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raendown · 4 years

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Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4307 Chapter: 16/? Summary: Not all wars are fought on the battlefield. Some are fought at the conference table, with whispers in the shadows, or even in the bedroom.

In a world where the Senju and Uchiha traditional lands were too far apart to have ever made them enemies, Butsuma and Tajima are the ones who come together and sign a treaty of peace. Madara isn’t happy to have his life signed away for him in a political marriage to strengthen the bond between their clans. He is even less happy to have Tobirama make assumptions of him from their very first night together. What follows from there is a journey of healing, of learning, and finding the places to belong in the places least expected.

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Chapter 16

They were tired and hungry, their bodies sore, both of them bleeding sluggishly from at least three places each, but Tobirama took a mild sort of satisfaction from the fact that Izuna looked utterly ridiculous with his long ponytail drying in to a stiff cast of mud. He tried not to imagine what his own head looked like but, still, no matter how stupid he looked it could not possibly compare with the hard little tail hanging from the back of his partner’s head.

Chakra flared in the distance and Tobirama struggled up from where his body had almost entirely merged with the thick mud cradling them. Loud, wet suction noises announced his movement and Izuna groaned but did not look up to watch him crawl his way over to the entrance of their hiding spot. He’d told his mission partner they were taking shelter in a cave but in reality he had shoved their battered bodies down in to a hollow area he’d found underneath one of the massive redwoods that made up the forest surrounding the capital city. Their dirty little cavern had only one entrance, easily disguised by stuffing it full of branches and leaves, but in the fog of exhaustion and pain Tobirama realized he’d forgotten to conceal their chakra.

“Abandoner,” Izuna mumbled, barely enough energy left to speak let alone work himself up for a proper accusation.

“I’m not leaving,” Tobirama said. “I’m just- do we have anything sharp left?”

“Your needle?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

A minute of digging brought out the needle he’d used to sew Izuna’s wounds shut. Now he turned it around and dug it in to the wood of the tree, carving a chakra dampening seal in to the root closest to the blocked entrance. Honestly he wasn’t sure either of them even had enough chakra left for someone to sense them without standing on their heads but it was better to be safe than sorry.

When his carving was done he let his body slump back down in to the mud again. Dirty and cold it might be but it was also surprisingly comfortable, something that should probably worry him a lot more than it did. If he had more energy for such thoughts he was sure this situation would seem a lot more serious but right at that moment the only pressing matter on his mind was whether or not he could fall asleep yet and whether Izuna would still be alive when he woke up again.

“How much blood do you think you’ve lost?” he asked. Izuna grunted.

“Dunno. Lots. Probably more than a liter.”

“Ah, you’ll be fine. So long as the bleeding is at least slowing down then we should be able to get some rest before we get the fuck out of here.” Tobirama let his eyes fall closed with a heavy sigh.

Squelching noises accompanied by a few irritable grunts almost convinced him to open his eyes again but Izuna fell still again quickly, clearly giving up on whatever he’d been trying to do. Probably roll over. In the silence that followed it was all too easy to let the dim lighting and the heaviness of his limbs work together to pull him down under the veil of consciousness. Tobirama didn’t so much fall asleep as he did pass out with an utter lack of dignity.

He woke again an undetermined amount of time later. By the solid darkness in their hole he supposed it must be night, although he couldn’t have said whether it was that same night or if they had slept for more than twenty-four hours. Either option seemed as likely as the other. A quick internal scan told him that his body hadn’t recovered quite as much as one might hope but he felt a few steps farther away from death’s door and that was a victory at the very least. It did take a bit of extra effort to free his head from the mud cast that had dried around him as he slept but eventually he was able to haul himself up in to a sitting position and look around for Izuna, forming a weak tongue of flame with a single hand sign.

Covered in dirt as they had both been when they crawled in here, he almost thought Izuna had disappeared so well did the man blend in. It was seeing the faintest reflection on the necklace he always wore that differentiated Izuna from the rest of the lumpy mud. Tobirama fought to free the rest of himself from the dried mess and crawled over to shake his brother in law gently.

