[Closed Log] Put Your Finger in My Mouth
WHO: Neji & Hinata
WHAT: They get caught making out in the library Hinata goes to see Neji on Earth
WHERE: Street, then library
WHEN: Tonight.
WARNINGS: internal leaking & old ladies.
The old lock turned stiffly around Neji's key, the sound it made reminding him of something he'd never really heard before--false trees that creaked in a forest that wasn't real. One in Heaven and another mockery of Eden that fell sadly short when it came to mimicking the real thing. Neji hadn't heard a forest since Eden, but entertaining the thought was oddly comforting in this place now. After all, it was a city--streamlined and light-filled and everything that the world never should have become. But it was here, and so was he.
The key finally extracted after a careful yank that was far less controlled than Neji would have liked it, and he set off down the sidewalk. Streetlamps hung halos of light above his head, orange and symmetrical on the sidewalk. Concrete lines came every step and a half, and Neji had long since counted them. He'd been there for only a few days, but already it felt like an eternity.
It began to rain and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, passing storefronts and hydrants and things that seemed misplaced in this world of night. He wasn't cold though his breath came in white puffs, stark against the darkness before him. He had yet to feel much of anything, really, but people looked at him oddly if he didn't wear warm clothing when it was cold out. Shoes, too--Neji's were new, just like everything on him. Not uncomfortable, but unnatural.
Wings shifted against him, but he did not use them as a shield from the rain. Just hunkered down and counted raindrops and thoughts as they fell into the web that had been created by this world.
Things had been quiet without Neji, around, and Hinata had founded herself aimless and some other emotion that she couldn't quite name. Something she'd felt always, but seemed more prominent with Neji...gone. She didn't like the idea of watching him so blatantly when he had no idea (as opposed to the sideways glances she usually gave him when he was physically right in front of her). So, logically, she'd go down to see him, no?
Easier said than done. It took Hinata four days to summon up the courage to confront him face to face and ask him how Earth is treating him. But finally, she does it, and it's only a second of her body reconstructing to fit Earth's rules...or His rules. Same. Difference.
It's dark where she appears and she blinks her eyes rapidly in order to realize that she hasn't found herself underground. No, this...this is. A hallway, but with a sky. There's a word for this, but it's escaped her. She steps, her bare feet feeling the pebbles, and evading the bits of glass.
The wind chills her, and she remembers that the thin fabric of her dress won't keep her warm down here. Oh. Too late. And then she spots the ovals of light in the sky, like electric butterflies, and Neji walking right under one. Spotlights.
"Neji." Her voice came out raspy and too soft, and she had to clear her throat. She wasn't used to the human body yet. "Neji," she said again, louder.
It was what Neji would describe as a subtle hum, a chorusing sound that he'd never quite bothered to notice in Heaven, but noticed now. There were cars in the road and they splashed through water and mud, but the sound split through it all and made it all sound a bit cleaner. He'd stopped walking, too attune to his surroundings to ignore such a new manifestation, and tilted his head to the sky, seeing nothing but darkness and feeling nothing but rain. Then she spoke and he was all too aware of what he was hearing, what was washing over him (not just the rain, but the presence. That little bit of Heaven that she was carrying, that he had been missing).
He turned slowly, regarded her carefully. Mind went quickly over the options of her arrival, finding only one logical explanation of what she was doing here. She was checking up on him--making sure that he had not been hit by a "bus" or "car" or all the many other automobiles he had now come to know. She wanted to see if he'd gotten stuck in one of those doors that went around and around, or if he'd lost the metal that made up keys or if he could sleep as humans did in beds of linen and feathers.
His own feathers fluttered in irritation.
"Hinata." He said, eyes fixed on her in a way that said all too clearly I know why you are here and not Thank you for looking out for me. Becuase he didn't need her, he didn't need this. And it was odd, the sensation of being pulled into two different directions. Part of him wanted to understand the way she thought, the way she felt--why it was always so caring and self-sacraficing in the face of his coldness--and the other part, the larger part, wanted to say, Didn't I tell you to leave me alone?
Hinata blinked, once, two, buckle my shoe. He didn't look happy to see her, and something inside her got crushed. In his absence she'd built him up to be better, nicer than he really was, but here he was again, the real deal. And it hurt to know that she could imagine a better companion for herself than he would ever be, but Neji depended on her. Without her...he might actually come to terms with His displacement on his own. And Hinata needed someone to need her, even if he didn't really. So maybe it was her depending on him. But it didn't matter, either way. Reasons for what Hinata did or didn't do never really did.
All that mattered was that it hurt and Hinata felt a prickling in her eyes.
"Oh...oh!" she cried out, bringing her hands up to her eyes. Had someone shot something in there? Oh goodness gracious, she had been down here a mere five minutes and already someone was attacking her. What had she done to deserve such a thankless existance?
"I'm bleeding, Neji! Oh. OH." Had he somehow stabbed her in the eyes? Did he truly dislike her so much?
She started bleeding harder.
It was this way between them. Some great calamity that never seemed to settle, something wild like the ocean because they were too different. And he didn't understand Hinata, and Hinata didn't understand him, but they were supposed to be something to each other. It was because of this that Neji knew there were many things wrong with the creation of angels. Each one was crafted perfectly by God's hand, yet they were too perfect in that creation. Perfectly created to be what they were, and Hinata couldn't stand against him because she was perfectly her, and he was perfectly him. They were not perfectly together.
He took a step toward her, cries of distress drawing him from the sidewalk before he grasped lightly one of her wrists and pulled her from the shadows and under the orange-yellow glow of the street lamp's halo. Her eyes glistenend with more than rain, for she had hardly been here long enough to accumulate much of that, but Neji knew blood and this was not that. His immutable facade dipped into a frown as he regarded her, calm and only slightly bothered by her distress. She was so open. So easily affected.
And he was standing in the rain, feeling nothing in the coldness of its droplets or the air around him. And she could take one step into this world and have this grand surge of something, of surprise, of despiar. And he had so very little. Neji forced himself to beat back the claws of what could only be deemed envy, and pressed forward.
"It's not blood, calm down. It's water." he touched her face with one finger, a medicinal touch that was clearly seeking answers and no real form of comfort, "Warm water. You're leaking." He held his finger before her so that she may see, if she did not believe.
