Title: Inevitability
Pairing: Neji x Naruto
Disclaimer: Naruto and its characters do not belong to me; oh woe!
Rating: PG-13-ish
Summary/Notes: Neji used to believe in Fate, now he has something else to believe in.Inevitability
Neji used to believe in Fate. He believed in Fate for so long, in fact, that it was like trying to kick a bad habit when he tried not to think in those oh-so-familiar terms. He was like an alcoholic being continually offered a strong drink.
It had taken a long time to kick that particular habit, almost too long. Neji hates that he had been so dependant on the idea and yet hadn't even noticed it. But he was more content now, even without his old belief to prop him up, and there was only one thing in his life responsible for that.
Uzumaki Naruto.
The fact that Neji cannot go long without thinking about the blonde is evidence enough of how far he's fallen and how little pride means in relation to that one person. He doesn't care that what he has borders on obsession, that he is perfectly aware of his ability to drop anything and everything for the blonde, that he seems so melodramatic to others in matters concerning him, that no matter what happened it was Naruto above all else. He knew his old self would hate the state he was in. He could practically taste the scorn.
But then, Neji doesn't think, really, that Naruto knows why he spends so much time with him. Maybe that's a part of the self-contempt. He doesn't ask, at least. Perhaps the presence is enough for him, lonely as the boy so often seems. The Hyuuga also thinks that most of Konoha wonders at the reason. But Neji is only just beginning to discover that reason for himself and he knows he will guard it jealously when he finds it.
He has never understood how or why the small interest he had once held for Naruto had transformed into something so ugly and consuming and hot.
Hinata had said it was love when she gave her surprisingly accurate account of the situation and offered her regards. Neji doesn't think it is. But somehow he does, as well. Love was a strange thing after all. Incomprehensible, and most certainly not something to be taken lightly. It was not a fleeting thing; it was impossibly deep-rooted and obnoxiously invasive; it lingers in a person's mind for a long time before they even realise it's there, and by the time they do it's far too late to do anything about it. Sometimes it almost seems as if it's alive; as if it too was a master at masking its presence. The shinobi of the emotions.
Neji didn't and doesn't think it was love. Love wasn't the piece to fit this puzzle, no matter how the shape looked like it might fit with the proper encouragement. But if not love, then what?
Questions without answers are troublesome things.
Their relationship – can it even be called that? – is not like the normal relationships in the Village. He understands that, regardless of the cautious words he receives from all those charitable onlookers, who seem to like to draw him aside occasionally and ask questions regarding his well-being until he gives in and asks them what they really want to know. Always stupid questions, pointless intrusive enquiries that grate on his nerves.
Sakura, the one concerned for her team-mate; Kakashi, for his student; Ino, the eternal gossip who needs no reason; Iruka, for his mother-hen problem; Lee, because he simply can't seem to get over the idea of it; and Jiraiya who, Neji swears, is only trying to get information on their sex life for his own perversity and not for any kind of semi-legitimate reason.
At least they were intelligent enough not to ask Naruto directly. Naruto, who wouldn't understand their concern or answer their questions even if they were asked.
His lover's naiveté in these sorts of situations is mostly endearing. Part of Neji, however, wishes the blonde would wake up. Naruto's apartment has been spotlessly clean, his breakfast brought to him in bed for months. Neji spends more time in Naruto's rooms than in his own nowadays. He can't help but like the smile he gets when he comes back in the morning or the evening after an absence, the bright warm glow directed at him over a scroll or some ramen.
Sometimes he thinks Naruto really does understand. That he just hasn't reacted differently because of that realisation and that he is the one who hasn't noticed a change. Maybe Naruto only understood in a purely instinctual sense, a definition without words so that any verbal judgements that might have been are left unsaid.
Neji remembers once that he got angry. Most people wouldn't have been able to even see it, his expression did not change in any way that he could identify himself. Perhaps the most minute tensing of his jaw.
Naruto saw it.
Naruto actually reached out, one arm sliding over his shoulder and putting pressure on his upper back so that he was forced forwards, drawn into the younger man's embrace. He had stood there, surprised and motionless, his face pressed down against the orange fabric of Naruto's shoulder, hands firm and comforting on his back, and found that he couldn't say a word, his anger totally forgotten.
He can take care of himself, Neji is fully aware. They both can. But he always finds himself wanting to protect Naruto, to keep a firm hold on the blonde. It might partially be that naiveté the feeling springs from. Either way, this is one of the reasons that Neji thinks he would have been better off forming this kind of obsession with a woman, instead of with a man whose main goal in life was to become the main support and protector of the entire Village. He does not want Naruto to resent him, after all.
Neji decided some time ago that he would make do with protecting his lover from the enemies that were closer to home. For the time being, at least.
