[Naruto] Reunion
May. 29th, 2008 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runespoor1. I may be back.
2. I love the recent chapters.
3. If I don't post these fics in order to declare them finished I shall delete them all. Expect a lot of crap in the upcoming weeks.
Title: Reunion
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
runespoor7
Rating: R
Summary: The Return sidefic; picks up immediately after Neji and Hinata exit the Hokage tower. This is how their reunion went. NejiHina. (implied hinty Hina->Naru, Neji->Naru.)
Notes: Celebrationverse. Won't make much sense unless you read The Return first, I'm afraid… (other notes: YES! IT IS DONE!oneone1!) If you notice anything that could be clearer, any mistake, please let me know.
Neji managed to rein his temper in until they entered a civilian-looking building that obviously was the Intelligence headquarters.
Then he walled Hinata so fast she didn't even blink, knocking her head against the wall as he smashed his lips against hers, grinding a leg between her thighs, hard.
Under him, Hinata only gave a little sigh – compliantly tilting her head back for him and parting her lips. His vice-like grip on her arms squeezed and he pushed his knee against her, roughly rubbing.
She let him.
She tasted sweet and warm, like home and secret nights – like everything nice – and Neji pushed against her again, trying to catch the hint of bitterness he knew would be lurking, ashes, death and bile.
A low growl rose from Neji's throat. His muscles were flexing and tensing against Hinata's supple form; it was like a battle where the opponent is constantly evading your hits.
Neji knew it well; it was the way he fought himself, avoiding the ungainly, blunt strikes of his enemies and weaving around them with water-like moves. It was infuriating that Hinata had copied his style of fighting so well that she could apply it as if it was her own, at the moment she chose so, rather than it being her default strategy. Did she even have one?
Instead of biting her like the impulse was urging him, he encased his right hand behind her nape, blocking her arm against him and tightening his hold on her neck, forcing her head immobile – as if she'd been threatening to turn her head away any moment. She didn't; her tongue was the only part of her moving.
Gently, her lips closed. Neji pulled back.
"Not here," she said softly.
Neji stepped away, falling into step next to her as she started walking again. His skin was prickling, hyper-aware; he wanted to touch her all over.
He waited in the corridor as she went into a room to turn the Hokage's scroll over to – whoever she was supposed to give it to. Ibiki, for all Neji knew; a wave of renewed anger surged through him at the thought.
He clenched his fists, inwardly screaming at the thought, remembering what the Hokage had said in her office – Hinata-san is in Intelligence and Interrogation now; I made Hinata-san one of our special jounins – and hating that he was utterly powerless to do anything against it.
But Hinata was alive; Hinata was at least partially sane; and Hinata was Hinata-sama to the whole of the clan now, not just him.
Now he was no longer under the possible scrutiny of anyone in the Hokage's office, while he was still by himself before Hinata came back, a whirlwind of dizzying relief engulfed him, and he sagged against the wall.
All his fears; the weeks of gnawing worry since he'd learnt Hinata-sama had returned to Konoha, the constant, growing conviction that the Hyuuga council wouldn't make Hinata the leader after all, since her father had got himself killed without choosing a heir (of course he hadn't, Neji had wanted to yell, she was supposed to be dead!), and the Hyuuga council had never liked Hinata.
The Hyuuga council had never liked him either. They thought he acted above his situation. They feared the power of his Byakugan. They frowned at his unwavering-bloody-loyalty to their disgraced heir.
Neji had once come to the conclusion that they were planning to make Hanabi the heir, but hadn't entirely understood why they where waiting before announcing their formal decision. Perhaps there had been dissenters, though in favour of whom Neji couldn't even begin to guess. It was possible that, for reasons best known of himself, Hiashi opposed the decision. He'd been awfully insistent in taking over Neji's formal training.
On the other hand, Hiashi had also ordered – right before storming out of the village straight into the ranks of fifty plus Sound-nins – that all Hyuuga be marked with the seal. Of course. Hanabi had been dead for several months; and Hinata, the last heir, had just been reported dead.
Neji's mind had articulated all this when, still on the frontlines, Aburame Shino had come to him with the announcement that Hinata had returned to Konoha alive. In a moment, he'd been dazzled by the realisation that the council would not hand the leader's position over to Hinata so easily, before he'd lost the mind-numbing clarity which had guided him since he'd been told about Hinata's death.
He'd barely registered the news that the Hokage consequently requested his presence back in the village.
The solution was obvious; he needed to be at Hinata's side and enforce her authority. He was the Hyuuga prodigy, after all, and Hinata was well-liked among the Branch House, even by some members of the Main House.
The Branch House didn't like him, not any more than the Council, because of the special treatment he'd received from Hiashi since his first chuunin exam, but they didn't dare disagree with him openly. Much.
Not when he sided firmly with Hinata, that was for sure.
Once she was the head of the clan, she could do whatever she pleased to the Hyuuga. More so than any other Head ever had, because the Branch House liked her.
Neji stayed slumped against the wall a moment, slightly giddy. He wasn't sure his legs would support him if he pushed away.
He'd stayed pretty together until now, behaving exactly the way he'd decided should be his.
When she appeared in the Hokage's office, he had felt the air rushing out of his lungs. He had been the last one she'd looked at, as befitting her and him, but Neji knew she was also stalling; it made him angry in a way that parted like water around her, couldn't quite reach her. If he'd been able to close the physical distance – waves breaking against the cliff – it might have been different. She wouldn't have looked at him any more than now, but he would have been there.
He kept still, quiet like a statue until she called his name as a greeting. She stammered a little, but it was his whole name, with the 'niisan' she'd always attached there and which acknowledged him as still relevant.
Not that he'd doubted it; but when he'd thought her dead, then feared the Hyuuga Council's influence, to find her the head of the Hyuuga and still - looking at him with that expression that was – not quite, but that possessed elements of challenge, and complicity, and hesitation, and calm, and a thousand other things.
What he'd wanted to do was impossible then, so he did the next best thing, bowing and intoning a "Hinata-sama" that was ringing with smugness.