That was possibly worse. Was she dying? She had seen balloons full of water, and then a pin, and then they were gone. Was that happening to her body?
And yet, his hand on her skin was warm, and it bothered her. She was used to the cool, sterile environment of heaven, and feeling warmth radiating from his was disconcerting and distracting. She took a swift step away from him, and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. Blinking down at the fabric, she saw that it was damp, but only slightly darker in color. No red.
"Oh..."
The light, it was too bright. Ironic, since up amidst the clouds there was nothing but. Her humans eyes, though, were unaccustomed to this sort of light, and she blinked back more bl--no, there was a word for this. A word for the water that humans allows escape through their eyes, but it escaped her. It might come to her later.
"You made me leak," she told him, but not accusingly. It was a fact, that was all. He had put a pin in her, and she was a little curious to know exactly how he'd managed that. She glanced down at her arms. No...no wounds. When had Neji turned out to be such a magician?
He frowned again and his hand dropped to his side, fingers moving to wipe the warm water onto his pants, but not before slicking it between his fingers and wondering at its origin.
Her words were not accusatory, but they were an accusation all the same. His eyebrows twitched together nearly imperceptably. "I haven't done anything." He said, glancing around as if to see if there were any other witnesses, anyone to tell him what he'd done. He'd only said her name. He'd said it many times before, and none of those times had ever made her leak. True, sometimes she left, or looked as if he'd taken something from her whenever he spoke (this was mostly why Neji spoke hardly at all; he never seemed to please with the words he said) but the leaking seemed to come naturally to her. As if she'd been the one doing it.
A drop of rain fell on his cheek and he wondered if it looked like he was leaking, too. But there was something else in her face that accompanied the streams of water. Something that seemed to accentuate it and that he couldn't quite understand. It was true, though, that he rarely ever understood her. Maybe they weren't made to understand each other, only to show each other what they were lacking. Lacking in understanding.
"You've stopped." He said, "That must mean you started it."
Reaching up, she felt the wetness, but no more han before. Oh, she supposed that it had stopped. How queer. Hinata, too, wiped that liquid off on her clothes. She hadn't started it, though.
She pressed her lips together into a pout. He had a point, though. Neji usually did. After all, He had given him a good head on his shoulders, and a strong pair of wings between his shoulderblades. Hinata, all she had were drifting thoughts and shedding feathers. Still, she knew she wouldn't have leaked if he hadn't done something.
But arguing with Neji was pointless, and she brought her attention to the falling water. Rain, she remembered, feeling proud. She said the word aloud, tasting it on her tongue. A drop fell in her mouth and panicked, spitting it back out again. There was acid in the rain, she remembered that, too. If she concentrated, she could feel the burning on her skin.
"Acid, Neji. There's acid...What if we melt?"
"Don't---" he warned too late (most things were) and watched as she spit the raindrop off, flicked it away like some kind of bug crawling too closely to where a scholar was working. The rain wasn't clean here, as much as it pretended to be. When it washed the streets clean of all the dust and impurities, all it was really doing was thrusting them back into the ground from where they'd come, soaking them up and tainting the rain, making it impure like so many things sent from Heaven were.
"They've been dealing with it for a long time." Hadn't they? The humans. Soaking it up, bringing into them like a plague and making it a part of them. He couldn't feel it though. Whatever it was that Hinata was feeling on her tongue. All he knew was that it was dirty. Very, very dirty. "You won't melt."
He sighed, once again fixing her with a gaze that spoke multitudes for how he was feeling, a precursor to a question he didn't have to ask. But he always did, because Hinata never seemed to respond to the glances, the looks that said Can't you see I want to be alone, or, Maybe I need you here, just for a few minutes. She always misinterpreted something, and therefore forced Neji into words that were wrong, speech that was difficult and detached and...well. Eventually made her sad. Made herself leak.
Point in case.
"What are you doing here, Hinata." He knew he should lead her out of the rain, to some place that she would feel comfortable, where she wouldn't worry if she was leaking or melting or bleeding or dying. But Neji was ultimately selfish and he liked the rain. It made him feel all that much closer to where he wanted to be, and he didn't even know where that was. Maybe that was why he was so reluctant to leave it.
Her head tilted, like a dog when they don't quite comprehend what its owner is asking. She understood, but only in the vague way she understood everything that Neji said. He didn't want her here. Hinata blinked, not blinking back the prickling water, but trying to restart her mind, like the machines that humans twiddled with. She hugged herself, rocking slowly.
"I came...to..." She chokes on the words, unsure of what she's trying to communicate. She was worried, maybe, or something like it. He was confused sometimes, but then again, so was she. But...she needed to remind him of something. She needed to remind him of her. Remind him that she wasn't going away. Hinata was never going away, not completely. No matter how many times he asked her to.
She didn't know any better. Every time she saw him, she forgot how he'd hurt her the last time. She swallowed quickly, and tried to smile, but her face was still, and only twitched. "I...see, everything was white up there. And your eyes are white, and I thought of you. But your hair...it's not white, and I like that sometimes, and...and I don't like mirrors, so I can't see my own hair, which isn't white either, see? So I came. Down." Her eyes avoided his, searching in the darkness beyond the streetlights for something that would clear up the mess she had inside her.
She was made like this, a muddle of something not quite connected all the way. She felt like the little babies born with half an arm or no eyeballs, their eyelids sunken. She rocked once more, and then stopped, looking down at her bare feet, her white toes.
She was a jigsaw puzzle that didn't seem to be made with correctly corresponding pieces.
Hinata had a point, of course--she always did. It was getting that point out properly that was the issue. He'd long ago tried to decipher her manner of speaking in that quiet way of his, observing but never asking, and yet had barely been able to come up with a workable system. It seemed to change so often, forcing him to change, to adapt. But Hinata had always been like this, and Neji knew she always was. She wasn't confident enough to come out and say exactly what she meant--and Neji sometimes wasn't sure that she even knew what that was, herself.
"You're fine." He said, voice almost considerate. As if to reassure her that she needn't worry about getting her point across--as if he knew what she was all about. And he did, in a way. Because it was always the same thing. He could recognize the message easily enough through her actions. How she kept coming to find him even when he rebuffed her. How she kept trying to talk to him even when his own manner of speaking was that much more confident, that much more poised. It was because some part of her needed him. Some part of her wanted to believe that he needed her, too.
