Author's Notes: NejiTen drabble. Set sometime in the future.
A Kiss In the Dark
She stands with a stillness he has seen perfected over time, the lanky grace of an alert deer, amber eyes focused beyond her surroundings, listening as if for something far away. There's something poetic about the wind in her loose hair, the way her bare katana flashes with dying light even though she hasn't moved, the rustle of the parchment from the bound scrolls she carries over her shoulder. She is a bearer of words and steel, and the long gaze of a hawk caught in a thermal, distant and out of reach. He doesn't touch her though, or say anything that might draw her back from wherever she is. At that moment, he knows she doesn't want anything from him.
It's snowing. Big, fat flakes drift lazily from an overcast sky, slowing time and space and movement. They get caught in her hair, turning it to lace, and do not melt when they fall against her sword. The air is overly silent, almost suffocating, and he straightens, suddenly restless. The absence of sound disturbs him sometimes. He's used to birdsong and the ruffling breeze in the leaves. This cold, mountainous place doesn't suit him.
Almost as one, they turn to depart, Tenten anticipating his desire to leave and following, executing the smooth motion that is sheathing her blade as she walks. The final click tells him that their mission is over and they are returning. It is a surprisingly welcome feeling. He wants to go home. Never before has he really had that feeling. Home used to be a cage, now the door has been unlocked.
He walks the path back to their campsite slowly, aware of Tenten disabling traps and wires as she goes. They pack up and erase their existence from every tree limb, every rock until it seems like no one has ever been there before. Standing there in the still falling snow, cloaks wrapped around them for warmth, Neji looks up into the clouds, blinking as snowflakes get caught in his eyelashes.
"We'll stay at an inn tonight," he says finally, breaking their long silence. He tilts his head down to glance at her, finding her herself again and smiling softly at him. She knows what he means. Another stolen night all to themselves under the excuse of bad weather. Her eyes sparkle as she comes back to life.
The snow has never suited her either.
She breathes again in his arms. There is something about him that awakens her, sends every nerve tingling at his lightest touch. It's almost too much sometimes, because she feels very little during battle and suddenly too much when he brings her back with a kiss in the dark. Still, she never shies away from his hands, she loves him too much. Instead, she throws herself into him with all of her heart, tangling her fingers in his hair as she pulls him down to her.
She doesn't know it but, at that moment, he'd give anything to stay like that forever. Just the two of them, alone under rumpled sheets with snow falling outside their window.
She thinks one day she'll unlock that cage for him as well.
The End.