Neji swiftly ran his thumb under the edge of his eyelids at the moment Hinata came back into the corridor. It wouldn't do to appear to be crying in front of her, simply an overspill too many emotions boiling down to an anguished kind of exhilaration.
If Hinata saw him crying, Neji wasn't sure what he'd do.
Propriety demanded that he didn't find out. Pride, too.
And – if Neji was entirely honest with himself – preservation of his uncertainty, as well. So long as he didn't, he couldn't know what would be Hinata's reaction, not for sure. Maybe she'd cry too; maybe she wouldn't.
Honesty hurt like blunt katanas, but he scrupulously kept to it.
He hadn't deviated from it in a long, long time, not from his ninja way. Always be true to yourself. It was a way of always keeping Hinata-sama's best interests in mind.
Honesty hurt, because if he didn't lie to himself, Neji could admit that if he cried, most likely Hinata-sama would not. In fact, she probably wouldn't understand why he did.
Because I failed you.
She wouldn't understand, of course. This wasn't what bothered Neji most, though; it was the selfishness behind that thought.
Hinata hadn't failed.
Neji had.
Neji had been the one not-there, not-helping, not-shadowing when he should have. (It didn't have anything to do with 'when she needed him to'; of course she hadn't needed him. But it was his role nevertheless, because he was the one who had chosen to fulfil it; and so, since he had chosen, he had to do it.)
The only redeeming value that could be attributed to this feeling was that ultimately it related to his usefulness to her, and how trustworthy he was.
Except that, too, was foremost on his mind out of selfishness. He wanted to be the most useful, the most trustworthy and most reliable and closest and best; because he'd been hers before the rest of the Hyuuga, so in that way she was also a little his – to obey and stand beside.
Originally, he'd been the one who'd forced the Hyuuga to look at her, and not through her.
Hinata smiled.
Neji pushed away from the wall in a move his body had yet to forget. For a moment his mind flashed back to the days, before the war, when they cocked a snook at Hiashi, with Hinata having pointless, unHyuuga fun in town with her team or the other kunoichi her age and Neji himself just ostensibly waiting for her to return in front of the Hyuuga district, leaning against a wall.
The habit had been deemed childish, like members of the clan council had informed them, which of course only proved Hinata and Neji were getting to them.
As for Hinata's father, he didn't even bother with the polite fiction. He was genuinely unnerved, and angered, and understood perfectly what Hinata and Neji's display of solidarity against him was about.
"We can go to the compound now," Hinata announced. "I suppose you must be tired."
Neji let out a noncommittal sound. Truth be told, he was too high strung to feel fatigue. He… didn't know how he felt about going to the compound already, either.
On the one hand, he'd probably get a kick out of seeing people treat Hinata as reverentially and subserviently – and, in the case of the council, as helplessly distastefully – as required.
On the other, he knew himself well enough to dread the frustration that wouldn't fail to simmer and sizzle if they couldn't get some privacy after that. Just thinking about it – how very, very cross and petty the council would be at Hinata, annoyed by his presence but never mentioning it, because he was unworthy of it, and they'd be equally unable to take it out on Hinata-sama, bound by their own regulations as they were – made him feel the first tension of restraint.
They'd be going out tonight – or at least Hinata would, joining Team Ten, their parents and probably Temari of the Sand for dinner; the afternoon was already drawing to an end; if they had to endure the Council's wilful stupidity beforehand, they'd never get such time.
Or they'd have to be quick about it, and – Neji cut out the train of thought before it wrecked into his thinking process entirely.
And that was discounting the possibility that the council might call for Hinata and deny him the right to be present. They'd only have to argue about it being Head-and-Council business. Or they might demand a full report on the months he'd spent out of the village borders; Hinata would have no reason to be there – and, if she was, the whole thing would be nothing short of agony.
"Won't the council be there?" he asked, almost brusquely.
He didn't enjoy the idea that the council might send him away from her side.
Hinata sent him a glance, and Neji kept his composure as cold as he could, knowing full well that she'd probably seen right through him, but refusing to scowl like a sullen child anyway.
"Oh, the clan council isn't very active these days. Most of the members are on the frontlines," Hinata said in a tranquil tone.
Neji made no effort to repress a sardonic smirk; Hinata's lips curved faintly upward in answer. He quickly dispelled the happy thought.
Now that pesky annoyance of a council had been removed from the list of his concerns for the immediate future, he could focus on the truly important things. He took a breath.
"Hinata-sama, I believe we should talk."
Hinata regarded him silently.
Neji bristled at the sudden opacity of her stance. He was acutely aware of how woefully inadequate he was at that – telling her, of all people, what she should do. He couldn't even manage to convince himself that 'she needed to talk about it'. If there was one person on earth who did not need to talk about things, it was really her.
But he wouldn't back down. Screw everything, but Neji needed to hear about it if he was to do his part.
Additionally, Neji also found himself wanting to set things on fire at the idea that he might not get to know, finally, about what had happened during these three months that he'd believed her to be dead.
…He probably should've known, somehow, that she wouldn't allow herself to die like that, but, sentimentalism aside, it was a war.
He hadn't been at her side to do anything – not-there, not-helping, not-shadowing, accepting the Hokage's orders as if they'd had some higher priority over Hinata, only gritting his teeth and doing as he was ordered to like some perfect little pawn who, in the end, couldn't even be useful to the one whose pawn he legally was – scratch that, whose ownership on him he had embraced.
Neji would probably have thought about fate then if he'd believed the concept could even exist in the same plane of reality as Hinata. And, when he could've realised that, logically, Hinata wasn't alive anymore to remind him how there was no such thing as fate, he had stopped caring.
She came closer to him.
Neji only looked at her, his breath hitching when she snaked her right arm behind his neck to bring his head down as her left hand was running up and down his own arm, before finally coming to rest on his cheek when their lips touched.