But what he needed. What he needed...
He sighed, irritated, but for once not with her. "I'm not going to forget about you, Hinata." He said sullenly after a moment, speech dark and almost like night. "I can't, you know that." Just like you can't forget about me.
Can't?
That was an easier word to say than believe in. People said can't often enough for it to lose meaning, even angels. There was no can't, and everything could be forgotten eventually. Still, it pleased her a little to hear him say that, as if it were possible. As if what she saw in him was reflected in herself...or was that vice versa? Mirrors, they were never clear enough for Hinata to grasp what they were trying to tell her.
"You...can. If you like. I...you do not need to spare me." I can take care of myself, she wanted to tell him, even if she was responding to his lie with a lie. She didn't enjoy the idea that he was sheltering her like some lost feather. Hinata was not falling to pieces, or at least she hadn't reached a point in her decay where she needed him to put her back together. Her face was still, though, as she was tired of morphing to show her hurt. It was getting redundant.
Hinata glanced up at him, trying to remember what point she'd been trying to make. Maybe she was hadn't been making any point at all. She opened her mouth, but closed it again. Rinse and repeat enough times and she'd look like a drowning fish. The rain falling didn't help, and it was falling harder. Her hair was soon pressed flat against her head, and her white robes providing less and less protection. She didn't really notice until she was shivering, though. Even then, she ignored the odd sensation.
"You...have you...have you done many things?" As in, Have You Taken Candy From Strangers, but less first grade.
Neji snorted, and it would have been a laugh from anyone else. A dry, slightly mocking one, but a laugh all the same.
It was funny how she said it like he had some kind of choice in the matter. You can, if you want. That was a little too simplistic for him--and he was not a simple creature. Certainly there were things in his mind that he didn't dwell on, thoughts that ran their course through his head with little notice. But they were never truly forgotten. And those things that he wanted to forget (like falling, like almost falling, like those he missed--well, they were harder to ignore than anything. And he wasn't even sure that he wanted to foget Hinata. She was like a strange, awkward piece of him. Almost as if he had been cut from a piece of rock and all the excess, all the things that he wasn't, had been put into her.
He noticed the rain and that she was shivering where he was not---and finally decided that it was time to go somewhere. Again, without bothering to ask permission, he stepped forward and slipped his fingers around her small wrist, tugging her gently in the direction of the library. It would at least provide some form of heat and light, and save her from the darkness of the alley.
"Some," he responded as he led the way up the stairs, reaching for the door as his mannerisms all but threw her inside. He was gentle, though, careful as if he wasn't sure whether or not she would break under that pressure. "Naruto and I ran into one of the Fallen." Factual with no sense of trepidition. "There are a lot of them, here."
Inside it was cool, and the rain on her skin was chilled further by the low temperature. She ran her fingers over her arms, where there were slight bumps. Curious, her hands ran up and down, and she felt as if she were reading braille.
The warmth of his hand was gone again, and her hands were as chilled as her arms. But Hinata felt strangely comforted by the cold, and stepped further into the building in case he decided to descend upon her once more.
Against the walls were tall shelves, and there were so many...books. They were all different colors, and all different shapes. And she could make out more rooms, full of more books, all different. This was how Hinata viewed humans, with their blasted originality. Angels, they were so alike it was occasionally painful. Often painful. Humans were so many different breeds, that no wonder He had lost control of them. They were so wild.
She was shocked out of her thoughts by a small woman with crazed greying hair coming out of her various hairclips. She glared up at Hinata, pointing a gnawed finger at her. Hinata took a step away, and the woman did the same, refusing to close the distance. "You...you youngsters," she croaked. "If you go into the backshelves to make out, I will catch you. I have done it BEFORE, AND I CAN DO IT AGAIN." She spun around to face Neji, her glare intensified by her glasses.
"Go stick your fingers into your girlfriend somewhere where you won't make a mess all over sacred objects! You would think you hooligans had run out of beds."
He had been here once before, very briefly on a quick walk-through of the city. It had scared him slightly with the possibilities, all the knowledge that had amassed that he didn't know yet. And then it had made him determined to learn it all. He simply hadn't given himself the chance with that yet, because once he slipped into this place in earnest, Neji knew he wouldn't be leaving until the whole of human knowledge was his.
He found himself mirroring Hinata's gaze a little more sinisterly, watching the books as if they were some kind of prey. And he found himself caught off guard by the human that had suddenly accosted them, an elderly creature that looked neither pleasant nor intimidated by their sheer presence at all. He frowned at her as she began to speak, barely processing what she was saying and therefore having to stare at her rather pointedly, as if her mind would reveal its secrets through her eyes.
Had she just called him a youngster?
Neji beat back the urge to exclaim that he was almost six-thousand years old, thank you, and who was she calling a youngster, when she continued. He blinked at her and glanced at Hinata, refusing to show his confusion. Where, exactly, was he supposed to stick his fingers? Avoiding the vocabulary that he was unfamiliar with, Neji shifted slightly and moved a half-step in front of Hinata, for what purpose he was uncertain. This woman, though, she seemed a bit unstable.
"..." he said. And then, "What do you mean, sacred." Humans. Not only where they making up completely obscure words every time you turned around, but they were misusing the old ones.
The woman had been ready to waddle off, taking her steps quickly as if that would help her move a little faster to greener grasses on the other side, but Neji's question, laced with poison, had caused her to spin around to face him once more.
Hinata watched the exchange, frowning. She knew that he would have to stick his fingers in her mouth if she happened to be blocking her airway and he needed to give her rescue breath, but that seemed unlikely. What would she be choking on? She thought about taking a step forward and breaking the conversation before it fell apart and the woman started throwing punches. She looked at Neji carefully, though, and decided otherwise. He wouldn't like it if she interrupted, she knew.
"Books, of course," the woman continued contemptuously, every word out of his mouth proving her point in her mind. "What are you, stupid? The written word was the Lord's greatest gift to us. Without it, we would be nothing." The look she continued giving him implied that she felt he was nothing despite the written word, now could he get out her library, please?
