Note from the Author: This is only a pairing if you want it to be. I don't care either way.
Knight
His dark hair is splayed across his white pillow. Such a stark contrast seems impossible. A porcelain hand is resting gently on the blanket, looking so harmless compared to its daytime activity – the blood it draws, the lives it ends. Now it lies at peace, at least until its next moment in battle.
His bed is as neat as he is; the blankets lay flat, not tangled around him, and he is so still – like death – but for the steady rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. His eyes are closed, dark lashes brushing at his pale skin, another contradiction.
Somehow this quiet boy is different in his unconsciousness. The frown has smoothed from his mouth. He has no want or reason to intimidate the darkness. His face, in its constant seriousness, is calm, less stern. He seems almost innocent, like life hasn't yet taken its toll on him.
He has seen too much already. He is too young for the lines that have formed lightly on his brow. His scowl seems so permanent. He is so afraid to be happy, and he is afraid to love. He cannot afford to let anyone into his heart again.
But when she perches lightly on the edge of his bed, and meekly she offers, in her soprano voice, his name, "Neji-nii-san?" he wakes immediately. Pulling himself up, he leans on his hand, rubbing his eyes sleepily, and he looks so young. "Did you have another nightmare, Hinata-sama?"
She nods, her gaze averted. Where else does she have to go when she is afraid? she wonders, and waits for him to send her off, telling her to go back to bed, to grow up.
As always, though, he tosses the corner of his blanket back, and allows her head room beside his on the pillow, and their dark hair mingles against the white sheets as she nestles beside him, pretending he is the little boy that used to protect her from her nightmares, but knowing very well that he is now the man the will always protect her.