She was kissing him; she was the one who had started the kiss this time, and Neji revelled into it. He felt like it came as an imprint over every kiss they had shared before being separated by the war, when Hinata kissed him for apparently no other reason than she wanted to, not out of urgency or as a reaction to something Hiashi had done – just because of the two of them, even though the two of them were a reaction.
It had always felt to Neji that when Hinata kissed him like that, she closed the world around them.
Her hands were cool, her lips a bit chapped and every time her tongue ran against his, a shiver melted down his spine.
Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around her. I need you closer. Her grip tightened over him as well; he felt her breasts, welcoming and round, squeezed against him.
That was when he realised he had closed his eyes.
He stifled a gasp over the lump in his throat.
Damn, Hinata-sama… Don't ever do that again…
She shifted against him, nudging her foot behind him so that their bodies were touching on all their length. She was warm and soft and there as she had always been, guiding him so subtly that he only was aware his back was braced against the wall again when she stopped nibbling on his lower lip.
"Hinata-sama…" he mumbled.
Hinata-sama Hinata-sama Hinata-sama… His breath was ragged and he was pleading. Please don't ever leave me again.
Her leg slid up, crooking behind him and bringing them even closer, impossibly closer. The kiss was as gentle as before, firm and delicate.
Neji was shivering uncontrollably, as if, with his eyes closed, he could feel her better, feel the steadiness and the – the strength radiating from this soft, frail body.
She was all full, womanly shapes and girly, slender limbs, nothing like a kunoichi, fighters who bound their breasts tightly and who always looked wiry and capable. But there were muscles there that people wouldn't expect, when she pressed Neji against her, and calluses and small scars on her palms, as a Hyuuga who never could protect her hands well enough.
She swept the tip of her tongue over his lips, her breath a bit short too, oh so close, and Neji tilted his head down again, refusing to let go just now, lips feverishly fumbling for her mouth. She met him halfway there, Neji's heart somersaulted, and as soon as she did it was easy, so easy to feel reassured that she was indeed there, drawing his strength from her.
He almost choked over that last bit.
Parasite.
Hinata's lips gently left his.
His hold on her tightened, panicked. Don't let me go… I'll do anything… thoughts Neji couldn't remember having thought.
But instead of pulling back, her breath moved to his cheek, turning suddenly colder. He leaned into her when her tongue touched his skin, wet and warm and – cold?
He was crying, he realised.
She was licking his tears away, wordlessly and almost clumsily as he broke down in her arms and they slid down to the ground, entangled into one another. She was clutching him and she had to try twice to push a lock of his hair away; Neji, breathing into the air next to her neck, was pathetically grateful for it, because it showed she was there and she cared and he mattered and –
"Never, ever let go," he rasped fiercely, his eyes shut blind. Now he could feel the tears under his eyelids. "Don't – ever –"
Hinata laughed shakily. Neji started when he realised how shaken she was.
"I won't die," she whispered. The flicks of her tongue were becoming less regular. "I won't disappear."
I need you, Neji didn't say, screwing his eyes up so much he started to see flashes and snakes of light beyond the darkness. I don't love you, but I need you.
I thought you were dead. They told me you were dead and I believed them.
Hinata laughed again, a broken, unhinged wreck of a laugh, and Neji brusquely realised he had said it aloud. Just the last part or –
"Kabuto never told me you were so I never thought you might be."
Slowly, with the feeling his world had just come to a stop, Neji blinked up at her. She was smiling dejectedly, as if she was disgusted with herself.
"K-Kabuto?" he stuttered.
Hinata sprawled like a doll on an operation table, glowing white skin streaked red and purple with blood and chain marks, whimpering as the silver, sharp snake-like tongue of a scalpel dug into her, whispers and chuckles in the shadows.
The knot in his stomach solidified into ice when Hinata nodded.
I'll kill him, Neji dazedly thought. I will get into Sound and bring him back to you. But he couldn't, not if it meant leaving Hinata's side once more. Unless she wanted to go to Sound, then he would go with her. And when they were there, they would cage Kabuto and his master, and set fire to it.
"I've killed him," Hinata said in a high-pitched voice. "Before I escaped. I killed him, but-" she looked in his eyes, and Neji had to fight nausea when he saw how brittle she was "-I never thought that perhaps he was lying to me and perhaps you were dead."
Whispers and chuckles in the shadows…
But he was dead. The satisfaction, dark and savage, sore through Neji. Hinata had done it.
(Hinata-san is in Intelligence and Interrogation now; I made Hinata-san one of our special jounins…)
Of course she would. Still snuggling, Neji managed to put his arms around her waist, and, not really knowing what to do with himself, laid his chin on her shoulder.
Hinata soaked in lies roaming and twisting around her, hearing and listening and waiting. Until the moment –
"How did you kill him?"
"Scalpel," she spoke into his hair. "I cut his throat."
Poetic, in a way.
Personally, Neji found the image fucking hot.
Someone else would probably have told him it wasn't healthy in the slightest, but Neji and healthiness were only on speaking terms when they wanted to verbally abuse one another.
He replayed the scene – the two or three versions that had sprung to his mind – and basked.
There were a few moments of comfortable silence. With a lapful of Hinata, Neji's groin was becoming uncomfortably tight and this, unfortunately, wasn't quite the place. Actually – Neji looked around the corridor – he was surprised nobody had walked on them already.
"Hinata-sama," Neji tried his very best to sound cool and composed, or at the very least not entirely flustered and stammering, "maybe we should relocate."
Hinata started. At once, a faint blush spread on her cheeks.
"Y-you're right. We – shouldn't get caught. I'm sorry," she needlessly apologised as she extricated herself, with an awkward friction that jolted through Neji's nerves, and helped Neji to his feet. "I didn't think."
No, she hadn't, Neji agreed, tingling with the sensation of Hinata's body huddled against his. She looked endearingly nervous, biting on her lower lip. "If we hurry back to the compound, we should have the time to t-take a shower."
She was blushing a very attractive shade of pink, which, Neji happened to know, went considerably far down.
He smirked, causing Hinata's blush to heighten. "Will we?"
Hinata quickly, demurely looked down and darted her tongue over her lips.
