Posting something to reassure myself that my love for Pre-Founding-Era still exists, even within the toils of July NaNo Camp. It sometimes occurs to me that I am a wee bit obsessed with this pair, but then it occurs to me that I don't care. And that I just rhymed.

Have some awkward near-the-beginning-of-their-relationship Tobirama and Izuna interaction.

Disclaimer – I don't own them. As should be obvious by the blatant AU stuff.

And Sometimes It Rains

o

I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.

- Plutarch

o

Tobirama shifted awkwardly against the lumpy stone wall of the shallow cave, barely more than a scrape in the face of the mountain, which had been the first shelter he'd located when the sky split apart and water started sheeting down.

"…You realize that we should really be trying to kill each other," he offered after a moment.

Uchiha Izuna, who was probably the most unlikely person he could have imagined to wait out a storm with, turned away from his perusal of the rainy day to toss him a scathing look. "In this? What would be the point?" He shrugged uneasily as well, huddling back against his own corner of the cave and away from Tobirama. "There's not even enough room to stretch in here, and out there the rain would kill what little visibility we have."

Tobirama let out a long breath and studied his erstwhile opponent. Long, dripping black hair hid most of the Uchiha's features; he watched Izuna curse softly as he tried to rake it back from his face with his hands and finally found enough sympathy in his heart to fumble in one of his pouches and toss the other boy a piece of twine. "Here. You should really tie it back."

Izuna's hand darted out and caught it, his eyes flashing blood-red for an instant, and Tobirama found his muscles tensing involuntarily even though Izuna wasn't even looking at him. "Typical Senju behavior," he muttered, bundling the soaking mass of hair back deftly enough. "Trying to win over your opponents with gifts and flattery."

Tobirama felt his mouth twisting wryly. "Typical Uchiha behavior," he returned, "nasty and suspicious to a fault. And if you thought that was flattery, then you're more attention-starved than I thought."

Izuna's face seemed smaller and paler without the long, dark locks of hair that usually framed it, but the grin that flashed across his face was sharp and vicious as always. "It was a generalization," he said, his voice dripping condensation. "If you're familiar with the word."

"I'm older than you are," Tobirama said. "I've forgotten more than you'll ever know."

Izuna made a soft scoffing noise which Tobirama was pretty sure he'd copied from his elder brother. "Guesswork. I could be older than you for all you know."

"You're still smaller," Tobirama said, not caring that it was a petty victory. It was probably the effect of being crammed into the same small place as an Uchiha; you started thinking like them.

"Naturally, a Senju would think that size is the only thing that matters, rather than skill –"

Izuna shivered, tugging aimlessly at his drenched tunic, and Tobirama made a split-second decision which might have had something to do with the fact that he'd just tried to lean back again, and found a sharp projection of rock sticking into said back.

"We should sit closer together," he said. "It'd be more comfortable than the rock. And warmer."

Izuna gave him that scathing stare again, spoiled slightly by the shivers which were now wracking his drenched frame, and said slowly, "Am I to understand that you want me to - cuddle with you?"

"Do you know what would be even funnier than stumbling out there right now to fight and not being able to see each other because of the rain?" Tobirama said blandly. "Stumbling out there tomorrow and not being able to see each other because we're sneezing so hard."

Izuna glared at him.

"If we don't warm up we're going to get sick," Tobirama pointed out patiently. "I don't like the idea any more than you do, but as long as we're sharing a cave there's no need to be picky. Just be grateful I'm not suggesting that we take our clothes off."

Izuna set his mouth in a firm line and looked away. "No."

Tobirama was beginning to shiver as well; he gritted his teeth and hugged his chest tightly. "No doubt you have a wonderful chain of reasoning to go with that statement. Please share it with me."

Izuna opened and closed his mouth, looked back at him, and finally shuffled closer to him, wet cloth scraping against the gritty floor with a disconsolate sound. "I will – when I think of it," he said stiffly.

It was, Tobirama decided, probably as close as he was going to get to any kind of victory over the other boy at the moment. He awkwardly got an arm around Izuna's shoulders, and discovered to his surprise that he felt unexpectedly fragile and light, despite the tense muscles he could feel nervously shifting under his outstretched arm. "Relax," he said gruffly, shoving down the impulse to ask when was the last time he'd had a good meal, because Izuna would take that as a threat, and he'd be right to do so. "Think about something else. How old are you, anyway?"

Izuna reluctantly leaned a little further against him, still stiff as a carved statue. "You first. If you insist upon conversation."

