Sway

Archive: Just ask.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. That honor belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.
Warning: Graphic imagery of a violent nature.

Neji wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. He was certain, however, that this was most definitely not it.

Naruto looked about ready to kill something. And being a shinobi, the look generally transferred to someone. He’d insisted that the brunette not go anywhere – though Neji didn’t want to be anywhere else. And so, the pair found themselves whittling away the hours. Both, in a profound amount of pain. For Naruto, it was physical. For Neji, it was emotional. Though both tried to hide it from the other, after several hours, they stopped trying.

“Get it out,” snarled Naruto, voice huskier than Nanako’s had any right to be. No one seemed to notice, however. They patted at the blonde’s forehead, and fluffed his pillows. The midwife stroked lean, trembling thighs.

“Shhh…” she soothed. “The baby will come soon, Nanako-san.”

“That’s what you said two hours ago!” snapped Naruto. He whined, and rolled his hips, swaying from side to side for a few minutes.

“Seiichi-san,” said the elderly woman, looking up at him.

It took Neji a few moments to realize she was speaking to him. Honestly, he had no idea how to handle a situation like this. He’d seen worse things, he supposed. Evisceration, and the like. All types of body fluids, and what organs looked like hanging out of the sides of comrade or enemy bodies. He’d had to wade through blood soaked swamps. And climb the red slicked side of buildings.

He’d seen fists go through chests, and kunai go through eyes, and decapitation. Neji had seen more corpses than he could count. Some bloated, others dry and collapsing. Bodies that were burnt beyond recognition, and bodies that were hollowed out by insects. He’d seen people be rent limb from limb. He’d seen it literally ‘rain’ body parts.

All of that, he could handle. He was calm, and collected. He’d been trained for situations such as those. They’d been a part of his everyday life ever since he’d been made Jounin. Sure, it had only been a few years, yet given combat, Neji was quite certain he could overcome anything.

Anything, that is, but this.

This…he wasn’t trained for this! There should have been some training, somewhere for something like this! How could he possibly go through such an intense situation without training?! If he just had the basics…Then, maybe…

He looked down, as hands gently squeezed his forearm.

“Seiichi-san. Breathe.”

He heard Naruto chuckle, as the midwife demonstrated. He followed, and noted how Naruto’s amused snort broke off in the middle, evolving into a sharp inhale.

“Nanako has asked that you be here. So I will need you to be strong, for she is looking to you to be strong. Can you be strong for her?”

Neji looked down at his lover. Naruto’s face was flushed a heavy red, even for his tan skin. His brows were drawn tightly together; teeth set in a grimace. His sparkling eyes were dull with pain and closed tightly against the surge.

The muscles of his neck were bunched together, appearing thick and corded against the thinner skin of his female form. Shoulders hunched, and back bowed. His legs trembled violently, as he tried not to thrash. Hands clawing the sheets so deeply, he was leaving ragged trenches in the fabric.

Naruto was a shinobi.

He had seen about as many horrible things as himself. He had experienced about as many different kinds of pain. From the slice of kunai and katana, to the heavy set of fist or foot, to the crackle of chakra against his skin. Neji, in fact, recalled injuring him quite thoroughly, in the Chunin exams they had taken together as children.

Naruto had survived all of that. As well as having a hole blown clear through his chest. He had even almost died once. Neji internally shivered. He had almost lost him, before he even knew how wonderful it could be to have him.

Yes, Naruto had survived all of that. He had survived Uchiha Sasuke, and Uchiha Itachi, and he would survive this. But my, did it look painful…For Naruto to be so open about it; it surely had to be quite painful. Or perhaps, it was all for the guise of Nanako.

As Naruto dropped back, panting, eyes rolling back and eyelids closing, Neji decided it was the former. Leaning down, he stroked back the dazzling hair that clung to his lover’s damp brow, kissing his temple. It was a moment, as Naruto squeezed his hand reassuringly, before Neji looked back at the long-lived woman.

He nodded, and she smiled softly, nodding back.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Neji forced himself to concentrate only on Naruto and his needs. He fought desperately to keep himself from activating his byakugan, and corralled the urge to arm himself.

Naruto had been in labor for twelve hours, and had finally slowed to a crash. His chest heaved, his body stretched to its limits. It was all Neji could do, to help him keep the chakra back. Running him through Konoha mantras that cleared and focussed his mind.

The midwife had tried to keep their hopes up, though Neji wasn’t quite sure why. He understood this was supposed to be a wonderful, joyous occasion. And he was sure it was. It just didn’t feel like it, this close to it all.

After telling Naruto to get some rest, while she finished readying for the baby’s arrival, she had left them alone. For a time, Neji listened to the uneven breathing, doing his best to smooth out bunching muscles, and soothe heated skin.

They didn’t speak.

It was as if, they were on an extra sensitive mission. Communicating through gestures, and actions. They acted as if they were back in Konoha, after a mission. Waiting for the verdict. Whether they would be praised, or docked pay. It was reassuring, in its own way.