No response. Whether that was because he was just too tired or too unconscious Tobirama couldn’t say without a medical diagnosis. Too tired himself to think of a better plan, he figured the best thing to do was for them both to get out of here and at least get some fresh air, maybe dunk themselves in a river if he could find one. Surely all the rain that churned up so much mud would have collected in a few pools here and there. For once the heavy fall rains were good for something other than keeping him awake at night. Breaking Izuna out of his earthen cast took a while with so little strength in his arms and Tobirama had to give himself a few minutes rest before dragging the man’s unresponsive body up out of their hole.

If he hadn’t been monitoring Izuna’s chakra for fluctuations with what little he had gained back himself Tobirama would have suspected it was deliberate that the man chose to finally wake up just as he got them both out in to the open air. After all that hard work he couldn’t decide if he was thankful or irritated to see dark eyes fluttering open and cracking the brown film of dirt that had dried over top of them.

“What in all the bloody hells did I drink last night?” was his first question. Tobirama paused.

“Nothing. Which is bad. Dehydration. We need to find water.” Ironic when last night it had dripped from every surface around them. Autumn was such a garbage season.

“Can I go back to sleep?”

Squinting in the darkness, his light gone out since he needed both hands for all that manual labor, Tobirama wondered if his partner had a concussion after yesterday’s battle. “No sleeping. We already slept. We’re going to find water and I’m dunking you in it.”

Amazingly, Izuna failed to argue with him for the first time since they set off on this god-forsaken mission nearly a week before. If he hadn’t been worried about a concussion before he certainly was now. Up until their track and observation mission ended up in an ambush they barely escaped with their lives Izuna had been questioning his every word and choice, sometimes for no viable reason other than that he seemed determined to fan the flames of his own hatred. It was honestly quite tiring to deal with and if Tobirama hadn’t promised himself he would try to make nice they would have come to blows with each other days ago.

Now there was nothing but silence as he sluggishly worked Izuna’s deadweight on to his own back like a meaty knapsack and staggered forward with lumbering steps. Soft breathing ruffled the few strands of hair that weren’t plastered and dried to base of his neck. For the first little while his only clue that Izuna hadn’t fallen unconscious again was the miniscule fluctuations in his barely-there chakra whenever something caught his interest or a misstep caused pain to flare through both of their bodies. Eventually Tobirama realized his own eyes were drooping as well and if he didn’t find something to distract him he might pass out himself, probably sending them both crashing against a tree.

He didn’t really want to talk about this disaster of a mission, though. The less time spent thinking about yesterday’s ambush the better. Which, of course, left him with very few conversation options so it was no surprise that he turned first to the only thing they seemed to have in common.

“What was he like as a child?”

“Nn?”

“Madara. What was he like when you two were young?”

Silence dragged on after his question to the point when he began to wonder if Izuna were simply ignoring him. Then finally there came a quiet huff of amusement from beside his ear. “He was a dick. Liked to throw me in the koi pond behind our house whenever I was winning an argument.”

Tobirama smiled, almost surprised he still remembered how to.

“A bully, then?”

“No, not really. He just didn’t like it when I was right because he was older and he thought that made him right all the time. I think…he wanted me to know that he would always protect me but he tried to show that by always knowing more, always being stronger, and as a kid that was just really annoying.” Izuna shifted against his back. Tobirama wondered what he was doing for a moment before he realized the man was laughing quietly.

Eager to know more, he prompted his companion to keep going. “Sounds like he was pretty protective of you.”

“He still is,” Izuna mumbled. “He worries over the smallest papercut, he asks if I’m eating right all the time, he’s always reminding me that I can come talk to him if I ever need to. Yeah he can be grumpy and his social skills could definitely use a bit of polish but I’ve never doubted that he loves me. Not once.”

“That sounds nice,” Tobirama admitted wistfully.