She took off toward the exit. Neji followed a second later, not because he wanted to make a point but because Hinata had a way of swaying her hips that he found quite mesmerising and which he hadn't yet been able to deduce whether she did it on purpose or not. He also needed to decide if he cared.
"Only a shower, Hinata-sama?" he whispered blandly as he reached over and held the door open.
She brushed against him in a move that was perfectly avoidable.
"We'd be late for dinner." She glanced at him, suddenly unsure. "Unless you would rather not come?"
Neji didn't try to conceal his smile. "I would like to accompany you."
And I am gratified that you would include me in your plans, Hinata-sama.
Truth be told, he didn't know if he was gladder that she requested his presence or that she was thoughtful enough to step back when she took it for granted; certainly he'd be happier if she understood that she didn't need to ask, but, on the other hand… It was also what set her apart from the rest of the Main House. That was the reason the Branch House liked her and the council distrusted her.
Even if Neji wished that she wouldn't be so respectful toward him, he still felt a thrill every time she asked him. Even if he wished she would come to consider him as rightfully hers, he still couldn't deny how pleasurable it was when she treated him as – something else.
Accomplices – how shy she could be, and how she didn't seem to be aware of the demanding flame in her eyes.
It was the flame Neji had noted, with some surprise, though he hadn't stopped to consider maybe he was wrong about her, during their first chuunin exam. It was the flame that Neji was always following now; it was the flame that he would obey, without hesitating, if she ordered him, no matter the folly or the danger; that he had lowered his head and bowed to, in the Hokage's office, when he had glared at her and known he was looking at the Head of the Hyuuga.
She smiled back, tentatively.
"Neji-niisan… Y-you'll tell me about Naruto-kun?"
Neji stared, fascinated, into the openness of her eyes. She had already looked like that, somewhat, when she'd learned Neji and the other travellers had met Team Seven, and Neji had looked at her then too, because she was resplendent and it was no more possible to look away from her than it was to look away from the sun, even if it burned his eyes. She had been so beautiful it almost hurt.
Now her expression showed more longing, though the love was still as glaringly obvious. How can anyone, even Naruto, fail to pick up on this love… He's stupid. How can he – Naruto with his all-seeing eyes – be blind to that.
But of course Neji knew the reason.
His team.
There were comparisons Neji wouldn't attempt; it made no sense to compare himself with Naruto as if it were some competition, to think he would never choose his team over Hinata. (As if he would compete with Naruto.)
Neji was very glad to know that he'd never need to choose between Naruto and Hinata, since Hinata was, as he'd told Temari, Naruto's supporter. Even if he believed he would side with Hinata, he couldn't be sure that Naruto wouldn't manage to convince him away, because – that was the hardest to admit to himself – Neji feared he'd be more likely to come around to Naruto's point of view that to Hinata's.
One way to avoid that treason would be to guard himself against Naruto even now, but that would be an even greater treason. Hinata-sama trusted and believed in Naruto to an extent Neji knew his faith in her didn't match. She would never have believed Naruto was dead, just because of some official report.
"Of course, Hinata-sama."
She smiled again, and Neji's heart missed a beat. I wish she'd acknowledge that she loves him to me. We could miss him together.
"Thank you."
Then she was out of the building, and into the dying fire of the sun.
2. I love the recent chapters.
3. If I don't post these fics in order to declare them finished I shall delete them all. Expect a lot of crap in the upcoming weeks.
Title: Reunion
Author:
runespoor7Rating: R
Summary: The Return sidefic; picks up immediately after Neji and Hinata exit the Hokage tower. This is how their reunion went. NejiHina. (implied hinty Hina->Naru, Neji->Naru.)
Notes: Celebrationverse. Won't make much sense unless you read The Return first, I'm afraid… (other notes: YES! IT IS DONE!oneone1!) If you notice anything that could be clearer, any mistake, please let me know.
Neji managed to rein his temper in until they entered a civilian-looking building that obviously was the Intelligence headquarters.
Then he walled Hinata so fast she didn't even blink, knocking her head against the wall as he smashed his lips against hers, grinding a leg between her thighs, hard.
Under him, Hinata only gave a little sigh – compliantly tilting her head back for him and parting her lips. His vice-like grip on her arms squeezed and he pushed his knee against her, roughly rubbing.
She let him.
She tasted sweet and warm, like home and secret nights – like everything nice – and Neji pushed against her again, trying to catch the hint of bitterness he knew would be lurking, ashes, death and bile.
A low growl rose from Neji's throat. His muscles were flexing and tensing against Hinata's supple form; it was like a battle where the opponent is constantly evading your hits.
Neji knew it well; it was the way he fought himself, avoiding the ungainly, blunt strikes of his enemies and weaving around them with water-like moves. It was infuriating that Hinata had copied his style of fighting so well that she could apply it as if it was her own, at the moment she chose so, rather than it being her default strategy. Did she even have one?
Instead of biting her like the impulse was urging him, he encased his right hand behind her nape, blocking her arm against him and tightening his hold on her neck, forcing her head immobile – as if she'd been threatening to turn her head away any moment. She didn't; her tongue was the only part of her moving.
Gently, her lips closed. Neji pulled back.
"Not here," she said softly.
Neji stepped away, falling into step next to her as she started walking again. His skin was prickling, hyper-aware; he wanted to touch her all over.
He waited in the corridor as she went into a room to turn the Hokage's scroll over to – whoever she was supposed to give it to. Ibiki, for all Neji knew; a wave of renewed anger surged through him at the thought.
He clenched his fists, inwardly screaming at the thought, remembering what the Hokage had said in her office – Hinata-san is in Intelligence and Interrogation now; I made Hinata-san one of our special jounins – and hating that he was utterly powerless to do anything against it.
But Hinata was alive; Hinata was at least partially sane; and Hinata was Hinata-sama to the whole of the clan now, not just him.
Now he was no longer under the possible scrutiny of anyone in the Hokage's office, while he was still by himself before Hinata came back, a whirlwind of dizzying relief engulfed him, and he sagged against the wall.