“Neji,” Naruto whispered, suddenly breaking the silence.

Neji looked at him and replied with a quirking of his mouth.

Naruto sighed. “When all of this is over…I just…want you to know…”

“I know,” he replied, stroking back glistening hair.

The blonde’s brows rose softly. “You do?”

He nodded.

“Good,” he said, sinking back.

“And do you?” asked Neji.

Naruto peeked up at him through heavy lashes. “Do I, what?”

“Know.”

“Know what?”

“That I…” He waved his hands in an odd sort of rolling motion, unable to continue, with the way Naruto stared back. And then the blonde cracked a smile. One that began to widen at an alarming rate.

Neji exhaled through his teeth, and his lover laughed.

“Yea,” he replied, patting Neji’s forearm. “I know.”

“Good.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence.

“Neji?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Neji would have asked him ‘What for?’, but he already knew. After all, it was the same for him.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


It would be another two hours, before the midwife had Naruto positioned for pushing. “All right,” she said, settling herself between long, curved legs. “Let us see this lovely child.”

Naruto pushed for forty-five minutes straight, before there were any results. And by the time the baby was crowning, the blonde was snarling, body glowing with a fine sheen of red chakra. Thankfully, it was sunset, and the shades were angled so the dying rays of the sun slipped in at odd angles. Only Neji, with his training, and personal knowledge of the blonde could tell.

It seemed a miracle that the almost menacing chakra didn’t injure anyone. Though Neji longed to activate his byakugan and try to see if he could shut it down with Jyuuken – Naruto’s chakra pool was generally unresponsive to it, but he could always try - there was simply no time. The audience of non-shinobi aside, the baby’s head had cleared, and before he even had time to process that, with one last, mighty push, the baby was free.

Neji felt his heart flood with emotion, his body go weak, at the sound of a squalling infant. Never, in his entire life, had he so longed to hear such a sound.

Naruto flopped backward into the bed, with a heavy exhale. His chest rose and fell sharply, but Neji could see his mind clearing. His body moving to heal itself in that strange way of his. The afterbirth dropped free as if shoved out by an unhappy tenant. As the baby was cleaned, checked and swaddled, Neji dropped down beside the blonde.

“Are you okay?” he whispered, smoothing back his hair.

The blonde shook his head.

Gripping Neji’s arm, he managed, “I can’t…hold…it…anymore.”

Understanding, and with an odd flare igniting in his gut, Neji stood abruptly, and forcefully removed everyone. There was a lot of complaining, and though he would likely be scolded greatly by their doctor later, he made sure they were aware that going back in would be hazardous to their health. The fact that he managed it without having to actually threaten anyone made the process less damaging toward their future, limited though it may be.

He saw everyone out, before returning to the midwife, who was cradling their sleeping baby. Neji froze in the doorway. Kami-sama…it was real.

It had been easy to think of themselves as becoming parents, as the months went by. Naruto’s belly continually growing. The baby kicking and thrashing about. And though they had known inherently, where it was all leading. Nothing could quite have prepared the Hyuuga for the feeling.

He was a father.

He was a father.

Dear Kami-sama, above.

He was a father.

“Thank you, so very much, Sunako-sama,” he said, suddenly, bowing deeply in thanks.

“It was a pleasure, Seiichi-san.”

Neji smiled unguardedly, a bright, happy smile he had probably picked up from Naruto. He would have to hide it before they returned home. But, for now, it was all right. Right now, it was perfectly satisfactory.

The elderly woman smiled softly at him, her smile only slightly strained.

Neji felt something plummet into his stomach. “What is it?” he asked, feeling the panic rise in his chest. “What’s wrong?”

“Your son is perfectly healthy,” she began, and Neji hardly heard the rest, because he was busy doing a strange, giddy dance of victory in his head. “But, I am afraid…he is blind, Seiichi-san. I’m sorry.”

Neji cocked his head, brows furrowing. As he crossed over to them, he asked, “How can you tell? He’s a newborn.”

“It is the eyes, I am afraid,” she replied.

Neji took the child as she offered him. Slowly, she parted a tiny eyelid. “Do you see how the pupil has been swallowed, by this shinning gray?”

He swallowed hard, and nodded.

“He will never see,” she finished.

Neji nodded, and thanked her again, before seeing her out.

After closing the door, he leaned against it for a moment, holding the baby close. “She’s wrong, you know,” he told him, dispelling his own henge. It was almost as if he could feel the sudden weight of both his recognizable eyes, and glaringly obvious seal. “You’ll see. You’ll see everything around you.”

His son’s eyelids fluttered softly as if in recognition, and Neji straightened.

“I’ll be honest with you, my son,” he said, loving the weight of the word on his tongue, and wanting to use it as many times as possible, before he could never say it again. “Life will be hard, and there will be those who will hurt you. But, if you let them, there will be plenty of people who will help ease the way. And they will love you. Oh, how they’ll love you. Takashi.”