It was only a chaste brushing of lips – concealed from the view of those nearby by the trunk of a large oak on one of their casual walks around the village – but Madara had recoiled instantly from the touch, swinging blindly until his fist connected firmly with Hashirama's jaw. The Senju looked far more deeply wounded than his simple split lip, which was already stitching itself back together under the faint green glow of his tanned fingertips. There was betrayal and apology coexisting in those earthen eyes in some tumultuous whirlpool of pure emotion that rattled Madara to his core, his instincts telling him to flee as his heart pled for him extend his hand. Just once. One simple expression of camaraderie and his slight would be forgiven, he knew.
But instead he turned away, scowling despite the pounding of his pulse in his throat, and left the Senju to wallow in his guilt. Questioning.
For days he neglected the village, Hashirama, his duties, purely out of spite. There was so much to say and simultaneously nothing to be said – as the Senju's rash actions had spoken volumes in their silence, and Madara was unsure he was ready to listen. He scrubbed at his lips until they grew raw, chapped and bleeding, willing away the warmth and foreign tingle of contact that lingered against his will, as persistent as drops of ink on linen. Though as alien as it was, the sensation seemed so familiar, so right, in its intensity that he began to crave it as it faded – growing more and more faint until it scarcely remained at all. He wanted it as stubbornly as a child yearned for his mother's touch, regardless of consequence or how stupidly unfathomable it seemed. It was necessary. Vital.
At last he went to Hashirama, prideful as ever, and spoke not a single word as he sealed their mouths together, tongue tracing the Hokage's astonished, parted lips. In that instant, everything was good, everything was proper. As if the earth's axis shifted to where they stood, panting and desperate as lips and hands and tongues explored in a haze of kiss-sweetened breath. They parted in a flurry of sighs, calloused fingers roaming tenderly through messes of ebony hair and over stately, tanned cheekbones, their foreheads finally coming to rest gently together, eyes closed as if each man had at last cast free his own burdens.
"You don't hate me for what I did?" Hashirama asked after a while, healing green chakra soothing the Uchiha's cracking lips.
Madara raised his gaze, finally meeting the earthen warmth in the taller man's pleading eyes. "No. I never could."