All his fears; the weeks of gnawing worry since he'd learnt Hinata-sama had returned to Konoha, the constant, growing conviction that the Hyuuga council wouldn't make Hinata the leader after all, since her father had got himself killed without choosing a heir (of course he hadn't, Neji had wanted to yell, she was supposed to be dead!), and the Hyuuga council had never liked Hinata.
The Hyuuga council had never liked him either. They thought he acted above his situation. They feared the power of his Byakugan. They frowned at his unwavering-bloody-loyalty to their disgraced heir.
Neji had once come to the conclusion that they were planning to make Hanabi the heir, but hadn't entirely understood why they where waiting before announcing their formal decision. Perhaps there had been dissenters, though in favour of whom Neji couldn't even begin to guess. It was possible that, for reasons best known of himself, Hiashi opposed the decision. He'd been awfully insistent in taking over Neji's formal training.
On the other hand, Hiashi had also ordered – right before storming out of the village straight into the ranks of fifty plus Sound-nins – that all Hyuuga be marked with the seal. Of course. Hanabi had been dead for several months; and Hinata, the last heir, had just been reported dead.
Neji's mind had articulated all this when, still on the frontlines, Aburame Shino had come to him with the announcement that Hinata had returned to Konoha alive. In a moment, he'd been dazzled by the realisation that the council would not hand the leader's position over to Hinata so easily, before he'd lost the mind-numbing clarity which had guided him since he'd been told about Hinata's death.
He'd barely registered the news that the Hokage consequently requested his presence back in the village.
The solution was obvious; he needed to be at Hinata's side and enforce her authority. He was the Hyuuga prodigy, after all, and Hinata was well-liked among the Branch House, even by some members of the Main House.
The Branch House didn't like him, not any more than the Council, because of the special treatment he'd received from Hiashi since his first chuunin exam, but they didn't dare disagree with him openly. Much.
Not when he sided firmly with Hinata, that was for sure.
Once she was the head of the clan, she could do whatever she pleased to the Hyuuga. More so than any other Head ever had, because the Branch House liked her.
Neji stayed slumped against the wall a moment, slightly giddy. He wasn't sure his legs would support him if he pushed away.
He'd stayed pretty together until now, behaving exactly the way he'd decided should be his.
When she appeared in the Hokage's office, he had felt the air rushing out of his lungs. He had been the last one she'd looked at, as befitting her and him, but Neji knew she was also stalling; it made him angry in a way that parted like water around her, couldn't quite reach her. If he'd been able to close the physical distance – waves breaking against the cliff – it might have been different. She wouldn't have looked at him any more than now, but he would have been there.
He kept still, quiet like a statue until she called his name as a greeting. She stammered a little, but it was his whole name, with the 'niisan' she'd always attached there and which acknowledged him as still relevant.
Not that he'd doubted it; but when he'd thought her dead, then feared the Hyuuga Council's influence, to find her the head of the Hyuuga and still - looking at him with that expression that was – not quite, but that possessed elements of challenge, and complicity, and hesitation, and calm, and a thousand other things.
What he'd wanted to do was impossible then, so he did the next best thing, bowing and intoning a "Hinata-sama" that was ringing with smugness.
Neji swiftly ran his thumb under the edge of his eyelids at the moment Hinata came back into the corridor. It wouldn't do to appear to be crying in front of her, simply an overspill too many emotions boiling down to an anguished kind of exhilaration.
If Hinata saw him crying, Neji wasn't sure what he'd do.
Propriety demanded that he didn't find out. Pride, too.
And – if Neji was entirely honest with himself – preservation of his uncertainty, as well. So long as he didn't, he couldn't know what would be Hinata's reaction, not for sure. Maybe she'd cry too; maybe she wouldn't.
Honesty hurt like blunt katanas, but he scrupulously kept to it.
He hadn't deviated from it in a long, long time, not from his ninja way. Always be true to yourself. It was a way of always keeping Hinata-sama's best interests in mind.
Honesty hurt, because if he didn't lie to himself, Neji could admit that if he cried, most likely Hinata-sama would not. In fact, she probably wouldn't understand why he did.
Because I failed you.
She wouldn't understand, of course. This wasn't what bothered Neji most, though; it was the selfishness behind that thought.
Hinata hadn't failed.
Neji had.
Neji had been the one not-there, not-helping, not-shadowing when he should have. (It didn't have anything to do with 'when she needed him to'; of course she hadn't needed him. But it was his role nevertheless, because he was the one who had chosen to fulfil it; and so, since he had chosen, he had to do it.)
The only redeeming value that could be attributed to this feeling was that ultimately it related to his usefulness to her, and how trustworthy he was.
Except that, too, was foremost on his mind out of selfishness. He wanted to be the most useful, the most trustworthy and most reliable and closest and best; because he'd been hers before the rest of the Hyuuga, so in that way she was also a little his – to obey and stand beside.
Originally, he'd been the one who'd forced the Hyuuga to look at her, and not through her.
Hinata smiled.
Neji pushed away from the wall in a move his body had yet to forget. For a moment his mind flashed back to the days, before the war, when they cocked a snook at Hiashi, with Hinata having pointless, unHyuuga fun in town with her team or the other kunoichi her age and Neji himself just ostensibly waiting for her to return in front of the Hyuuga district, leaning against a wall.
The habit had been deemed childish, like members of the clan council had informed them, which of course only proved Hinata and Neji were getting to them.
As for Hinata's father, he didn't even bother with the polite fiction. He was genuinely unnerved, and angered, and understood perfectly what Hinata and Neji's display of solidarity against him was about.
"We can go to the compound now," Hinata announced. "I suppose you must be tired."
Neji let out a noncommittal sound. Truth be told, he was too high strung to feel fatigue. He… didn't know how he felt about going to the compound already, either.
On the one hand, he'd probably get a kick out of seeing people treat Hinata as reverentially and subserviently – and, in the case of the council, as helplessly distastefully – as required.