He kisses Naruto, sometimes, to silence him. Their conversations occasionally – though less and less as time goes on, even if neither of them really understand why – turn to topics he doesn't like. For instance, he would no more like to hear about Sasuke and Naruto's promise than to have said Uchiha stab out both of his eyes.
He has never liked Naruto's masochistic need to keep trying to bring the Uchiha back. He was gone, and Neji wanted to keep it that way. Why should any traitor be shown leniency? Especially the Uchiha. The first mission to retrieve that wayward youth, Neji went because Naruto was going and because the blonde's confidence and loyalty charmed him into it. He has no problem with the fact that their mission failed, and feels no remorse for thinking that way.
When he initiates some form of intimacy between them, Naruto never protests. If anything he welcomes the attention, the contact. It does sting for Neji to consider the possibility that that is all it is, that it is not because of but despite him. It hurts more than he thinks it should, more than he would admit aloud. But that doesn't stop him. He can't stop; he needs Naruto too much now.
And people call him a genius.
His mind revolts whenever the thought occurs, rebelling against the idea that he is a substitute, despises the thought that his blonde might be thinking of a certain someone else. So he takes a great deal of pleasure and triumph from situations when Naruto's lips form 'Neji' instead.
It isn't that Naruto doesn't respond – he does, and quite enthusiastically at times – it's merely that there is an uncertainty to it, an unnecessary hesitation. Or perhaps Neji only notices because he is socertain about it all already.
Neji feels like an fool a lot of the time. He gets angry at himself, that he can't bring up the subject of their – again, what to call it – time together. He can't suppress the idea that doing so would promptly end the situation they were in, which the Hyuuga finds mind-numbingly comfortable – aside from the guilt and anger and fear. But it's still an uneven relationship to him; Naruto remains a cheerful mystery.
He wonders how it is that Naruto is such a loud-mouth and yet is unreasonably quiet regarding topics like these.
Neji knows that Naruto enjoys his long hair. After the initial tentative touches, the careful, wary brushes, the blonde was quite happy with his easy fondling of the dark strands. He liked to sweep it through his hands and let it slip between his fingers, to stroke it right to the root. Neji once gave him a brush to use and, after that first time, Neji carried it wherever he went.
At these times Neji feels comfortable and warm, something he's unused to, with Naruto at his back lavishing attention on his hair – and who was he to deny the blonde this simple pleasure when he asked for it? – he felt like a cat basking in the sun. Neji likes this especially, jealous as he sometimes was – though less and less as time passes – because it is a pleasure for Naruto that he is sure is totally him.
It is his hair that Naruto runs his fingers through, that he rubs against his whiskered cheek, that he admires so openly. And as petty as it sometimes seems, Neji feels proud about that easy fact.
They have both had sufficient opportunities to explore each other's bodies, with enough leisure to be able to map out every curve and muscle, every plane and crevice. Neji has seen his lover lying lazy and prostrate beneath him, utterly and completely naked, blue eyes half closed, golden hair tousled and spread across the bed sheets, a small smile curving his lips… and he can't forget it. Couldn't even if he really wanted to.
This is one of the reasons that his meditation time has been cut in half in recent days.
Neji has seen the seal on his lover's stomach, has run his curious fingers over the markings while Naruto squirmed uncomfortably beneath them. He has asked no questions about it. He understood even before he was told anything about it; the Hokage's explanation only serving as reinforcement of his suspicions.
Neji sat with his lover after their conversation, holding him in his arms, quietly soothing while he pressed his face into the blonde hair and inhaling the familiar scent while Naruto stared off into nothing and allowed himself to be rocked gently back and forth.
He regrets not noticing Naruto before the Chuunin exams, he regrets the lost time. He wishes that he had been the first to notice the blonde. The first to recognise him for who he was. He is a possessive person by nature, whether he appears it or not, and the idea of selfishly keeping Naruto to himself has an almost shameful amount of appeal.
In the time that passed after those early fleeting moments of interest, Neji has learned much; about Fate, about Naruto, and about himself. He feels as though he is a different person than the one who stood on that balcony and watched the blonde drop-out fight for his beliefs below. There's a near indiscernible tightening of his chest when he thinks back on their first fight together.
So much had changed since then.
But after being told that he should create his own Fate, Neji had thought of Naruto and what he had said more and more often. A link existed from then, connecting them together with abandoned beliefs that nevertheless formed a part of him. He thoroughly believed that, even if he wasn't entirely sure what it meant. This part, at least, he knew to be true.
Naruto would come to realised it too, if he hadn't already.
That the two of them would eventually have such close relations was not in any way improbable. In fact, in absence of the excuse of Fate, there was only one way Neji could describe it.
Neji may not believe in Fate, but he certainly believed in inevitability.