Work Text:
When he gets home, the apartment is quiet. It’s never really this quiet. Tsukishima sets his keys on the small table in the kitchen, and hangs his bag on his chair at the table. Well, for all intents and purposes it’s his chair; it’s an unspoken sort of thing, just the way things are done here, that the chair closer to the living room is Tsukishima’s and the one opposite it is Kuroo’s. That’s how it will always be.
Tsukishima rolls his shoulder where his bag had been hanging. It’s been growing increasingly heavy, or so it feels. He’s been busier at work than he’d really like. It was cutting into his time at home.
Speaking of home – where is Kuroo? The house is too quiet. He’s not in the living room or the kitchen, plainly, so if he’s home at all it must be the bedroom. Tsukishima loosens his tie and takes off his belt as he heads down the short hallway to the bedroom they share.
Ah, as suspected. Kuroo is in their bed, sleeping on his side for once. It’s impossible to stop the wave of fondness that washes over Tsukishima at the sight. He always looks smaller when he’s sleeping – especially with his legs curled up close to his body like that. When he’s asleep he has none of the motion that truly makes him come alive. As he is now, his face is relaxed and peaceful, lips parted gently and completely without his usual guile and smirking lips and analyzing eyes. He looks practically innocent.
Tsukishima’s first instinct is to climb in bed and curl up with him, and he doesn’t resist it. He slips into bed behind Kuroo, moving carefully so he doesn’t wake him. He sidles up to Kuroo just close enough that a few centimeters are all that separate their bodies. With his head on the pillow behind Kuroo’s, his nose is pressed close enough to smell Kuroo’s hair and the warm, familiar scent of Kuroo himself. He takes an inhale, soft and deep, driving the worries of his day away with Kuroo’s scent filling his nose.
“You’re noisy.”
Tsukishima nearly jumps out of his skin at the sudden sound of Kuroo’s voice in what should have been silence. It only takes him a moment to recover, and he huffs out an exasperated breath. “I thought you were asleep,” he says.
“I was, until you came barging into the place,” Kuroo says. There’s no malice, no resentment, in his words, just a faint sort of adoration. He reaches a hand back and finds Tsukishima’s, on a combination of instinct and practice. Tsukishima’s hands aren’t freezing, but they’re nowhere near as warm as Kuroo’s, which have been under the covers and gathering Kuroo’s body heat for a considerable amount of time. “How was work?”
“Same old,” Tsukishima says. “You?”
“Same old, same old,” Kuroo says. Tsukishima can’t see his face, but he can hear the grin.
Tsukishima leans forward a little and presses a kiss to the base of Kuroo’s neck. Afterwards he nuzzles his face into Kuroo’s hair, nose pushing at the nape of Kuroo’s neck. A nap doesn’t sound so bad, he thinks. Especially not if he’d get to stay like this for the whole time, with Kuroo so close.
It would have been nice to stay that way, but those things never last with Kuroo. Kuroo twists and turns over in the sheets until he’s facing Tsukishima. He holds Tsukishima’s face in his hands and smiles for a moment before leaning forward and catching him in a kiss. Kuroo’s kiss is soft and sweet and familiar.
“I’m glad you’re home,” Kuroo says when he pulls away. He lets his forehead rest against Tsukishima’s, his breath warm on Tsukishima’s face. One hand strokes down from Tsukishima’s face, across his neck and shoulder and down to rest on Tsukishima’s waist.
“It’s good to be home,” Tsukishima replies. He keeps his eyes on Kuroo’s face – hopefully that will be enough for Kuroo to understand what he’s really trying to say.
“I love you,” Kuroo says.
Hearing those words from Kuroo will never fail to make Tsukishima’s skin tingle, never fail to give him that feeling like when you sink into a warm bath, or when you come home and put on comfortable clothes after a long day. “I love you too.”
They kiss again, utterly undemanding. It’s a simple thing, coming home to your boyfriend. It’s not big or complex or notable, but it’s important all the same. There’s food in the fridge that one of them will cook for dinner soon and there’s dishes in the sink and laundry in the dryer and those should be the sorts of things that make a place home, but the only thing that feels like home more than anything else is Kuroo.