On the other, he knew himself well enough to dread the frustration that wouldn't fail to simmer and sizzle if they couldn't get some privacy after that. Just thinking about it – how very, very cross and petty the council would be at Hinata, annoyed by his presence but never mentioning it, because he was unworthy of it, and they'd be equally unable to take it out on Hinata-sama, bound by their own regulations as they were – made him feel the first tension of restraint.
They'd be going out tonight – or at least Hinata would, joining Team Ten, their parents and probably Temari of the Sand for dinner; the afternoon was already drawing to an end; if they had to endure the Council's wilful stupidity beforehand, they'd never get such time.
Or they'd have to be quick about it, and – Neji cut out the train of thought before it wrecked into his thinking process entirely.
And that was discounting the possibility that the council might call for Hinata and deny him the right to be present. They'd only have to argue about it being Head-and-Council business. Or they might demand a full report on the months he'd spent out of the village borders; Hinata would have no reason to be there – and, if she was, the whole thing would be nothing short of agony.
"Won't the council be there?" he asked, almost brusquely.
He didn't enjoy the idea that the council might send him away from her side.
Hinata sent him a glance, and Neji kept his composure as cold as he could, knowing full well that she'd probably seen right through him, but refusing to scowl like a sullen child anyway.
"Oh, the clan council isn't very active these days. Most of the members are on the frontlines," Hinata said in a tranquil tone.
Neji made no effort to repress a sardonic smirk; Hinata's lips curved faintly upward in answer. He quickly dispelled the happy thought.
Now that pesky annoyance of a council had been removed from the list of his concerns for the immediate future, he could focus on the truly important things. He took a breath.
"Hinata-sama, I believe we should talk."
Hinata regarded him silently.
Neji bristled at the sudden opacity of her stance. He was acutely aware of how woefully inadequate he was at that – telling her, of all people, what she should do. He couldn't even manage to convince himself that 'she needed to talk about it'. If there was one person on earth who did not need to talk about things, it was really her.
But he wouldn't back down. Screw everything, but Neji needed to hear about it if he was to do his part.
Additionally, Neji also found himself wanting to set things on fire at the idea that he might not get to know, finally, about what had happened during these three months that he'd believed her to be dead.
…He probably should've known, somehow, that she wouldn't allow herself to die like that, but, sentimentalism aside, it was a war.
He hadn't been at her side to do anything – not-there, not-helping, not-shadowing, accepting the Hokage's orders as if they'd had some higher priority over Hinata, only gritting his teeth and doing as he was ordered to like some perfect little pawn who, in the end, couldn't even be useful to the one whose pawn he legally was – scratch that, whose ownership on him he had embraced.
Neji would probably have thought about fate then if he'd believed the concept could even exist in the same plane of reality as Hinata. And, when he could've realised that, logically, Hinata wasn't alive anymore to remind him how there was no such thing as fate, he had stopped caring.
She came closer to him.
Neji only looked at her, his breath hitching when she snaked her right arm behind his neck to bring his head down as her left hand was running up and down his own arm, before finally coming to rest on his cheek when their lips touched.
She was kissing him; she was the one who had started the kiss this time, and Neji revelled into it. He felt like it came as an imprint over every kiss they had shared before being separated by the war, when Hinata kissed him for apparently no other reason than she wanted to, not out of urgency or as a reaction to something Hiashi had done – just because of the two of them, even though the two of them were a reaction.
It had always felt to Neji that when Hinata kissed him like that, she closed the world around them.
Her hands were cool, her lips a bit chapped and every time her tongue ran against his, a shiver melted down his spine.
Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around her. I need you closer. Her grip tightened over him as well; he felt her breasts, welcoming and round, squeezed against him.
That was when he realised he had closed his eyes.
He stifled a gasp over the lump in his throat.
Damn, Hinata-sama… Don't ever do that again…
She shifted against him, nudging her foot behind him so that their bodies were touching on all their length. She was warm and soft and there as she had always been, guiding him so subtly that he only was aware his back was braced against the wall again when she stopped nibbling on his lower lip.
"Hinata-sama…" he mumbled.
Hinata-sama Hinata-sama Hinata-sama… His breath was ragged and he was pleading. Please don't ever leave me again.
Her leg slid up, crooking behind him and bringing them even closer, impossibly closer. The kiss was as gentle as before, firm and delicate.
Neji was shivering uncontrollably, as if, with his eyes closed, he could feel her better, feel the steadiness and the – the strength radiating from this soft, frail body.
She was all full, womanly shapes and girly, slender limbs, nothing like a kunoichi, fighters who bound their breasts tightly and who always looked wiry and capable. But there were muscles there that people wouldn't expect, when she pressed Neji against her, and calluses and small scars on her palms, as a Hyuuga who never could protect her hands well enough.
She swept the tip of her tongue over his lips, her breath a bit short too, oh so close, and Neji tilted his head down again, refusing to let go just now, lips feverishly fumbling for her mouth. She met him halfway there, Neji's heart somersaulted, and as soon as she did it was easy, so easy to feel reassured that she was indeed there, drawing his strength from her.
He almost choked over that last bit.
Parasite.
Hinata's lips gently left his.
His hold on her tightened, panicked. Don't let me go… I'll do anything… thoughts Neji couldn't remember having thought.
But instead of pulling back, her breath moved to his cheek, turning suddenly colder. He leaned into her when her tongue touched his skin, wet and warm and – cold?
He was crying, he realised.
She was licking his tears away, wordlessly and almost clumsily as he broke down in her arms and they slid down to the ground, entangled into one another. She was clutching him and she had to try twice to push a lock of his hair away; Neji, breathing into the air next to her neck, was pathetically grateful for it, because it showed she was there and she cared and he mattered and –
"Never, ever let go," he rasped fiercely, his eyes shut blind. Now he could feel the tears under his eyelids. "Don't – ever –"
Hinata laughed shakily. Neji started when he realised how shaken she was.
"I won't die," she whispered. The flicks of her tongue were becoming less regular. "I won't disappear."
