

Neji deactivated the byakugan and saw nothing, a wall of endless white. Wasn't that how Naruto often described his eyes? Walls of endless white. The sixth hokage wasn't often that poetic.

Neji supposed he should be flattered.

"You're going to catch cold."

Speak of the devil.

Neji didn't bother turning around. He waited a few moments for the shuffle of Naruto's boots against the wood panelling of the porch, the sudden warmth as a body pressed against his back and arms folded around his shoulders.

Neji sighed and leaned back. He could feel the rough fabric of Naruto's robe through his thin yukata, and beneath that the hard press of muscle and bone. He knew that if he turned and buried his face in that robe he would smell sun-warmed grasses and sweat. Naruto always smelt of summer, even in the middle of the harshest blizzard.

"I like watching the snow," Neji whispered.

He heard Naruto's quick intake of breath and the swipe of a thumb against his lower lashes. He suspected Naruto was clearing the moisture of several snowflakes that clung there.

"Let's go inside," the other man said, grasping Neji by the elbow and pulling him back towards the screen door, boots crunching noisily against the snow that Neji's bare feet slipped through softly, ghost-like.

Neji went without complaint. It didn't really matter if he was inside or out.

Eyes open or closed, all he would ever see was endless white walls of fallen snow.

Fin.

Any commentary is appreciated.