Hinata mumbled that she thought colors were a lot nicer. She'd helped out with colors a little. She'd mentioned the concept of pink. She was rather proud of that, even now.
That word.
Neji's shoulders stiffened for a moment, and he looked almost as if he were offended, wings that she couldn't see going rigid. But his muscles smoothed almost immediately, his lips curling as he looked at her. She had no idea how great his knowledge was, and yet seemed so confident in her judgment. He could look into her and see her every sin, see everything she'd learned in her life, and if he just had her name, he could know her thoughts as well. But he didn't want them. He knew they would be thick, invasive things that held no merit or understanding.
And the look that marred his features was hardly angelic. It was pitying, almost spiteful. This, Neji understood, was why God had never made him a Cherub. Why he had never been an angel meant to go out about the people. "Congratulations." He said, voice low and penetrating as he gazed at her. If God was (like some had suggested) a kid with a magnifying glass, and humans were ants, then Neji was certainly the ray of sun that was meant to decimate them. "You've named your own sin." For stupidity was a sin. And it certainly wasn't Neji's.
His expression darkened like a stormy day. "Try creation." He breathed out, "It certainly was a gift for people like you. Maybe you should try reading the Bible again." He paused, "It's a book that you clearly haven't digested."
He wasn't supposed to do that and he felt the words grate against his being painfully. But Neji wasn't certain that he had ever cared, had ever been created to care. Instead of offering an apologetic look, he simply turned around and leveled his eyes to Hinata. "Let's go." He said, words clipped and dry, offering for very little movement on the subject.
Hinata sighed. Neji had to make things so difficult for himself. She had long accepted that humans simply weren't able to comprehend what angel found simple. But Neji...he was Neji, and who was she to say anything about what he should or shouldn't do?
The woman looked ready to kill him, but she placed a hand on his arm, slowly, gently, tugging him away before she could say anything that might start them going again. She didn't like the idea of touching him without warning him, but there was something urgent in getting them outside again, even if it was raining.
The water hit her skin hard, and she was surprised. Already she had forgotten how it felt to be rained on. "You shouldn't..." she began, but then forgot what she had been planning on saying. The sky was so dark, and the street below was lit up. It was so different from heaven, this earth. She didn't remember Eden like this.
"Humans. Leave them." Her eyelashes are catching the raindrops. "They..." She pauses again. "If I were choking, would you put your finger in my mouth?" It seemed like a very important question, one that might reveal a number of things. Might reveal maybe a truth, something that evaded these two so well.
He was oddly glad for it, that guiding hand--but he jerked away from her anyway, as if to give his anger some form of manifestation that sat outside of angry words and irritated glares. There was an uncomfortable sensation sliding across his face, down his neck, making him feel something a little more than emptiness. It wasn't cold--it was heat, enough to start a fire and when the air from outside hit them, it was relief. And it was odd that he could feel it now, but it calmed him substantially, enough to look at Hinata with no more than a hint of irritation. A far cry from what had been rising in his chest a moment earlier.
"I know." He said calmly, raindrops hitting his cheeks and freezing frigidly against his skin. He raised a brow at her, wanting to say something about 'You-statements' but allowing the urge to die in his throat as she continued. For once, they agreed on something. Leave them. And just how much Neji wanted to. Yet there was a certain amount of pain and bitterness in that. How they could choose to ignore him and he could not choose to let them do so.
His head snapped toward her at her next question, eyebrows frowning. "Choking?" He echoed, a vague image coming to his mind at that word. He allowed himself to pause in remembrance before bothering to respond, looking at her as if he was attempting to assess whether or not she was planning on it. On choking. "I suppose, yes." The noises must be very annoying for the people around. Hinata choking would be offsetting.
"Are you planning on staying here." He asked after another moment of standing in the rain. He was numb again, and he had never thought he would welcome it as much as he did. "You shouldn't stay in the rain." He had no problem with making such statements.
Little things mattered.
He would save her, he says, and she is almost happy. He would scoop up the object blocking her airway. Hinata turns towards him slightly, and lowers herself on step. He looks large as he looms over her, looking disinterested in this entire affair. It feels odd to enoy this, his overpowering presence. But she does like it, a little. A lot.
It doesn't matter.
"As long as...if the rain doesn't burn me, it might clean me. I like it." She avoided his first question, slipping away from it. She didn't know. Was he trying to say he wanted her to stay? Was he trying to say the opposite?
She looked down at her robes, nearly transparent at this point. She looked at her hair, limp and dripping. She wriggled her toes, and then picked one up, looking at the soles of her feet. They were brown and specked with small pebbles and dirt. She wouldn't mind some rain washing that off.
A soft breath escaped from his nose, too light to be a snort but not empty enough just to be an expulsion of air. She belonged here more than he did. She'd been made for humans, he thought, maybe made for earth. And yet once again he found himself indifferent as to whether or not she stayed. He was always indifferent when she was with him, it was when she was away that he found that he was lacking something. Maybe not missing, but certainly there was something that he noticed being off.
He wasn't sure what that meant, but supposed that being around someone going on six-thousand years would do that to a creature.
Neji finally allowed himself to shrug indifferently, once again looking at the sky. "Suit yourself." He said, as if he had offered a counter for her decision when he really had not. After very little thought, he opened his mouth to offer her a place to stay, but closed it just as fast. Such an offer was beyond him, and that extention was something that Naruto would need to make. Hinata knew him. She knew that he offered nothing in the way of happiness or friendship (not anymore; never anymore) and he was in no way willing to change her views.
He pushed his hands into his pockets and cast a single glance at her. And then he looked at her outstretched foot and smirked, a slight softening of his face before he turned and walked away.
Hinata plopped herself down on the steps, watching him. She bit her lip and wondered if she should say something. Maybe ask him why he didn't care. Ask him how he could say one thing and then turn and leave. She didn't understand him, she couldn't. As much as she tried, he was ultimately beyond him, and that made her feeling wispy and useless. He was all she had. If she couldn't put his pieces together, what was she good for.
"Naruto," she croaked out, brushing a hand across her face, clearing her eyes momentarily of water. "Ask...ask him if he still wants to see my sword. Please?" Maybe. Maybe Neji didn't need to be her everything. It hurt when he was, and maybe it would hurt less when he wasn't.
