Work Text:
The moon was still high in the sky when Hinata was brutally awoken by a large dog falling full weight on her face. She shook her hair out and touched her cheek where Akamaru had hit her, trying to get together what had transpired. They had told the dog to sleep on the ground, but he never did, always waiting until both Kiba and her were so fast asleep that they couldn’t stop him from cuddling in between them. This is what years of taking your dog to bed got you, he wasn’t listening when you suddenly told him it was no longer possible.
Now that she was awake there was no way that she was going back to sleep any time soon, especially with the way the dog pressed himself against her. She pushed the blanket away, careful not to wake Kiba as she did and got up to go first to the bathroom and then to the kitchen to get something to drink. It was a clear night with no clouds anywhere in sight and the moon full and beautiful at the highest peak of the sky. She could see through the windows that there was frost everywhere outside. IT was probably ice cold outside.
The apartment itself was also cold, they had forgotten to turn the heating on again. Something that was very strange for her when one thought about her upbringing. In her old house she would have never forgotten to turn the fireplace on in her room, especially when it was freezing in winter. The Hyuuga estate house was so old, that no isolation pretty much meant nothing but longing for thick coats in winter.
Hinata's father hadn’t liked it when she made fire in the middle of the night. He had told her to keep it together, learn how to deal with the cold, like a real shinobi would. She knew that several other family members had complained about the quality of the house especially in winter time and while HInata herself never had complained about it, she still got the most criticism for trying to stay warm. This was how it had always been in what she had called home.
She had been especially in trouble when she made fire during summer, but she couldn’t help it, sometimes the house she felt trapped in made her feel cold and lonely and the only way to feel alright was to make a small fire, watch the logs burn their warmth out to her, give her the understanding back that she was in fact an alive human being deserving of comfort. THough she tried to be sneaky about doing it, the times she was found out meant usually that there was some stricter training on the cards for her the next day.
Really, Hinata didn’t know how real warmth felt until Kiba and Akamaru took up every space in her life, waltzing into her heart like they had owned it and offering her cosy place full of devotion and love and cosyness, something she had missed so much before. For this she was eternally grateful.
Kiba was never cold, he ran so hot that sometimes Hinata woke up sweating at night, wondering if he had a fever (which he never did). Inuzuka really were one with their dogs, with their wild hair and sharp teeth, so they also felt warm and cuddly like a dog ought to. The first time Kiba really held her close she instantly felt so warm and while back then she thought that was just because their feelings for each other were mutual, she was still so thankful for the warmth he was giving her.
“I like being close to you,” she said one day when both of them were sitting next to each other on a couch just enjoying each other's company. “You are warm.” Hinata had her eyes closed and head leaned to his shoulder while Kiba was sharpening some kunai in front of her. She wasn’t quite ready then to tell him “I love you” exactly like that, so she repackaged it into something that meant a similar thing to you. She loved Kiba for many things, but she loved him most because with him she never felt cold.
Kiba blushed instantly. “I like being close to you too,” he replied and lightly knocked his head into hers. “Because you are soft.” For a moment she had thought he would mention that she was cold, but instead he had called her soft, something her father had also called her. The only difference was that Kiba meant it as a compliment, he meant it as something he liked about her.
He seemed to like many things about her that her father had told her were not worth the family name she was carrying. How emotional and caring she was, how her strength was not physical but through empathy, how her bravery came from a place of the heart and not the mind. Ever since they had been assigned into a team together he had not been shy of making compliments to her when he noticed her self esteem was low. He was even giving out warmth by words alone, a warmth that Hinata soon got addicted to.
Now, with both Kiba and his dog living with her, or rather, her being allowed to live with them, she kept forgetting to turn the heating on or light a fire, mostly because both of them were always around her, their warm nature rubbing off on her. It was like she had never really been warm until she had opened up to the two of them, until they allowed her to come into their lives, their hearts and their bed. Even if that meant the dog should, technically, sleep on the floor.
Hinata walked over to the heater and turned it on, at least a little. No matter how little she felt the cold now, the room needed the heat otherwise who knew if the water in the sink would freeze someday. The radiator jump started and gave off its usual buzzing. She held her hand over it, waiting for it to heat up her cold fingers again. From the bedroom she could hear a loud snore, not sure if it was Kiba or his dog, either way, it made her laugh quietly.
For a while she just stood there, watching the frost glitter on the rooftops of the village with the full moon illuminating the streets like an especially bright headlight. She had always hated winter for the cold nights that left her sleepless, but ever since she had moved out she had started appreciating what people found so wonderful about it. Just a month ago she had stood right here, Kiba’s arm slung around her centre, and watched the snow fall slowly. It had almost felt like out of a story book.
Maybe, she thought sometimes, winter had not been the problem. Maybe the cold and oppressive thing had been the house itself.
She rubbed her toes together and realised that she missed the comfort of her bed, with her boyfriend warming her on one side and his dog warming her from the other. There was no way Akamaru would move to the floor again, now that he had so eloquently thrown himself onto the bed. The only person that could make him was Kiba and it was evident from the snore that he was sleeping peacefully. Hinata’s only choice would be to climb head first under a blanket into the bed again and press herself between them.
With a last look at the moon she brought the glass back into the kitchen and then turned to get back to the bedroom. Just like she had suspected, Akamaru had fully rolled to the other side of the bed, the one she had still comfortably been able to get out of earlier. She giggled a little at the sight in front of her, with both wild boys at the edges of the bed with their limbs hanging down. They were both so cute, she thought, that sometimes there was a real advantage to having a sharingan that could capture memories forever.
She lifted the blanket, climbed beneath it back to her pillow, squeezed herself between Kiba and Akamaru and closed her eyes. It didn’t take long for the wonderful warmth to return to her.