I need you, Neji didn't say, screwing his eyes up so much he started to see flashes and snakes of light beyond the darkness. I don't love you, but I need you.
I thought you were dead. They told me you were dead and I believed them.
Hinata laughed again, a broken, unhinged wreck of a laugh, and Neji brusquely realised he had said it aloud. Just the last part or –
"Kabuto never told me you were so I never thought you might be."
Slowly, with the feeling his world had just come to a stop, Neji blinked up at her. She was smiling dejectedly, as if she was disgusted with herself.
"K-Kabuto?" he stuttered.
Hinata sprawled like a doll on an operation table, glowing white skin streaked red and purple with blood and chain marks, whimpering as the silver, sharp snake-like tongue of a scalpel dug into her, whispers and chuckles in the shadows.
The knot in his stomach solidified into ice when Hinata nodded.
I'll kill him, Neji dazedly thought. I will get into Sound and bring him back to you. But he couldn't, not if it meant leaving Hinata's side once more. Unless she wanted to go to Sound, then he would go with her. And when they were there, they would cage Kabuto and his master, and set fire to it.
"I've killed him," Hinata said in a high-pitched voice. "Before I escaped. I killed him, but-" she looked in his eyes, and Neji had to fight nausea when he saw how brittle she was "-I never thought that perhaps he was lying to me and perhaps you were dead."
Whispers and chuckles in the shadows…
But he was dead. The satisfaction, dark and savage, sore through Neji. Hinata had done it.
(Hinata-san is in Intelligence and Interrogation now; I made Hinata-san one of our special jounins…)
Of course she would. Still snuggling, Neji managed to put his arms around her waist, and, not really knowing what to do with himself, laid his chin on her shoulder.
Hinata soaked in lies roaming and twisting around her, hearing and listening and waiting. Until the moment –
"How did you kill him?"
"Scalpel," she spoke into his hair. "I cut his throat."
Poetic, in a way.
Personally, Neji found the image fucking hot.
Someone else would probably have told him it wasn't healthy in the slightest, but Neji and healthiness were only on speaking terms when they wanted to verbally abuse one another.
He replayed the scene – the two or three versions that had sprung to his mind – and basked.
There were a few moments of comfortable silence. With a lapful of Hinata, Neji's groin was becoming uncomfortably tight and this, unfortunately, wasn't quite the place. Actually – Neji looked around the corridor – he was surprised nobody had walked on them already.
"Hinata-sama," Neji tried his very best to sound cool and composed, or at the very least not entirely flustered and stammering, "maybe we should relocate."
Hinata started. At once, a faint blush spread on her cheeks.
"Y-you're right. We – shouldn't get caught. I'm sorry," she needlessly apologised as she extricated herself, with an awkward friction that jolted through Neji's nerves, and helped Neji to his feet. "I didn't think."
No, she hadn't, Neji agreed, tingling with the sensation of Hinata's body huddled against his. She looked endearingly nervous, biting on her lower lip. "If we hurry back to the compound, we should have the time to t-take a shower."
She was blushing a very attractive shade of pink, which, Neji happened to know, went considerably far down.
He smirked, causing Hinata's blush to heighten. "Will we?"
Hinata quickly, demurely looked down and darted her tongue over her lips.
She took off toward the exit. Neji followed a second later, not because he wanted to make a point but because Hinata had a way of swaying her hips that he found quite mesmerising and which he hadn't yet been able to deduce whether she did it on purpose or not. He also needed to decide if he cared.
"Only a shower, Hinata-sama?" he whispered blandly as he reached over and held the door open.
She brushed against him in a move that was perfectly avoidable.
"We'd be late for dinner." She glanced at him, suddenly unsure. "Unless you would rather not come?"
Neji didn't try to conceal his smile. "I would like to accompany you."
And I am gratified that you would include me in your plans, Hinata-sama.
Truth be told, he didn't know if he was gladder that she requested his presence or that she was thoughtful enough to step back when she took it for granted; certainly he'd be happier if she understood that she didn't need to ask, but, on the other hand… It was also what set her apart from the rest of the Main House. That was the reason the Branch House liked her and the council distrusted her.
Even if Neji wished that she wouldn't be so respectful toward him, he still felt a thrill every time she asked him. Even if he wished she would come to consider him as rightfully hers, he still couldn't deny how pleasurable it was when she treated him as – something else.
Accomplices – how shy she could be, and how she didn't seem to be aware of the demanding flame in her eyes.
It was the flame Neji had noted, with some surprise, though he hadn't stopped to consider maybe he was wrong about her, during their first chuunin exam. It was the flame that Neji was always following now; it was the flame that he would obey, without hesitating, if she ordered him, no matter the folly or the danger; that he had lowered his head and bowed to, in the Hokage's office, when he had glared at her and known he was looking at the Head of the Hyuuga.
She smiled back, tentatively.
"Neji-niisan… Y-you'll tell me about Naruto-kun?"
Neji stared, fascinated, into the openness of her eyes. She had already looked like that, somewhat, when she'd learned Neji and the other travellers had met Team Seven, and Neji had looked at her then too, because she was resplendent and it was no more possible to look away from her than it was to look away from the sun, even if it burned his eyes. She had been so beautiful it almost hurt.
Now her expression showed more longing, though the love was still as glaringly obvious. How can anyone, even Naruto, fail to pick up on this love… He's stupid. How can he – Naruto with his all-seeing eyes – be blind to that.
But of course Neji knew the reason.
His team.
There were comparisons Neji wouldn't attempt; it made no sense to compare himself with Naruto as if it were some competition, to think he would never choose his team over Hinata. (As if he would compete with Naruto.)
Neji was very glad to know that he'd never need to choose between Naruto and Hinata, since Hinata was, as he'd told Temari, Naruto's supporter. Even if he believed he would side with Hinata, he couldn't be sure that Naruto wouldn't manage to convince him away, because – that was the hardest to admit to himself – Neji feared he'd be more likely to come around to Naruto's point of view that to Hinata's.
