Bed

Title: Bed (A.K.A. You're Too Nice)

Words: 1529 (Microsoft Word)

Genre: Family/Romance

Pairings: Minato/Kushina

Verse: Promise-verse/Obito Lives AU

Other: Team Minato + Kushina fluffiness.

In the apartment Kushina and Minato shared, there were four rooms. There was a kitchen that sort of extended outward until it became a sitting room, a bathroom, and two bedrooms on opposite ends of the apartment. Aside from the fact that the color red was nearly everywhere in the apartment—picture frames, throw pillows, and handle of the industrial-sized refrigerator—the only unusual pieces of furniture were a couch that could be pulled out until it was a bed, and the coffee table sitting forlornly beside it, which stood crookedly because it had been tripped over so many times.

Minato ran into it every time he came home. He was sure he had a permanent bruise an inch below his right knee because of it. But he never asked Kushina to get rid of it, because it had been one of the few remains of Uzushiogakure, and Minato could never ask her to give up what remained of her home.

Often, Kushina was the only one who spent any time in the apartment. It wasn't something they had noticed at first, but as the war dragged on and Minato was deployed to the front lines more and more, a layer of dust slowly but surely started building up in his room. Kushina still cleaned the place like a duster-wielding fiend, but it didn't change the fact that the blond's room was less lived-in than a tomb. And on the few occasions that Kushina was called out to fight, the apartment sat empty and worryingly silent.

On one of those days, Minato staggered back toward home after an A-rank rescue mission that had nearly turned into an even worse disaster—three wounded chuunin with a dead jounin-sensei, dozens of enemies and no escape routes. He'd blasted most of the attackers to pieces in the first few seconds of the melee, but the medics hadn't gotten to one of the chuunin in time and the mission was a failure to begin with. After taking the two survivors to the hospital and being checked over for exhaustion—he'd been on the move for three days without sleep and it showed—he was sent home.

Minato, knowing that he probably wasn't up to another Hiraishin with his chakra levels as low as they were, walked the entire way.

The village was dark, with only a few shop lights and moonlight to guide him back to his apartment. And yet, Minato had walked this road so many times he could have found his way home blindfolded. He was too exhausted to be worried about it, at any rate.

Finally, the apartment was in sight. Minato fumbled for his key for a moment or two before he found it in his vest pocket. Then he went inside.

Figuring that Kushina was asleep and probably wouldn't appreciate being woken up by the kitchen light, Minato crept toward his room after kicking his sandals off by the door and dropping his vest on the couch (and tripped over that table, again). He almost ended up running into one of the hanging picture frames—one of Minato and his dysfunctional team—in his exhaustion.

Eventually, he managed to find his door in the darkness and, after a moment longer, the doorknob.

He went in, fully intending to collapse in his bed for a week, and stopped dead. For some reason, his bed was already occupied. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, trying to make the image fit into his reality and not make his brain freeze up.

His kids had commandeered his bed.

His students. His minions, as Jiraiya had once put it, who were probably going to get themselves killed before they finished puberty. Together. His bed.

That…it just wasn't making any sense.

The last he'd known, his three students had been more-or-less at each other's throats and not particularly known for camaraderie. Sure, the Kusa mission's near-failure had made it very clear that teamwork was not optional, but he still hadn't expected this.

Obito was taking up the most space, sleeping in the middle with his limbs splayed out all over. His snoring sounded like some kind of hungry wild animal. It was amazing that the other two could actually stay asleep through it.

As for the other two, Kakashi was lying between Obito's arm and the headboard, perpendicular to the other boy and with his legs draped over Obito's stomach. Somehow, Kakashi had ended up with the pillow, too.

Rin, for her part, seemed to have stolen a pillow from the couch outside the room for the sake of it. She was sleeping with her head pinning Obito's arm to the bed, and she'd managed to get most of the blanket as well as a majority of a pillow to herself.

They were pretty much a tangle of adolescent limbs and awkwardness and, when awake, barely concealed hostility. And yet it seemed like all of that had bled away. Why the sudden change?

"They waited up for you," said a voice behind him as he closed the door, and Minato spun around to see Kushina standing there in the dark. She smiled tiredly. "Hey."

Minato smiled back, though sheepishly. "I don't really get why they had to take over my bed, though."

"Neither do I." Kushina said, shrugging. "But you're sure not going to get rid of them now."

Minato hadn't figured he would be able to in the first place. His team was nearly surgically attached to him unless they were sent on a completely different mission. Kusa had spooked them. But he'd still never thought that attachment would apply between them.

"By the way, the couch is still drying out." Kushina added as they walked back to the kitchen. Minato folded his arms on the table and use them for a pillow.

"From what?" Minato asked, his voice muffled.

"Ramen spill." Kushina said with a shrug. She yawned. "How did the mission go?"

"We got the two survivors back to the hospital." Minato replied, looking away.

Minato couldn't explain it, exactly, but the mission had shaken him more than it should have. It was so easy to laugh off the possibility of death when at home, far away from the battlefield, but Minato knew that if he hadn't been able to come back to rescue his team—at any point, not just Kusa and not necessarily against Iwa—they could have ended up like Team Nagi, or what remained of them. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

"Oh," said Kushina.

"Yeah." Minato muttered.

Kushina walked over to him and put her arms around his neck, letting her chin rest on his head. "They're fine, Minato. And as long as we're here, they're going to stay that way. You know that."

"'We'?" Minato repeated blankly, sitting up.

Kushina let go of him and rapped his forehead with her knuckles as soon as she was back on the other side of the table. "Of course, stupid. You really think those kids got in here without me saying it was okay? They're mine, too."

Minato blinked. "'Yours'?"

"…You really need sleep." Kushina said, making a noise between a laugh and a sigh. She hauled him to his feet with one hand. "Come on, time for bed."

"The kids took mine over." Minato mumbled, running his free hand through his hair and yawning widely. "The couch is—"

"I know." Kushina said bluntly. She pulled him past it. "You can use mine."

Minato rubbed his eyes as he was tugged through the door. "Don't you have second and third patrol shift tomorrow? Or is it Tuesday?"

Kushina's room always struck him as terribly neat—not in an organized way, but in a very Kushina way. Everything was in a place she could find it, but no one else would be able to sort through the stacks of scrolls and clothes without trouble. But in her case, he could at least see the floor—he'd been to Obito's house before, back when Team Minato was just forming, and had always wondered how the boy made it through that room at night without tripping over something.

"It's my day off once the sun comes up." Kushina told him as he sat down on her bed and, once lying down, rolled until his back touched the wall. "Scoot over."

He had about half a second to process the order before Kushina pushed him out of the way and crawled into the bed next to him. He ended up with her hair in his face and her head lying on his arm. And then she shifted and, somehow, her face was up against his collarbone and she was pressed against him.

"Night, Minato." Kushina mumbled into his shirt.

And even given that the bed was honestly too small for two adults and someone would probably be kicked out of the bed by daybreak, Minato smiled and pulled Kushina still closer. It worked because she was Kushina and he was Minato and, for once, they had time together that neither of them were willing to waste.

Minato wasn't sure if Kushina heard his quiet, "Good night, Kushina," but it didn't matter. This was enough.

A/N: And the rest...is silence.

Based on a throwaway line in The Promise regarding Team Minato's bed-hijacking tendencies.