Konan hoists a paper bag of groceries onto her hip and prays to god she hasn't missed anything on the list. Last time she did that, Tsume just about disembowelled her, and Konan isn't in the mood for a repeat of that, irregardless of the fact that she could just turn to paper if it was tried.
(Tsume wouldn't really be trying to kill her, anyway—Tsume likes her, they wouldn't have gotten married if they didn't like each other. That's grounds for a very unhappy marriage. Konan isn't the kind of person who would ever get married to someone she doesn't like anyway.)
Carefully shoving her way through the crowded market, Konan heads back towards the Inuzuka compound. People part for her in the streets, wary. She'd hate it, except for that she doesn't—her time as a missing-nin is something she's proud of, even if she's now realised that it wasn't the best path to her dream.
She'll be having nightmares about blonde kids in orange jackets for months.
"I'm home!" she calls, shoving the front door open and hitching the paper bag further up on her hip in one smooth movement. Kuromaru's deep, booming barks echo from inside, a warning before the dog himself comes bounding around the corner. Konan only just has time to put the groceries down before she's hit by 80 kgs of dog.
Tsume's laughter comes from somewhere on the other side of Kuromaru's furry bulk, bright and wild and happy, and Konan can't help but smile when she hears it.
"Welcome back," Tsume says, smiles, bright even as she heaves Kuromaru off her. She doesn't even break a sweat.
Konan would never admit it to anyone, (except perhaps Kisame, because Kisame can keep secrets, unlike Hidan) but Senju Tsunade makes a good Kage. She can make the hard choices, when she's pushed, and if Konan suffers for it, well. That's her job. She's a ninja of Konoha, a ninja who used to be a missing-nin, and she's powerful enough that she can take the hard missions, can take the ones with bad info; the ones that they don't expect anyone to return from.
She can take them and come back, and that's what matters, in the end.
So stumbling into the Hokage's office at 11pm, tired and on the verge of Chakra exhaustion but not quite injured—no one's figured out her paper, yet, so she's safe, for now—is a relatively common occurrence, and Tsunade takes her report efficiently, sends her home straight after. Konan goes without complaint, stumbles into the Inuzuka compound half dead on her feet. Akamaru shoves his way out the front door, presses up against her side and whines, soft. Konan lets the dog take her weight, lets him guide her into the house. She digs her fingers into the thick fur at his scruff as he barks, lets out a shaky breath when Kuromaru shoves up on her other side.
When she was a missing-nin, back when the Akatsuki was an organisation that hadn't been absorbed into Konoha by a blonde jinchuriki with an abundance of charisma, she hadn't been able to give in to the exhaustion like this. Hadn't been able to sink onto the couch while Kuromaru bounds up the stairs, hadn't been able to run her fingers through Akamaru's fur while soft barking and voices sound from the floor above.
But she's not a missing-nin anymore, she's not the head of an organisation designed for peace and twisted into murder, and she's still proud of her time as its leader, but she doesn't have to be like that anymore. She hasn't had to be like that for years.
So Konan lets herself fall, exhausted, onto the couch, lets her fingers curl into Akamaru's fur, lets Tsume's voice, softened by sleep, wash over her when she gets downstairs.
"Aw, Angel," she says, "C'mon. Let's get you into the shower."
Konan doesn't remember much after that—just a blur of hot water and Tsume's uncharacteristic gentleness—before she's literally swept off her feet and carried carefully over to their bed.
(It's hotter than it has any right to be, honestly.)
"Konan!" Tsume calls, from somewhere over the other side of the house. It's an irritated kind of call, but not the kind that means she's mad at Konan, the kind that means she's mad at something else.
"Yes?" she calls back, somewhere between wanting to be helpful and wanting to stay with the puppies. The puppies are cute. Konan doesn't spend enough time with them.
"I can't get the blood out of my fucking jounin uniform!" Tsume yells back, and it's louder this time, so she's probably making her way over. Sure enough, she appears at the door, a bundle of dark fabric in her hand and a smear of red across her right cheek. It's a shade darker than her tattoos are, and it's flaking, a bit. Konan cringes. "You're better at this than I am."
"I had practice," Konan offers, because Hidan ruined so many of his cloaks and eventually Kazuku got sick enough of it that he asked Konan to teach Hidan how to wash his clothes. She'd punted him through a wall, of course, because Kisame's actually better at it than she is, but she taught Hidan anyway. She can help Tsume now, instead.
So she does—she gets up, carefully relocates the little black and white puppy perched in her lap, and heads over to her wife, grabbing the hand not occupied by laundry. "Sure," she says, "let's get you washed."
"Get me washed?" Tsume asks, incredulous. "Papercut, you're too much."
She says papercut much the same way people in shitty romances say buttercup, and it makes Konan feel warm inside. She ignores it though, just flashes a quick smile and says, "Have you looked in the mirror recently? You've got a little… something on your cheek."
Tsume's returning smile has far too many teeth to be friendly. It's more attractive than it rightly should be.
"Sometimes work gets a bit messy," she says. Konan snorts, taking the jounin uniform from Tsume's hand. She dumps it in a bucket and stoops to get the stash of vinegar from under the sink. When she opens the bottle, Tsume's nose wrinkles.
"Ugh," she says. Konan laughs again.
"Try to be a bit less messy next time, yeah?"
"Anything for you, papercut," Tsume replies, stretching up just a little to plant a kiss on Konan's cheek. "C'mon. I seem to have recalled something about getting me washed?"
Konan laughs again, far happier than she'd ever been—far lighter than she'd ever felt—while with the Akatsuki, and says, "I did say something about that. You offering to let me help?"
"Hell yes," Tsume grins, and tugs her towards the bathroom.