And she was gone before he could stick another pin into her side.
WHAT: They get caught making out in the library Hinata goes to see Neji on Earth
WHERE: Street, then library
WHEN: Tonight.
WARNINGS: internal leaking & old ladies.
The old lock turned stiffly around Neji's key, the sound it made reminding him of something he'd never really heard before--false trees that creaked in a forest that wasn't real. One in Heaven and another mockery of Eden that fell sadly short when it came to mimicking the real thing. Neji hadn't heard a forest since Eden, but entertaining the thought was oddly comforting in this place now. After all, it was a city--streamlined and light-filled and everything that the world never should have become. But it was here, and so was he.
The key finally extracted after a careful yank that was far less controlled than Neji would have liked it, and he set off down the sidewalk. Streetlamps hung halos of light above his head, orange and symmetrical on the sidewalk. Concrete lines came every step and a half, and Neji had long since counted them. He'd been there for only a few days, but already it felt like an eternity.
It began to rain and he shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, passing storefronts and hydrants and things that seemed misplaced in this world of night. He wasn't cold though his breath came in white puffs, stark against the darkness before him. He had yet to feel much of anything, really, but people looked at him oddly if he didn't wear warm clothing when it was cold out. Shoes, too--Neji's were new, just like everything on him. Not uncomfortable, but unnatural.
Wings shifted against him, but he did not use them as a shield from the rain. Just hunkered down and counted raindrops and thoughts as they fell into the web that had been created by this world.
Things had been quiet without Neji, around, and Hinata had founded herself aimless and some other emotion that she couldn't quite name. Something she'd felt always, but seemed more prominent with Neji...gone. She didn't like the idea of watching him so blatantly when he had no idea (as opposed to the sideways glances she usually gave him when he was physically right in front of her). So, logically, she'd go down to see him, no?
Easier said than done. It took Hinata four days to summon up the courage to confront him face to face and ask him how Earth is treating him. But finally, she does it, and it's only a second of her body reconstructing to fit Earth's rules...or His rules. Same. Difference.
It's dark where she appears and she blinks her eyes rapidly in order to realize that she hasn't found herself underground. No, this...this is. A hallway, but with a sky. There's a word for this, but it's escaped her. She steps, her bare feet feeling the pebbles, and evading the bits of glass.
The wind chills her, and she remembers that the thin fabric of her dress won't keep her warm down here. Oh. Too late. And then she spots the ovals of light in the sky, like electric butterflies, and Neji walking right under one. Spotlights.
"Neji." Her voice came out raspy and too soft, and she had to clear her throat. She wasn't used to the human body yet. "Neji," she said again, louder.
It was what Neji would describe as a subtle hum, a chorusing sound that he'd never quite bothered to notice in Heaven, but noticed now. There were cars in the road and they splashed through water and mud, but the sound split through it all and made it all sound a bit cleaner. He'd stopped walking, too attune to his surroundings to ignore such a new manifestation, and tilted his head to the sky, seeing nothing but darkness and feeling nothing but rain. Then she spoke and he was all too aware of what he was hearing, what was washing over him (not just the rain, but the presence. That little bit of Heaven that she was carrying, that he had been missing).
He turned slowly, regarded her carefully. Mind went quickly over the options of her arrival, finding only one logical explanation of what she was doing here. She was checking up on him--making sure that he had not been hit by a "bus" or "car" or all the many other automobiles he had now come to know. She wanted to see if he'd gotten stuck in one of those doors that went around and around, or if he'd lost the metal that made up keys or if he could sleep as humans did in beds of linen and feathers.
His own feathers fluttered in irritation.
"Hinata." He said, eyes fixed on her in a way that said all too clearly I know why you are here and not Thank you for looking out for me. Becuase he didn't need her, he didn't need this. And it was odd, the sensation of being pulled into two different directions. Part of him wanted to understand the way she thought, the way she felt--why it was always so caring and self-sacraficing in the face of his coldness--and the other part, the larger part, wanted to say, Didn't I tell you to leave me alone?
Hinata blinked, once, two, buckle my shoe. He didn't look happy to see her, and something inside her got crushed. In his absence she'd built him up to be better, nicer than he really was, but here he was again, the real deal. And it hurt to know that she could imagine a better companion for herself than he would ever be, but Neji depended on her. Without her...he might actually come to terms with His displacement on his own. And Hinata needed someone to need her, even if he didn't really. So maybe it was her depending on him. But it didn't matter, either way. Reasons for what Hinata did or didn't do never really did.
All that mattered was that it hurt and Hinata felt a prickling in her eyes.
"Oh...oh!" she cried out, bringing her hands up to her eyes. Had someone shot something in there? Oh goodness gracious, she had been down here a mere five minutes and already someone was attacking her. What had she done to deserve such a thankless existance?
"I'm bleeding, Neji! Oh. OH." Had he somehow stabbed her in the eyes? Did he truly dislike her so much?
She started bleeding harder.
It was this way between them. Some great calamity that never seemed to settle, something wild like the ocean because they were too different. And he didn't understand Hinata, and Hinata didn't understand him, but they were supposed to be something to each other. It was because of this that Neji knew there were many things wrong with the creation of angels. Each one was crafted perfectly by God's hand, yet they were too perfect in that creation. Perfectly created to be what they were, and Hinata couldn't stand against him because she was perfectly her, and he was perfectly him. They were not perfectly together.
He took a step toward her, cries of distress drawing him from the sidewalk before he grasped lightly one of her wrists and pulled her from the shadows and under the orange-yellow glow of the street lamp's halo. Her eyes glistenend with more than rain, for she had hardly been here long enough to accumulate much of that, but Neji knew blood and this was not that. His immutable facade dipped into a frown as he regarded her, calm and only slightly bothered by her distress. She was so open. So easily affected.
And he was standing in the rain, feeling nothing in the coldness of its droplets or the air around him. And she could take one step into this world and have this grand surge of something, of surprise, of despiar. And he had so very little. Neji forced himself to beat back the claws of what could only be deemed envy, and pressed forward.
"It's not blood, calm down. It's water." he touched her face with one finger, a medicinal touch that was clearly seeking answers and no real form of comfort, "Warm water. You're leaking." He held his finger before her so that she may see, if she did not believe.
