♚
captein-oblivious
Once a month was movie night. Granted there were times they didn’t manage it but more often than not, despite both of their schedules, they did. It was a precious time, something just for the two of them and over the years it had become even more guarded and sacred as their lives had both sped up and sped outward.
They took turns on who was allowed to pick the movie and Minato had cringed through his fair share just as much as Naruto had moaned through his - but it was never really about the movies themselves. It was simply the chance to have an evening entirely for just the two of them, when they were allowed to leave the world outside the door and eat bad for them food and watch probably just as bad for them movies and simply unwind together until they had nothing left to do but be themselves. Sometimes they ended up talking late into the night and sometimes there were no words at all. It was still the same. Precious. Just theirs.
Bowl of mostly empty popcorn in his lap, the disastrous but surprisingly tasty result of an attempt to make caramel corn that had gone awry and far too many empty soda cans at his feet, Minato squinted at the TV screen and tried his hardest to decide if a movie called Sharknado was the best or worst idea in movie history. Right now he was leaning toward the first - but he was aware he was really, really tired and probably had too much caffeine and sugar in his system. Turning his head he opened his mouth to ask his son’s opinion - just as his son slumped over and only Minato’s instinctive reaction to save the popcorn kept Naruto from ending with wearing the bowl.
That… answered that question, Minato supposed with a crooked smile, setting the bowl aside as far to the side as his arm would reach while his teenage son snored again, head awkwardly wedged against his father’s side. This time it wasn’t the sugar and caffeine talking. Minato knew he was proud of his son. Shifting slightly, knowing that once Naruto was down, he was down for the night, he brought his legs up to the outside and let his son make pillow out of his stomach, shifting backward himself and stealing a couch cushion to use as a pillow himself. A little bit of blind searching found him the blanket on the back of the couch and he managed to get it partially unfolded, enough to drape most of it over his sleeping son. Naruto had been - much smaller the last time they’d both fallen asleep on the couch like this but Minato wasn’t going to regret it. Soon enough his son would be grown and on his own and Minato didn’t expect movie nights to last much beyond that. These times - they were precious to him. Reaching down he tenderly ruffled his son’s hair before shutting his own eyes. On the screen people did disastrous things with chainsaws but Minato didn’t manage to stay awake long enough to notice.
