Well, to say it's been a while is an understatement! I go through phases every few years of wanting to write and write before losing interest again, so here are the results of that latest phase! More to come soon.

xox

The fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling cast a bright and sickly glow across the hospital tiled floor. Shadows withered away into the darkest corners of the room under the sharp brightness. It cut through everything, even the tired eyes that blinked wearily under its relentless gaze.

Her footsteps echoed behind her as she strode down the corridor, the quietness of the sleeping ward amplifying the noise even louder. She glanced at the clipboard in her hand, eyeing the name at the top of the page with some level of nervousness. Butterflies blooming in her stomach as she paused outside a door and knocked gently. Taking a deep breath she turned the handle and pushed it open.

Light billowed behind her, silhouetting her form against the blue backdrop of the hospital walls. The room was dark saved for a small, dull lamp in the far corner that was giving off a sickly yellow hue. Sheets rustled as she turned her attention to the large male occupying the only bed.

"Good evening, Neji." She stepped in quietly, quickly closing the door behind her to shut out the light.

He blinked, taken aback by her presence in the room, "Sakura?"

"Tsunade-sama passed your case onto me. I hope you don't mind. The other nurses were occupied."

The lie was so easy to tell that she felt mildly ashamed at herself. She did not mention the fact that she had abused her position of power and switched the clipboards when no one looking. She also failed to mention how Tsunade raised a knowing brow at her when she announced who her next patient was or that she had made sure to do It in the dead of night when no one else would be around to see.

She cleared her throat quietly, bringing her attention back towards the clipboard in her hand.

Multiple lacerations to abdomen. Right humerus broken. Over-exertion in battle…

And so, the list went on. He had just returned from a month-long mission that resulted in a bloody fight to the death. Neji had won of course, but not without his own battle scars to heal from. He had been in hospital for two days already and would soon be discharged to continue his healing from home.

Neji eyed her carefully as she placed the clipboard back into the case at the end of his bed before moving up his right side, her green eyes reflecting the soft yellow glow of the table lamp. It had been a long month away from home. A long month of reliving that moment repeatedly in his head. The soft touch of her skin beneath his hands, the press of her lips to his and the feeling of her wrapped around him, her scent all consuming. Even now his skin prickled as she gently placed her hands on his arm, now glowing green.

"How are you feeling?" She murmured.

She was acting professional but Neji could see the tension in her shoulders and the flush of her cheeks, "A little sore and tired."

He wasn't kidding, she thought. He had dark circles under his eyes from the exhaustion and his skin was pale from the blood loss and pain. He seemed comfortable, but she sent a healing wave of chakra through his just in case. She smiled as he visibly relaxed even more. He closed his briefly as the pleasure of being pain free rippled through him. Behind his closed lids he saw flashes of pink hair and naked, supple skin. Heat flared through him and he opened his eyes once more to try and rid himself of the memory.

Green met lilac briefly before she turned once more to grab his clipboard, tucking a lock of pink behind her ear and grabbing a pen to jot down notes. As she scrawled across the pages, her mind drifted to the last time she had seen him.

"Look, all I'm saying is that I think she should have at least bothered to come and speak to me first-" Ino rambled, gossip now free flowing from her mouth thanks to the drink in her hand.

But whilst Sakura's eyes were trained on Ino's pale blue ones, smiling occasionally as if she were listening, her mind was very much elsewhere. A warm, bandaged hand was currently splayed across her thigh underneath the table, out of view of everyone else. The thumb running lazy circles across her skin that made her stomach coil in pleasure. She shifted, moving herself ever so slightly closer to the man on her left, brushing her thigh against his to shift his hand to sit further between her legs. She felt him tense slightly at the move whilst chuckling at Kiba's tales from his latest mission.

Since when did Neji Hyuuga make personal displays of affection?

She wasn't opposed to it. Not in the slightest. It hadn't come completely out of the blue either considering they had just spent three months in rain country on diplomatic business together. A strange sort of tension had developed between them, not in a negative way but more sexual in nature. It started off small with affectionate gestures here and there that made her cheeks flush and his lips stretch into a warm smile. Holding doors open for her, tucking stray hairs back behind her ears and the gentle brush of his fingers against hers. Shielding her from the rain with his tall form or offering for her to try his meal from his chopsticks became regular occurrences. They spent all their time together when they weren't in diplomatic meetings, so much so that when they returned, their respective homes felt cold and lonely.

"-anyway, I dealt with it so we won't be seeing much of her anymore!" Ino clinked her glass against Sakura's empty one and downed the last of her sake. "Here, I'll get you another one."

"Oh, that's ok really! I ought to be going soon anyway." Sakura's cheeks were now flushed red from the alcohol under the dark shadows of the club, but Ino was already disappearing into the crowd, her blonde hair swaying as she danced her way to the bar.