That was possibly worse. Was she dying? She had seen balloons full of water, and then a pin, and then they were gone. Was that happening to her body?
And yet, his hand on her skin was warm, and it bothered her. She was used to the cool, sterile environment of heaven, and feeling warmth radiating from his was disconcerting and distracting. She took a swift step away from him, and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. Blinking down at the fabric, she saw that it was damp, but only slightly darker in color. No red.
"Oh..."
The light, it was too bright. Ironic, since up amidst the clouds there was nothing but. Her humans eyes, though, were unaccustomed to this sort of light, and she blinked back more bl--no, there was a word for this. A word for the water that humans allows escape through their eyes, but it escaped her. It might come to her later.
"You made me leak," she told him, but not accusingly. It was a fact, that was all. He had put a pin in her, and she was a little curious to know exactly how he'd managed that. She glanced down at her arms. No...no wounds. When had Neji turned out to be such a magician?
He frowned again and his hand dropped to his side, fingers moving to wipe the warm water onto his pants, but not before slicking it between his fingers and wondering at its origin.
Her words were not accusatory, but they were an accusation all the same. His eyebrows twitched together nearly imperceptably. "I haven't done anything." He said, glancing around as if to see if there were any other witnesses, anyone to tell him what he'd done. He'd only said her name. He'd said it many times before, and none of those times had ever made her leak. True, sometimes she left, or looked as if he'd taken something from her whenever he spoke (this was mostly why Neji spoke hardly at all; he never seemed to please with the words he said) but the leaking seemed to come naturally to her. As if she'd been the one doing it.
A drop of rain fell on his cheek and he wondered if it looked like he was leaking, too. But there was something else in her face that accompanied the streams of water. Something that seemed to accentuate it and that he couldn't quite understand. It was true, though, that he rarely ever understood her. Maybe they weren't made to understand each other, only to show each other what they were lacking. Lacking in understanding.
"You've stopped." He said, "That must mean you started it."
Reaching up, she felt the wetness, but no more han before. Oh, she supposed that it had stopped. How queer. Hinata, too, wiped that liquid off on her clothes. She hadn't started it, though.
She pressed her lips together into a pout. He had a point, though. Neji usually did. After all, He had given him a good head on his shoulders, and a strong pair of wings between his shoulderblades. Hinata, all she had were drifting thoughts and shedding feathers. Still, she knew she wouldn't have leaked if he hadn't done something.
But arguing with Neji was pointless, and she brought her attention to the falling water. Rain, she remembered, feeling proud. She said the word aloud, tasting it on her tongue. A drop fell in her mouth and panicked, spitting it back out again. There was acid in the rain, she remembered that, too. If she concentrated, she could feel the burning on her skin.
"Acid, Neji. There's acid...What if we melt?"
"Don't---" he warned too late (most things were) and watched as she spit the raindrop off, flicked it away like some kind of bug crawling too closely to where a scholar was working. The rain wasn't clean here, as much as it pretended to be. When it washed the streets clean of all the dust and impurities, all it was really doing was thrusting them back into the ground from where they'd come, soaking them up and tainting the rain, making it impure like so many things sent from Heaven were.
"They've been dealing with it for a long time." Hadn't they? The humans. Soaking it up, bringing into them like a plague and making it a part of them. He couldn't feel it though. Whatever it was that Hinata was feeling on her tongue. All he knew was that it was dirty. Very, very dirty. "You won't melt."
He sighed, once again fixing her with a gaze that spoke multitudes for how he was feeling, a precursor to a question he didn't have to ask. But he always did, because Hinata never seemed to respond to the glances, the looks that said Can't you see I want to be alone, or, Maybe I need you here, just for a few minutes. She always misinterpreted something, and therefore forced Neji into words that were wrong, speech that was difficult and detached and...well. Eventually made her sad. Made herself leak.
Point in case.
"What are you doing here, Hinata." He knew he should lead her out of the rain, to some place that she would feel comfortable, where she wouldn't worry if she was leaking or melting or bleeding or dying. But Neji was ultimately selfish and he liked the rain. It made him feel all that much closer to where he wanted to be, and he didn't even know where that was. Maybe that was why he was so reluctant to leave it.
Her head tilted, like a dog when they don't quite comprehend what its owner is asking. She understood, but only in the vague way she understood everything that Neji said. He didn't want her here. Hinata blinked, not blinking back the prickling water, but trying to restart her mind, like the machines that humans twiddled with. She hugged herself, rocking slowly.
"I came...to..." She chokes on the words, unsure of what she's trying to communicate. She was worried, maybe, or something like it. He was confused sometimes, but then again, so was she. But...she needed to remind him of something. She needed to remind him of her. Remind him that she wasn't going away. Hinata was never going away, not completely. No matter how many times he asked her to.
She didn't know any better. Every time she saw him, she forgot how he'd hurt her the last time. She swallowed quickly, and tried to smile, but her face was still, and only twitched. "I...see, everything was white up there. And your eyes are white, and I thought of you. But your hair...it's not white, and I like that sometimes, and...and I don't like mirrors, so I can't see my own hair, which isn't white either, see? So I came. Down." Her eyes avoided his, searching in the darkness beyond the streetlights for something that would clear up the mess she had inside her.
She was made like this, a muddle of something not quite connected all the way. She felt like the little babies born with half an arm or no eyeballs, their eyelids sunken. She rocked once more, and then stopped, looking down at her bare feet, her white toes.
She was a jigsaw puzzle that didn't seem to be made with correctly corresponding pieces.
Hinata had a point, of course--she always did. It was getting that point out properly that was the issue. He'd long ago tried to decipher her manner of speaking in that quiet way of his, observing but never asking, and yet had barely been able to come up with a workable system. It seemed to change so often, forcing him to change, to adapt. But Hinata had always been like this, and Neji knew she always was. She wasn't confident enough to come out and say exactly what she meant--and Neji sometimes wasn't sure that she even knew what that was, herself.
"You're fine." He said, voice almost considerate. As if to reassure her that she needn't worry about getting her point across--as if he knew what she was all about. And he did, in a way. Because it was always the same thing. He could recognize the message easily enough through her actions. How she kept coming to find him even when he rebuffed her. How she kept trying to talk to him even when his own manner of speaking was that much more confident, that much more poised. It was because some part of her needed him. Some part of her wanted to believe that he needed her, too.
