#hard no. if this ever happened id be fairly irritated because all my characters are as they are for a reason

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Chapter: 3/7 Word count: 2372 Summary: Now attending the university here in their hometown as he begins his Master’s, Tobirama develops a problem with falling asleep in the strangest of places. Madara, poor innocent never-deserved-any-of-this Madara, gets mistaken for a mattress one too many times. All he wanted to do was focus on his career but instead he finds himself forcibly tasked with herding his secret crush towards better sleep habits. It’s driving him up the wall.

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KO-FI in the blog header!

Chapter 2: Acceptance and Denial - A Madara Special 

“Again?” Madara very much hoped everyone present could hear just how much exhaustion he was projecting in that one single word. Because he was. He was exhausted of this entire stupid game.

Tobirama shrugged, looking entirely too comfortable on his bench inside the holding cell. Asuma was holding in a fit of giggles as he unlocked the cage door and swung it open with a flourish that Madara felt was just uncalled for. He made sure to send his coworker a venomous glare before he stormed inside and took hold of Tobirama’s arm, dragging him away from the actual criminals milling around inside.

“What was it this time?” he demanded. “Another bench? Some poor old lady’s front stoop?”

“Neither. I was sleeping on the front steps of the library – quite uncomfortably, I might add.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Without looking Madara paused to shove his fist in the gut of another officer passing by when they laughed openly at the sight of Tobirama. The man was infamous around the station now. No one really bothered to try and charge him with anything but his fellow officers found a great deal of amusement in picking Tobirama up off the street wherever they happened to find him sleeping and then calling Madara in to come get him.

It was nice getting off work early so often but it was galling to know they were all laughing at him behind his back. Tobirama didn’t seem to care one way or another. All he cared about was whether or not his schoolwork came with him when he got taken in. Apparently the research he was doing for his thesis paper was more important than his reputation or the fact that Hashirama was clearly beginning to worry for him.

“Here’s the plan. I am going to take you back to your own apartment. Then you are going to lie down in your own fucking bed and sleep on an actual mattress like a regular human being. Did you get all that or do I need to break it down in to simpler sentences?”

“They shut off the heating in my apartment,” Tobirama mentioned casually. Madara paused in his steps to look at him in horror, to which he only shrugged. “My building manager says if I am never home then he might as well not waste the money since my rent is all inclusive. Apparently he doesn’t like heating empty homes.”

“He can’t do that!” Madara screeched.

“Well he did.”

“But it’s so illegal! I should – UGH! Come on.” Resuming his steps, Madara pulled Tobirama along behind him like a dog on a leash. “I’ll buy you a space heater if I have to. I’ll arrest that asshole if I have to. But you are going home to get a god damn good night’s rest!”

His own stomping footsteps seemed to echo all the more loudly in comparison to the serene way Tobirama floated along behind him but Madara was shamefully used to it so it didn’t bother him too much. Since it was clear he wouldn’t have much luck shaming Tobirama in to feeling guilty for his part in all this stupidity he kept himself reined in to just muttering darkly under his breath as he packed the younger man in to his personal car and wished he hadn’t promised Shisui that he wouldn’t take the squad car home again. The seats in his shitty sedan were much less comfortable.

The ride over to Hashirama’s was filled with bickering. Tobirama sort of wanted to go back to the library but Madara would hear nothing about it, not when the idiot clearly needed some more rest. Neither of them even bothered to suggest the apartment without heat again. Hashirama still had a bedroom set up for Tobirama to stay in when he could make it all the way passed the couch and Madara very much intended to see him tucked in to it before he left.

No one was home when they walked in – not surprising since it was the middle of the day, both occupants were still at work. Madara ignored his companion’s grumbling as they marched upstairs together and engaged in a quick staring contest at the bedroom door.

“What are you gonna do, throw me under the sheets?” Tobirama asked sarcastically.

“If I have to,” Madara snapped back. The other man paused to think of something to say to that. Evidently he couldn’t come up with anything because he ended the pause with a huff and stormed in to the room, dropping down on the mattress and pulling the blankets over himself with an irritable flourish.

“There. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Madara drawled. “Now fucking sleep. Who knows how long it will be until my fellow officers stop finding this funny and actually hit you with a charge for vagrancy? Get some rest before I pop a vein over you!”

He had to close the door quickly to avoid Tobirama’s eyebrow of judgement, pausing in the hallway to roll his eyes and then hurrying downstairs to his car so he could get back to work. His shift wasn’t over yet. If his Captain found out how much time he was spending away from work lately just to deal with this recurring problem he could get suspended or reassigned. After finally working his way off the nightshift he really didn’t want to go back to it.

Driving back to the office was too quiet now that he had no one to argue with and took too long without the squad car and the lights that got him a free pass through every stoplight. He did manage to slip back in to his desk chair just before the Captain stepped out of his office to hand out a couple new assignments. Madara let Shisui grab theirs and quietly followed along, trying not to look like he’d only just got back from an unauthorized personal errand. It earned him a funny look because he’d never been all that great of a deceiver, too emotional is his own stunted way to put much effort in to lying, but the Captain didn’t ask him any questions so he counted that one as a win.

The assignment given to them turned out to be a false alarm so Madara and his cousin spent the last half of their shift out on the streets for foot patrol. After the seventh little old lady who told him he was a sweet boy for serving his city he started to feel a little bit better, like his mood was finally turning around.

“So, tell me something,” Shisui said while they were paused on a street corner to keep an eye on some suspicious characters across the way. “Are you ever going to do something about him?”

“About who?”