"Conversation's better than just glaring at each other. Twelve." Tobirama said. "Pretty sure of that. At least, it's been six years since…"

"Since you suddenly appeared amid the Senju Clan's ragtag collection of urchins," Izuna finished. He was beginning to shiver less, relaxing a little against Tobirama's shoulder, and Tobirama was reminded of the time he'd held one of the Akimichi's wood pigeons in his hands: the soft bony warmth of it.

Probably an Uchiha would be insulted at being compared to a pigeon. "How did you know that?" he asked carefully.

Izuna shrugged a little, and unbent even more. "When the Senju's head medic suddenly gains another child between one year and the next," he replied evasively, "some people talk. Others listen."

"And you?" Tobirama demanded, refusing to be sidetracked.

There was a pause. "Eleven," Izuna said finally, sounding as put out as a bedraggled, tired eleven-year old could under the circumstances. "But I am a full adult under the laws of my Clan. Therefore you cannot claim superiority simply because of a year's difference and –"

"Not claiming anything," Tobirama said hastily. He had the mental image of a wood-pigeon puffing itself up with outraged dignity, and fought the urge to giggle, something he was sure would degrade the Senju Clan in the eyes of the Uchiha for the next hundred years if he gave into it. Maybe the next two hundred. "But those are crazy laws."

"They are tradition," Izuna said, a practiced phrase which suggested great familiarity and repetition on a probably-daily basis.

Tobirama frowned. "Does that mean you agree with all of them?"

The younger boy nestled his head against the curve of Tobirama's arm. For all his outraged dignity of earlier, he was quite good at cuddling. Probably from practicing at it with his older brother – and Tobirama was going to stop thinking about it right there, because the last thing he needed to do was to start thinking of Uchiha Madara as cuddly.

"If I did," Izuna said at last, "would I be likely to speak of it to an outsider? A Senju?"

Tobirama lifted an eyebrow, even though he knew that Izuna couldn't see. "I have no idea. Would you?"

"Maybe if my father were still alive," Izuna said, and now he sounded tired. "He saw things a little differently."

Now Tobirama hesitated. Probably better not to say it, and the death had occurred almost a year ago but – "I'm sorry," he offered awkwardly. "For your loss."

Izuna made that strange little scoffing noise again, but this time it made him sound even younger than his eleven years. His face was hidden. "Is that what the Senju say?"

"Among other things." Tobirama's hand trailed a little over Izuna's hair, aimlessly. He was not stroking it. "Another thing we say is I will live my life as a gift in your eyes. What do the Uchiha say?"

Izuna chuckled a little, quiet and raw. "The Uchiha say, I will avenge you."

Have you done that? Tobirama wanted to ask, but that was too close, the kind of thing a friend would ask, or a brother. Not an enemy, or a temporary-ally-on-account-of-rain.

"Have I actually managed to put an end to your ill-fated attempts at interaction?" Izuna said after a few minutes' silence. His tone was a little forced, but lighter. "Perhaps it's just as well that I did not speak further of my Clan's traditions, Tobi. I assure you, that is among the least disturbing of them."

"I was not disturbed, I was thinking," Tobirama said first, and then, "Tobi? Even Hashirama doesn't call me that."

"Indeed?" Izuna said, sounding unreasonably pleased. "Excellent. I have succeeded in setting myself apart."

"It is not excellent, it's ridiculous –"

"You can hardly expect me to stop doing it," Izuna interrupted, "when it flusters you in such a delightful way. Tobi."

"Stop it," Tobirama growled.

"You were the one who insisted on treating this situation as a social function," Izuna said blandly. "Albeit one at which death and vengeance are discussed. Can I be blamed for developing a sense of familiarity?"

Tobirama closed his mouth tightly and glared out at the rain. "Such familiarity is usually reserved for friends," he said through his teeth, and realized that he'd voiced his dilemma of a moment ago.

"Nonsense, Tobi," Izuna said. "Aren't good enemies familiar with each other as well?"

"Sometimes more than they'd like to be," Tobirama muttered, but he felt lighter in a strange way, if only for the good excuse. Perhaps a certain familiarity was allowable as long as they kept firmly in mind the difference between the days that it rained and the days it did not. "Izuna."

"And now that we've settled the fascinating matter of our relevant ages and what we call each other when we are not trying to kill each other," Izuna said, "perhaps we should move on to something even more challenging. Our favorite colors. Or why your older brother seems to have a disturbing obsession with mine."

"It's the other way around," Tobirama objected. "And besides, I thought you didn't want a conversation."

"The rain still hasn't stopped," Izuna said. "I'll admit that it's better than being bored to death."

Two victories in one day, Tobirama thought, even if none of them were ones he could exactly boast about when he got back to camp.

"This time," he said, "you go first."

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