“It is. He is.” After pausing for a minute to think he added in a tone that suggested he had almost forgotten who he was talking to for a minute, “You don’t deserve him.”

Whatever reaction he was waiting for, he didn’t get it. Tobirama had hoped they could stretch out the good will for a little longer but he hadn’t bothered to let his hopes get too high. The half-hearted attack was more than anticipated.

“I think I deserve to be happy just like everyone else, although I would agree with you that I haven’t done as much as I should to earn his good will.”

“Damn straight,” Izuna said. He sounded irritated that he hadn’t been able to start a fight.

“You know he would be much happier if we didn’t scream at each other quite so much.” Although he knew the other couldn’t see him, lifting one of his eyebrows in a pointed expression was like a natural instinct.

“Go fuck yourself,” Izuna retorted almost cheerfully. “He would be happier if he wasn’t trapped with you for the rest of his life. Don’t talk about deserving happiness with me. You want him happy? Then let him go. Let him find someone that he actually wants to be with; then he’ll be happy.”

Tobirama didn’t answer at first. He forced his legs to continue stumbling on while he let his thoughts settle, unsteady beneath their combined weight yet refusing to give in so easily. There had to be some water around here somewhere, his instincts told him that he was close and his instincts had never lied about water, not once in his life. It was easier to think about how nice it would be to finally rid his body of all the dirt crusting his skin rather than what Izuna had said to him, especially so since it was something he had already spent a great deal of time thinking about and he had come to his own conclusions a long time ago.

“It is the tradition of my clan to allow an arranged partnership to seek divorce after five years. If, when that time arrives, Madara still wishes to be free of me then I will not stand in the way of him seeking his own path.” He wondered if he should make that more clear to his husband or if bringing it up would only remind the man of how trapped he was for the time being.

“Wait, seriously? Just like that?”

“Much as you seem to enjoy painting me as the villain, yes. Just like that. This match was made originally to cement our clans together but I don’t think either of our fathers could have anticipated just how well the Senju and the Uchiha would integrate. Give our people less than a year and I don’t think anyone will even remember what it was that kept them together in the first place. Certainly none of them would turn their heads if Madara and I…ended our marriage.” Just saying it made all the deepest parts of his insides ache but he refused to allow his voice to waver.

“Ha! See! I knew you didn’t care about him at all! You just married him because you were told to!”

“Of course I only married him because I was told to! We’d never met!” Tobirama scowled down the forest path ahead of them. “It’s what I grew up expecting to do. That is how things are done in the Senju clan. We’re told who to marry and then we make it work.”

Izuna scoffed. “Disgusting.”

“Just because it’s different doesn’t make it disgusting,” Tobirama snapped back.

Then he snapped his head to the left and barely held in a whine of longing. Water. He could feel the water in that direction. He changed course without even thinking about it.

“Doesn’t matter what you say, I think the whole practice is gross. But whatever. As long as Madara has a way out of this garbage then I guess I can put up with you for a few years.” Izuna sniffed delicately. He sure had a lot of attitude for someone entirely reliant on the person they were sassing.

“How generous of you,” Tobirama ground out.

A few steps later they closed their eyes to let a few low hanging boughs brush over them and then there it was, the most glorious sight either of them had ever set their eyes upon even in such low lighting. It wasn’t a very large stream, not even deep enough to go over their heads if they sat down, but the burbling water was crystal clear and it was perfect for two exhausted men who could barely stand the thought of keeping themselves upright for a second longer.

Tobirama staggered drunkenly as he splashed in to the center and a few new bruises blossomed on his knees when they folded to send him crashing down with Izuna still heavy across his back. A sigh of near ecstasy parted his lips as cool water rushed over him. It was almost more than he could process just to keep them both from lying flat out and drowning themselves in blissful relief. Behind him Izuna groaned and rolled away, the first movement he’d made for himself since waking up. The two of them splashed and rolled and rubbed at all the most important spots until finally they felt less like they were wearing an itchy second skin, more like they were human again.