“Oh, you know, that guy you have a massive crush on that keep showing up at the station.” Shisui stuck his tongue out between his teeth and grinned. Madara made sure no one was watching before he reached up and flicked that exposed tongue.

“Mind your own business,” he growled.

Shisui had to pause and flap his hands in pain, unable to soothe his tongue in any way, but when he was finally calm again he went right back to sniggering. “No way! Don’t you love your poor cousin enough to share some gossip?”

“Alright, how’s this for gossip: I’m fairly sure that was Sakura who dropped you off at work this morning, which means you did not stay at your own place last night.”

“Woah, hey, I meant gossip about you.”

“Mhm. I know you did.”

His cousin subsided with a pout which Madara echoed without realizing. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t like to do something about his feelings for Tobirama. Certainly he found the younger man fascinating, not to mention deliciously attractive, but he was all too aware that Tobirama’s views on him didn’t extend much farther than a walking hot water bottle and occasional Sibling Distracter.

A hand bopped him on the shoulder and Madara scowled, wiping off the imaginary dirt transfer.

“For real, though. You’re really not going to ask him out?” Shisui tilted his head in question. Everyone in their family knew Madara wasn’t usually the type to be hesitant about the things he wanted.

“There’s no point,” Madara huffed. “He’s not interested. Now drop the subject.”

“Alright, alright, fine. You wanna take one last swing around Central Park before heading back? I think those kids had something on them when they went in there; we should check it out at least.”

Shisui’s instincts were at least right about that. They ended up arresting two young punks for possession and calling backup on the third who tried to do a runner when he was caught selling. It took a while to get them all down to the station and make sure they all understood their rights because the two buyers were so out of their minds they hardly seemed to understand what was going on. Obviously they had been sampling the merchandise as they bought it.

Finally the kid that was selling got fed up and demanded his lawyer, at which point they were required to stop talking to him. Madara was almost grateful enough to thank his cousin when Shisui offered to stay after shift to wait for the counsel to get there. He managed to resist the urge but it was a close call.

He was just filling out the last bit of paperwork and getting ready to head home for dinner when his phone went off and he answered it without thinking, not even bothering to check the caller ID or see if it was a recognized number.

“Madara,” he grunted.

“I didn’t sleep,” Tobirama’s voice announced.

“Seriously!? I put you to bed hours ago!” When he noticed the dangerous grip he’d taken on his pencil Madara made sure to set it down carefully so he didn’t stab the paperwork he’d just spent so much time preparing.

“Well I couldn’t sleep.” If he listened hard enough he could probably hear Tobirama’s uncaring shrug. “I find an empty bed to be both cold and not soothing. I’m sure you know why I called.”

Madara dropped his face in to his free hand. “Yeah. I know.”

“Good. Then come over immediately. I’ve had an amazing increase in productivity each time I slept on top of you and I have a very important paper due soon that I would like to recreate those effects for. When should I expect you?”

“Just…ugh. I’ll pick up something to eat on the way, give me twenty minutes.”

“Acceptable.”

Tobirama hung up and Madara dropped the rest of his upper body on to the desk in defeat. He stirred when someone patted him sympathetically on the back but shook the gesture off and stood up to shoo his partner away. Getting upset about it wasn’t going to help the fact that he knew he was going to cave this easily every time Tobirama asked him to do this – and he also knew that the man had no idea the havoc and inconvenience he was causing. It just wasn’t in his nature to notice things outside of his immediate focus.

Feeling like a man walking to his own doom, Madara slumped back down to the garage and flopped back inside his sedan, heading for the nearest fast food place that sold something he could eat with one hand while driving. Technically he was breaking the law by doing so, engaging in distracted driving, but he knew the people currently on shift and he knew none of them would ever bother to pull someone over for possession of a burger.

When he arrived at Hashirama’s house for the second time that day he sat in the driveway for a couple of minutes, parked beside Mito’s stylish little compact, and let his head rest against the steering wheel while he gave himself a little pep talk.

He fully expected to find Tobirama still in bed just staring at the ceiling or to be met at the top of the stairs and dragged in to the same room he had deposited his favorite idiot in to earlier. Instead he was surprised to open the door and find two haggard eyes staring balefully at him from half a dozen feet down the hall, like a vulture lying in wait. He barely had time to strip off his jacket and belt before Tobirama had claws in his arm dragging him in to the living room.

Since there was no point in doing so he didn’t bother to offer any protests while he was shoved down on to the couch and pushed over sideways. The only reaction he offered was a sigh as he made sure he landed on his back and looked around to ensure the TV remote was close enough to reach this time.

“I can’t sleep with you every night, you know,” he grumbled. Tobirama melted over his chest like liquid human.

“Quiet, couch. You can and you will.”

Madara rolled his eyes. “Wonderful. Now I don’t even have a name.”

“Shhhhhhhh.”

He shushed because he was a smart man unwilling to incur the wrath of a fledgling mad scientist but he didn’t have to like it. Madara spent the half hour it took the other man to fall asleep himself trying to decide if it was worth asking Hashirama to interfere. Which, he thought, should have been a great indicator for how desperate this situation made him feel.

No matter what happened, he had to stay strong. This absolutely had to be the last time this happened.  

Hashirama wandered in to the room at some point, clearly with the intention of watching television, but he stopped and assumed a blank expression when he spotted them lying on his couch yet again. Madara wasn’t sure he had even realized they were both in the house.

“Is this a thing now?” he asked plaintively. Madara would have shrugged but it would have disturbed the man on top of him.

“Apparently.”

Then he dropped his head back, closed his eyes, and settled in to wait for sleep to claim him as well.

#rae writes #madatobi #madara #tobirama #shisui #fanfiction