They were currently all crammed into a booth in the corner, so her current situation didn't look all that awkward unless you happened to glance under the table. Shino caught Kiba's attention and Sakura took the opportunity to finally glance up at Neji beneath hooded eyes.

"What do you think you're doing, Hyuuga Neji?" She murmured, just loud enough for him to hear.

He glanced down at her, lilac finding green as he surveyed her expression, analysing her reaction to his current ministrations. A whiskey on the rocks sat in his other hand, but the bandaged one remained steadfast on her thigh.

His eyes found her lips and he smiled gently, "Nothing."

She raised a brow, "It doesn't feel like nothing."

He swirled the drink in his hand before taking another sip. It wasn't often that Hyuuga Neji found himself drinking in a bar and even rarer was to feel the affects of alcohol, but team twelve had found themselves with time to spare and so took the opportunity to let loose after weeks of rigorous missions. He was about to remove his hand from Sakura's thigh when he felt her smaller one brush against his bandaged fingers. It was his turn to raise an eyebrow as she held his gaze beneath her lashes, pushing his hand up towards the apex of her thighs until his fingers brushed the lace underwear she wore beneath her dress.

Her gaze found his lips as she released a shallow breath, her muscles tensing at the contact before dragging emerald back to lilac.

She wet her lips, "Now that feels like something."

As soon as the words had left her mouth, the overhead lights in the bar went out and the flashing lights above the DJ decks blinked into existence. The music changed from boppy singalongs to a deep base that made the table beneath his drink vibrate. Hips writhed in time to the beat and within moments the dancefloor was full, the air think with the heat of a thousand bodies.

Beneath the darkness of the club, two shinobi quietly slipped away. His hands circling her hips as she led him round the edges of the room, keeping to the shadows and corners to avoid their friends. The feel of her body beneath his hands as she led him away was almost too much to handle and his patience had all but run out as she turned to face him, her green orbs glinting beneath the dancing lights of the disco behind him.

Tucked into a darkened corner and behind the cover of another booth, she cupped his face as he leant down, and they met halfway in a heated kiss. She mewled beneath his embrace, her arms moving to wrap around his shoulders as he pushed her back into the wall, the length of her body now pressed tightly to his.

"I've wanted to do this for weeks now…" He whispered against her lips, his hands tangling in her pink locks, "But I wasn't sure how you'd respond."

She ran her hands down the length of his chest, stopping just shy at the waist band of his pants, "Well…" she murmured, kissing him between words, "Now you know."

He shivered as she ran a finger beneath the fabric of his trousers and without so much as a backwards glance, he mumbled a string of words into her neck and they quietly disappeared in a swirl of wind and leaves.

They tumbled into her apartment in a tangle of limbs, clothes being removed before their feet had even landed on the wood of her hallway floor. All Neji's inhibitions melted away in the privacy of her abode as her grabbed her face and kissed her feverishly again, eliciting a moan of approval as he slammed her back into the wall.

He hoisted her legs up around his waist and gave her almost no warning before pushing her dress up, the straps now loose around her shoulders, and pulling her underwear aside as he entered her roughly. She cried out, her immediate pleasure swallowed by his lips as he kissed her again, starting a steady rhythm with his hips that had her moaning his name and gripping his back.

Gods, he felt better than she could ever have imagined. The thick length of him a perfect fit that made her arch her back in pleasure until she felt herself constricting against him as the tightly sprung coil in her stomach started to unravel. He picked up the pace, pushing his face into her neck and inhaling her scent as she all but buckled around him, her orgasm pulsing through her as she cried out, pulling him with her as he groaned her name into her skin.

They gripped each other tightly, lost in the moment of their bliss as Neji slowly slid them down to the floor, her legs still wrapped around his waist as he knelt beneath her.

And there, in the dark hallway of her small stuffy apartment, a spark was born.

She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she placed the clipboard back in its holder at the bottom of his bed. A tension began to build in the room as she fidgeted with the cloth of her white lab coat, her eyes shifting from his to the side and then back to his again. After they had spent the rest of that night in each other's embrace, an Anbu operative had sought Neji out in the early hours of the morning to have him report to the Hokage. He was sent on a month long mission that same day and they hadn't seen each other since.

"Sakura…" He murmured, his tired eyes catching her attention.

She moved up to the side of the bed, letting her hand rest in his outstretched one as he brought it gently to his lips and kissed her fingers softly. She flushed beneath his affection.

"I missed you."

The words healed the cracks in her heart as she smiled at him, her worries of his indifference towards her growing over the course of his absence were now just a distant memory.

"What do you think you're doing, Hyuuga Neji?"

He smiled warmly as he sat up and pressed his lips against hers.

"Nothing."

x-x

R+R!