One way to avoid that treason would be to guard himself against Naruto even now, but that would be an even greater treason. Hinata-sama trusted and believed in Naruto to an extent Neji knew his faith in her didn't match. She would never have believed Naruto was dead, just because of some official report.
"Of course, Hinata-sama."
She smiled again, and Neji's heart missed a beat. I wish she'd acknowledge that she loves him to me. We could miss him together.
"Thank you."
Then she was out of the building, and into the dying fire of the sun.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-05-29 02:20 pm (UTC)OMG, you're back you're back you're back! And I'm giddy with the knowledge since, without you, we've been undergoing a severe drought in good Hyuuga fic. Thank god you're here! ♥
And this is wonderful as always-- poignant and sensual and tender and loving, while also being true to the darker nature of the characters (I almost fell off my seat on that line about Neji and Sanity!) and their occupations as well. This especially:
It had always felt to Neji that when Hinata kissed him like that, she closed the world around them.
Jesus. Beautiful and rapturous and so true to these two. I'm so glad you're back, darling-- you make checking my flist quite a lot more wonderful. ♥
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Date: 2008-05-30 06:42 am (UTC)I'm glad you like the fic! And, aww, your compliments make my day. I was a little afraid this was too sappy and melodramatic, but >_> told myself the circumstances were enough of an excuse. That and I like melodrama.
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Date: 2008-05-30 07:09 am (UTC)If you have AIM, I'm smashingtimein! Feel free to come and stalk me! <3
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Date: 2008-05-30 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-29 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-29 06:54 pm (UTC)that was the best sentene... ever. and God, i heart this series, so please don't kill it! >_
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Date: 2008-05-30 06:45 am (UTC)I'm glad you like the fic - and the series! :D
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Date: 2008-06-05 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-30 02:52 pm (UTC)I gotta say that sentence got to me stronger than anything else. To me it seems as though Neji can easily follow either Naruto's or Hinata's views, and I like the fact that Neji realizes his conflicts have to deal with how Hinata's views are based on her faith in Naruto.
I wondering if anyone gets a 'happy-ending', because from reading the recent chapters (402 rocked!) I'm beginning to think that no one will.
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Date: 2008-05-30 03:46 pm (UTC)On that topic and speaking about 402, all I can say is that I 'm certainly hoping Sasuke will surprise me again. I keep reminding myself of how I was convinced he'd let Oro have his way and in fact he didn't.
If Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura don't get their happy ending, I don't know what I'd do. ;_; I'm fine with it being mitigated by Kakashi dying. I just want the three of them to be alive and together.
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Date: 2008-06-02 04:38 am (UTC)I HAVE POWERS! :DDDD
Welcome back!
Beautiful smexy NejiHina goodness as always and thank you so very much for it--I'd write a more complete and coherent review, but I really should be asleep right now. :(
Is this really the end of the Celebrationverse though? :( Not that this isn't a wonderful note to end it on, but I'll be sorry to see it go.
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Date: 2008-06-02 01:14 pm (UTC)*flails* *flails* Glad to see you too! :DDD
I'm glad you like it! :D I made Neji cry. :DDD *is proud*
Not sure about Celebrationverse, but if there's more written, NejiHina will probably take a step back. I'm finishing a Celebrationverse Team Seven-centric (Sasuke-centric? >_> short fic is short) oneshot, but it takes place during the time Team Seven isn't in Konoha, so NejiHina aren't even mentioned.
I've got
antwo AUs with sort-of KabuHina. But one is unlikely to get finished and the other is a 'thing that could have happened had Hizashi been the older son' and was written before Team Hebi was even introduced and I always had issues with my characterisation of Hinata in that one.But I admit there's potential for the Kabuto-is-alive!Celebrationverse AU. Hm. *ponderponder*
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Date: 2008-06-04 03:47 am (UTC)Look at the top. :D (http://amaiko.livejournal.com/23188.html)
All joking aside, I'm starting to wonder, because: not only did you come back the day after I made that post asking where you were, I also bitched in it about wanting KabuHina fic not written by me for once. Then, yesterday, someone posted fic for the KabuHina request I made last January over at
Either that post is magic, or I am. >.>
*flails* *flails* Glad to see you too! :DDD
*flails back at you* :DDD
I'm glad you like it! :D I made Neji cry. :DDD *is proud*
I love it. :D
You made him cry and beg, even if he only did so in his mind. Most un-Neji-like behavior, but that's the power of Hinata. XD
I've got an two AUs with sort-of KabuHina. But one is unlikely to get finished and the other is a 'thing that could have happened had Hizashi been the older son' and was written before Team Hebi was even introduced and I always had issues with my characterisation of Hinata in that one.
;-; Damn. What's the problem with that Hinata?
But I admit there's potential for the Kabuto-is-alive!Celebrationverse AU. Hm. *ponderponder*
I always figured that if Tsunade could survive and heal herself back from being stabbed through the motherfucking heart with Kusanagi and Kabuto not only survived and completely healed his internal organs being essentially liquefied by Naruto's Rasengan while simultaneously cutting the chakra pathways to Naruto's heart to prevent him from healing while the Rasengan was pulverizing him a cut throat would be as nothing to healers of that caliber, especially if Kabuto managed to get that split-second of preparation that saved his ass from the Rasengan.
Matter of fact, I sometimes wonder (and Hinata comments on this in Kyoutenka if I manage to finish it this century) if Kabuto can die at all, given that his specialty is the regeneration of dead tissue and cells...
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Date: 2008-06-05 11:56 pm (UTC)If you'd like to see for yourself, I've posted the thing. *curls up and weeps* It's so mind-bogglingly bad.
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Date: 2008-06-30 12:50 pm (UTC)You really have a way with a hot, lovely, biting NejiHina scenes, as always. And Neji's tears, his yearnings, his pleads, his wants. And Hinata's strength yet blushes is still lovingly appeared. <333
Outstandingly decent. Waiting for another one !
Love,
Popyo
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Date: 2008-07-04 09:50 am (UTC)Thanks for all the compliments. :)
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Date: 2011-08-06 05:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-06 07:55 am (UTC)