“I’m alive!” Izuna declared with his usual dramatic flair.

“And I’m thirsty,” Tobirama mumbled. Blithely ignoring the screaming protests of his muscles, he dragged himself a few inches upstream to where their filth hadn’t polluted the water and dunked his head for a long drink, just barely holding in a moan as his parched throat finally received the hydration it had been crying out for.

He wasn’t surprised to see Izuna follow suit, dunking his face for a few long droughts of water. Then the two of them were left sitting upright in the center of a small stream without the energy to pull themselves back out.

“Well now what?” Izuna demanded. Tobirama blinked at their surrounds.

“Think you can shuffle over to the bank? Looks like the angle would make a decent backrest.”

“Hn. I can try. But if I slip under the water and don’t come up I will haunt you for a decade if you let me drown.”

Tobirama snorted even as he began his own awkward shuffling. “Noted.”

After a bit of uncomfortable maneuvering they were able to plant themselves in to semi-reclined positions on opposite sides, facing each other across the burbling stream. Their gazes locked and Tobirama tilted his head to contemplate the similarities between Izuna’s bitchy face and Madara's bitchy face. He was pleased to note that, while there was indeed a resemblance, there was enough details different that he wouldn’t be seeing echoes of Izuna every time he had a disagreement with his own husband.

“What do you even want from him?”

“Hm?” The question didn’t seem to have a connection to anything they’d been talking about but, then again, Tobirama’s mind felt pleasantly emptied by the bath and the drink.

“My brother. What do you want from him? Why can’t you just leave him alone?”

“It’s strange to me that you assume I must have some sort of alternate agenda in my own marriage.”

Rolling his eyes, Izuna scoffed. “Don’t act like this is a real marriage to you.”

“How is it not real?”

“You don’t love each other!”

“But we could,” Tobirama pointed out softly. “And that opportunity is what interests me. We could love each other.” Speaking so openly about this sort of thing with Izuna of all people was about as painful as he would have expected it to be but he forced himself not to flinch away from the subject at hand. Clearly these were things that the man needed to hear.

And just as clearly they were things he didn’t want to hear. His already taught expression tightened even more until he turned his head to mime gagging in to the river. “That’s bullshit. As if my brother could ever love you.”

It took every scrap of self-control Tobirama had in his arsenal not to react in any visible way to one of his greatest fears given voice. He had barely even given himself much time to come to terms with that fear, that he might have made himself a failure of a husband, that he might be so unlovable that a man like Madara could turn him away even after they had come so far and he had put in so much effort. With every day that passed he grew more and more attached in the way he knew a husband was meant to but without the power to crawl inside Madara's mind there was no way for him to tell if those sentiments were returned.

“He won’t love you,” Izuna declared in an icy voice. “I know my brother. He could never fall in love with someone like you.”

“What is that even supposed to mean?” Tobirama snapped.

“Someone cold! Someone who doesn’t know him like I do! Someone who doesn’t care about him! Or care about anything!” He opened his mouth to keep going but Tobirama had taken about as much abuse as he thought anyone could be expected to take several days ago and now he finally decided that enough was enough.

“I dragged your sorry ass to safety, didn’t I? You talk about me not caring but I’m the only one between us thinking about how our fighting affects the one we’re fighting over! If you had listened to a word I’ve said for the past week you might have noticed that I am trying damn hard to learn about him – but no! How am I supposed to ‘know him like you do’ if you won’t tell me anything? Do you know what I think, you spoiled fucking child? I think you’ve gotten too used to being the most special person in Madara's life and you feel threatened that someone else might come along and dethrone you!” Turning his head, Tobirama spit downstream to show his derision. “Well let me tell you something, princess. That’s stupid. If Madara falls in love with anyone that doesn’t mean he’ll stop loving you. You’re his brother. So get over whatever dumbass complex you have and let him decide what makes him happy!”

