Drabble: Common Ground (Neji/Itachi)

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When Neji found Itachi he had been slumped ungracefully over the body of missing-nin, Hoshigaki Kisame, arms wet with blood up to the elbow.

At first Neji had thought the Uchiha was also dead, as his skin was unnaturally pale and a wide red stripe across his neck suggested that his throat had been cut. But as Neji turned the body over and activated the byakugan, he saw that chakra still flowed through Itachi’s body, and when he placed a hand over the still chest, he could feel the sluggish heart beat.

Itachi had not woken once during the time it took to carry him to the small hut he had claimed as his own, had not stirred as Neji cleaned the blood from his body and bandaged the places he was cut. He did awaken, however, when Neji tried to inspect the stripe of red across his neck. Neji traced his fingers along the long line and Itachi’s eyelashes fluttered.

Dark eyes peered muzzily at the strands of dark hair that fell across Itachi’s cheeks and shoulders as Neji examined the wound. Itachi reached up slowly and Neji stiffened, preparing for an attack, but he only took a few strands between his fingers and rubbed them, like a curious child with a new toy.

“Sasuke?” he asked, his voice low and rasping and wet with blood that trickled out in a bead from the corner of his lips.

Neji gently removed his hair from Itachi’s grasp and sat back a bit, letting Itachi see his face.

“No,” he said.

The Uchiha blinked slowly, and Neji watched, fascinated, as the black pupils split and spun into whorls while redness filled the iris and white of the eye. He had never seen the sharingan activate so closely before, or so slowly. After a few seconds, Itachi’s eyes returned to their normal state.

“Oh,” he said, “a Hyuuga.”

Neji watched the man’s shoulders slump, as if this realization was too much for him, and he closed the Uchiha’s eyes with his palm. Then the same hand came up to feel at his own forehead, where there was now smooth, unbroken skin. No scars. Hinata had promised him no scars.

“No,” he murmured to the unconscious Itachi. “Not a Hyuuga. Not anymore.”

As he cleaned the wound on Itachi’s neck, Neji decided that the marking looked more like burns, as if someone had affixed a heated metal collar around Itachi’s throat. He decided that he would keep the Uchiha, for a while. It had been a long time since he had something to care for, something to keep.

After all, they had something in common now.

They both knew the price of their freedom.

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Fin.

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