But what he needed. What he needed...
He sighed, irritated, but for once not with her. "I'm not going to forget about you, Hinata." He said sullenly after a moment, speech dark and almost like night. "I can't, you know that." Just like you can't forget about me.
Can't?
That was an easier word to say than believe in. People said can't often enough for it to lose meaning, even angels. There was no can't, and everything could be forgotten eventually. Still, it pleased her a little to hear him say that, as if it were possible. As if what she saw in him was reflected in herself...or was that vice versa? Mirrors, they were never clear enough for Hinata to grasp what they were trying to tell her.
"You...can. If you like. I...you do not need to spare me." I can take care of myself, she wanted to tell him, even if she was responding to his lie with a lie. She didn't enjoy the idea that he was sheltering her like some lost feather. Hinata was not falling to pieces, or at least she hadn't reached a point in her decay where she needed him to put her back together. Her face was still, though, as she was tired of morphing to show her hurt. It was getting redundant.
Hinata glanced up at him, trying to remember what point she'd been trying to make. Maybe she was hadn't been making any point at all. She opened her mouth, but closed it again. Rinse and repeat enough times and she'd look like a drowning fish. The rain falling didn't help, and it was falling harder. Her hair was soon pressed flat against her head, and her white robes providing less and less protection. She didn't really notice until she was shivering, though. Even then, she ignored the odd sensation.
"You...have you...have you done many things?" As in, Have You Taken Candy From Strangers, but less first grade.
Neji snorted, and it would have been a laugh from anyone else. A dry, slightly mocking one, but a laugh all the same.
It was funny how she said it like he had some kind of choice in the matter. You can, if you want. That was a little too simplistic for him--and he was not a simple creature. Certainly there were things in his mind that he didn't dwell on, thoughts that ran their course through his head with little notice. But they were never truly forgotten. And those things that he wanted to forget (like falling, like almost falling, like those he missed--well, they were harder to ignore than anything. And he wasn't even sure that he wanted to foget Hinata. She was like a strange, awkward piece of him. Almost as if he had been cut from a piece of rock and all the excess, all the things that he wasn't, had been put into her.
He noticed the rain and that she was shivering where he was not---and finally decided that it was time to go somewhere. Again, without bothering to ask permission, he stepped forward and slipped his fingers around her small wrist, tugging her gently in the direction of the library. It would at least provide some form of heat and light, and save her from the darkness of the alley.
"Some," he responded as he led the way up the stairs, reaching for the door as his mannerisms all but threw her inside. He was gentle, though, careful as if he wasn't sure whether or not she would break under that pressure. "Naruto and I ran into one of the Fallen." Factual with no sense of trepidition. "There are a lot of them, here."
Inside it was cool, and the rain on her skin was chilled further by the low temperature. She ran her fingers over her arms, where there were slight bumps. Curious, her hands ran up and down, and she felt as if she were reading braille.
The warmth of his hand was gone again, and her hands were as chilled as her arms. But Hinata felt strangely comforted by the cold, and stepped further into the building in case he decided to descend upon her once more.
Against the walls were tall shelves, and there were so many...books. They were all different colors, and all different shapes. And she could make out more rooms, full of more books, all different. This was how Hinata viewed humans, with their blasted originality. Angels, they were so alike it was occasionally painful. Often painful. Humans were so many different breeds, that no wonder He had lost control of them. They were so wild.
She was shocked out of her thoughts by a small woman with crazed greying hair coming out of her various hairclips. She glared up at Hinata, pointing a gnawed finger at her. Hinata took a step away, and the woman did the same, refusing to close the distance. "You...you youngsters," she croaked. "If you go into the backshelves to make out, I will catch you. I have done it BEFORE, AND I CAN DO IT AGAIN." She spun around to face Neji, her glare intensified by her glasses.
"Go stick your fingers into your girlfriend somewhere where you won't make a mess all over sacred objects! You would think you hooligans had run out of beds."
He had been here once before, very briefly on a quick walk-through of the city. It had scared him slightly with the possibilities, all the knowledge that had amassed that he didn't know yet. And then it had made him determined to learn it all. He simply hadn't given himself the chance with that yet, because once he slipped into this place in earnest, Neji knew he wouldn't be leaving until the whole of human knowledge was his.
He found himself mirroring Hinata's gaze a little more sinisterly, watching the books as if they were some kind of prey. And he found himself caught off guard by the human that had suddenly accosted them, an elderly creature that looked neither pleasant nor intimidated by their sheer presence at all. He frowned at her as she began to speak, barely processing what she was saying and therefore having to stare at her rather pointedly, as if her mind would reveal its secrets through her eyes.
Had she just called him a youngster?
Neji beat back the urge to exclaim that he was almost six-thousand years old, thank you, and who was she calling a youngster, when she continued. He blinked at her and glanced at Hinata, refusing to show his confusion. Where, exactly, was he supposed to stick his fingers? Avoiding the vocabulary that he was unfamiliar with, Neji shifted slightly and moved a half-step in front of Hinata, for what purpose he was uncertain. This woman, though, she seemed a bit unstable.
"..." he said. And then, "What do you mean, sacred." Humans. Not only where they making up completely obscure words every time you turned around, but they were misusing the old ones.
The woman had been ready to waddle off, taking her steps quickly as if that would help her move a little faster to greener grasses on the other side, but Neji's question, laced with poison, had caused her to spin around to face him once more.
Hinata watched the exchange, frowning. She knew that he would have to stick his fingers in her mouth if she happened to be blocking her airway and he needed to give her rescue breath, but that seemed unlikely. What would she be choking on? She thought about taking a step forward and breaking the conversation before it fell apart and the woman started throwing punches. She looked at Neji carefully, though, and decided otherwise. He wouldn't like it if she interrupted, she knew.
"Books, of course," the woman continued contemptuously, every word out of his mouth proving her point in her mind. "What are you, stupid? The written word was the Lord's greatest gift to us. Without it, we would be nothing." The look she continued giving him implied that she felt he was nothing despite the written word, now could he get out her library, please?
Hinata mumbled that she thought colors were a lot nicer. She'd helped out with colors a little. She'd mentioned the concept of pink. She was rather proud of that, even now.