Exhaustion settled over him anew in the wake of his outburst. He could hardly remember the last time he’d said so much at one time outside of the meetings when he gave presentations. Even Izuna seemed shocked in to silence, completely still and staring back at him with both eyes open wide, jaw hanging loose. It was a hilarious and fitting look for his stupid face.

Tobirama lifted both hands out of the water to drag them down his own face. Despite how satisfying it had been to vent all the frustration that had been building over the course of their time together he was more than aware that he had probably just driven an even bigger wedge between them than ever before. Yelling at the brother in law he’d been looking for a way to schmooze definitely wasn’t the way to win himself any forgiveness.

And yet there was something contemplative in Izuna’s silence, a fragile note of tremulous realization. The silence lasted for a long time after Tobirama’s impassioned speech. Neither of them spoke for so long that he actually felt like his body had begun to recover and the current of the river they were still sitting chest deep in had time to work like a gentle massage, rejuvenating him the way falling unconscious for several hours hadn’t. He’d just started thinking about the possibility of moving to find actual shelter where he could bandage both of their wounds properly when Izuna finally spoke again.

“Madara can fall in love with whoever he likes,” he began slowly, “and I won’t try to stop him. It’s my opinion that I don’t think he will ever love you but if I’m wrong then I’m wrong. Just as long as he’s happy.”

“That is all that I hope for as well,” Tobirama said.

“Fine. So here’s the deal. I don’t like you. The way you guys were forced together feels immoral to me and there’s just something about you that always rubs me wrong. But if it’s really stressing him out so much then I guess I’ll just try to visit when you’re not there.”

While that did sort of undermine the point Tobirama was trying to work his way around to he was smart enough not to point that out. Just getting Izuna this far was a greater accomplishment than he’d started to believe was possible and he was no stranger to the concept of quitting while he was still ahead.

“I can live with that much,” he agreed. “We should get out of here. My chakra isn’t quite at the level I need it to be yet so we should probably get some clean bandages on your leg until a medic can see it.”

“Chakra? What are you gonna do, body flicker halfway across the continent?” Izuna snorted.

Smiling to himself as he forced his legs to stand up and wade across the flowing stream, Tobirama hummed agreeably and thought of the new seal he’d been so proud of himself for finally completing. “You would be amazed how far I can reach.”

“Believe it when I see it,” Izuna said.

There wasn’t much he could think of to say in response that wouldn’t cause a fight so instead Tobirama grunted before leaning down to haul Izuna up to his feet. “Carried or walking?”

“Carry me.”

“Lazy.”

“And yet you are going to carry me anyway.”

Tobirama made them both stand face to face so he could say, “My other option is letting you expire here alone in a stream because you are too stubborn to get up and follow.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, quickly turning and ducking down so he could fit the shorter man’s arms over his shoulders and get a solid grip under both knees. Then he stood up and waited for his new burden to shift in to a comfortable position before wading back out of the stream and heading back in to the quiet forest. If not for the distant sounds of wildlife he might actually be a little suspicious of how quiet the woods around them were and how long they had gone without sensing anyone even sort of close by.

Whatever had become of the squad that quite literally ran them in to the ground yesterday, that would have to be a problem for later. For now Tobirama set a course for the brilliant spot on his senses that had to be the capital city and headed out at an easy pace.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Izuna demanded.

“Do you always need something to be complaining about?” he retorted. “Yes. I can feel where the closest dense population is and it’s straight ahead in this direction.”

“Freak. How the hell can you sense that far when you don’t even have enough chakra back yet for a jutsu or something?”

“I was born with my inner eye open, as Hashirama likes to say.” He would have shrugged if not for the weight on his back. Izuna grunted and fell blessedly silent with no more arguments.

Although he had very little trust in the longevity of that silence Tobirama figured he might as well get as far as he could before the bickering started up again. With his gaze set dead ahead and his senses spread out to watch for anyone approaching he let the rest of his mind wander back to Konoha where a warm bed awaited him along with a husband who he could only hope missed him even half as much as he missed Madara.

#rae writes #madatobi #tobirama #izuna #fanfiction

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