That word.
Neji's shoulders stiffened for a moment, and he looked almost as if he were offended, wings that she couldn't see going rigid. But his muscles smoothed almost immediately, his lips curling as he looked at her. She had no idea how great his knowledge was, and yet seemed so confident in her judgment. He could look into her and see her every sin, see everything she'd learned in her life, and if he just had her name, he could know her thoughts as well. But he didn't want them. He knew they would be thick, invasive things that held no merit or understanding.
And the look that marred his features was hardly angelic. It was pitying, almost spiteful. This, Neji understood, was why God had never made him a Cherub. Why he had never been an angel meant to go out about the people. "Congratulations." He said, voice low and penetrating as he gazed at her. If God was (like some had suggested) a kid with a magnifying glass, and humans were ants, then Neji was certainly the ray of sun that was meant to decimate them. "You've named your own sin." For stupidity was a sin. And it certainly wasn't Neji's.
His expression darkened like a stormy day. "Try creation." He breathed out, "It certainly was a gift for people like you. Maybe you should try reading the Bible again." He paused, "It's a book that you clearly haven't digested."
He wasn't supposed to do that and he felt the words grate against his being painfully. But Neji wasn't certain that he had ever cared, had ever been created to care. Instead of offering an apologetic look, he simply turned around and leveled his eyes to Hinata. "Let's go." He said, words clipped and dry, offering for very little movement on the subject.
Hinata sighed. Neji had to make things so difficult for himself. She had long accepted that humans simply weren't able to comprehend what angel found simple. But Neji...he was Neji, and who was she to say anything about what he should or shouldn't do?
The woman looked ready to kill him, but she placed a hand on his arm, slowly, gently, tugging him away before she could say anything that might start them going again. She didn't like the idea of touching him without warning him, but there was something urgent in getting them outside again, even if it was raining.
The water hit her skin hard, and she was surprised. Already she had forgotten how it felt to be rained on. "You shouldn't..." she began, but then forgot what she had been planning on saying. The sky was so dark, and the street below was lit up. It was so different from heaven, this earth. She didn't remember Eden like this.
"Humans. Leave them." Her eyelashes are catching the raindrops. "They..." She pauses again. "If I were choking, would you put your finger in my mouth?" It seemed like a very important question, one that might reveal a number of things. Might reveal maybe a truth, something that evaded these two so well.
He was oddly glad for it, that guiding hand--but he jerked away from her anyway, as if to give his anger some form of manifestation that sat outside of angry words and irritated glares. There was an uncomfortable sensation sliding across his face, down his neck, making him feel something a little more than emptiness. It wasn't cold--it was heat, enough to start a fire and when the air from outside hit them, it was relief. And it was odd that he could feel it now, but it calmed him substantially, enough to look at Hinata with no more than a hint of irritation. A far cry from what had been rising in his chest a moment earlier.
"I know." He said calmly, raindrops hitting his cheeks and freezing frigidly against his skin. He raised a brow at her, wanting to say something about 'You-statements' but allowing the urge to die in his throat as she continued. For once, they agreed on something. Leave them. And just how much Neji wanted to. Yet there was a certain amount of pain and bitterness in that. How they could choose to ignore him and he could not choose to let them do so.
His head snapped toward her at her next question, eyebrows frowning. "Choking?" He echoed, a vague image coming to his mind at that word. He allowed himself to pause in remembrance before bothering to respond, looking at her as if he was attempting to assess whether or not she was planning on it. On choking. "I suppose, yes." The noises must be very annoying for the people around. Hinata choking would be offsetting.
"Are you planning on staying here." He asked after another moment of standing in the rain. He was numb again, and he had never thought he would welcome it as much as he did. "You shouldn't stay in the rain." He had no problem with making such statements.
Little things mattered.
He would save her, he says, and she is almost happy. He would scoop up the object blocking her airway. Hinata turns towards him slightly, and lowers herself on step. He looks large as he looms over her, looking disinterested in this entire affair. It feels odd to enoy this, his overpowering presence. But she does like it, a little. A lot.
It doesn't matter.
"As long as...if the rain doesn't burn me, it might clean me. I like it." She avoided his first question, slipping away from it. She didn't know. Was he trying to say he wanted her to stay? Was he trying to say the opposite?
She looked down at her robes, nearly transparent at this point. She looked at her hair, limp and dripping. She wriggled her toes, and then picked one up, looking at the soles of her feet. They were brown and specked with small pebbles and dirt. She wouldn't mind some rain washing that off.
A soft breath escaped from his nose, too light to be a snort but not empty enough just to be an expulsion of air. She belonged here more than he did. She'd been made for humans, he thought, maybe made for earth. And yet once again he found himself indifferent as to whether or not she stayed. He was always indifferent when she was with him, it was when she was away that he found that he was lacking something. Maybe not missing, but certainly there was something that he noticed being off.
He wasn't sure what that meant, but supposed that being around someone going on six-thousand years would do that to a creature.
Neji finally allowed himself to shrug indifferently, once again looking at the sky. "Suit yourself." He said, as if he had offered a counter for her decision when he really had not. After very little thought, he opened his mouth to offer her a place to stay, but closed it just as fast. Such an offer was beyond him, and that extention was something that Naruto would need to make. Hinata knew him. She knew that he offered nothing in the way of happiness or friendship (not anymore; never anymore) and he was in no way willing to change her views.
He pushed his hands into his pockets and cast a single glance at her. And then he looked at her outstretched foot and smirked, a slight softening of his face before he turned and walked away.
Hinata plopped herself down on the steps, watching him. She bit her lip and wondered if she should say something. Maybe ask him why he didn't care. Ask him how he could say one thing and then turn and leave. She didn't understand him, she couldn't. As much as she tried, he was ultimately beyond him, and that made her feeling wispy and useless. He was all she had. If she couldn't put his pieces together, what was she good for.
"Naruto," she croaked out, brushing a hand across her face, clearing her eyes momentarily of water. "Ask...ask him if he still wants to see my sword. Please?" Maybe. Maybe Neji didn't need to be her everything. It hurt when he was, and maybe it would hurt less when he wasn't.
And she was gone before he could stick another pin into her side.