This little fic is a prize for a giveaway I did on my Tumblr ( kyuubi-no-kami) to thank my followers, and onecursedbyhatred won one of the two short fics. She wanted some Izuna fluff with the other Founders, so have some blind Izuna at a summer festival cuteness. (Of course, I'm literally not capable of writing anything without a bit of angst, but it's very minor. I promise.)
{What Sight Cannot Give}
"And what about this one?!" Hashirama asks cheerily as they round a corner, the sake in his bottle sloshing lazily to stain the sleeve of his yukata.
Madara casts the Hokage a bitter glare and pulls Izuna nearer to his side with a protective flourish, linking their arms together to more easily navigate the crowd. The streets are littered with festival goers as the moon hangs high and full in the sky, easy summer breezes tossing the younger Uchiha's unbound hair about his shoulders in playful gusts that kiss along his cheeks and glide beneath the linen that conceals the sightless hollows of his eyes. Despite his brother's silent scolding – palatable in the angry flicker of his chakra – Izuna smiles ruefully to himself, turning his face blindly in Hashirama's direction.
"Okonomiyaki, dango, ramen, and…" he pauses for a moment in his reply to breathe in deeply through his nose, thinking, "yakitori."
"Incredible, Izuna-kun! You're like a bloodhound for festival food!" the Senju applauds loudly, easily impressed in his drunkenness.
"How undignified," Tobirama complains from where he trudges a respectable distance behind the trio. "Anija, you are behaving in a manner most unbecoming of your station. And you should not enable him."
Loud scoffs fall from both Uchiha's lips in perfect synchronization as Hashirama whines incoherently, his tongue dumbly knotted with sake and the light-heartedness of the evening. Irritated and petty, Madara hisses lowly at the snowy-haired Senju, his hand falling protectively to the scar on Izuna's waist as he pulls his brother along, carefully avoiding the queue from the okonomiyaki stand that he had so skillfully identified before. "Go pester someone else, wart hog," he spits with contempt. "No one wants you here, especially if you're going to do nothing but bitch."
Scowling and muttering a series of heartfelt curses, Tobirama vanishes in an imposing twist of chakra, startling passerby and fluttering the layered kimonos of the women perusing nearby vendor stands for glittering trinkets. The atmosphere lightens in an instant as the Hokage resumes his mindless, inebriated rambling, asking questions that he happily answers himself and taking long drinks from the ceramic bottle in his burly grasp. Izuna grins behind his sleeve coyly each time Madara's snide comments on Hashirama's nonsense stumble into useless, good-natured banter, and he can hear the smile in his brother's voice, feels the way his chakra sparks like a bonfire on a summer night. It has been long since Madara has seemed so content, and vaguely he regrets how dearly he fought to keep these two parted. They suit each other, their personalities and hearts and chakra twined inseparably, even after many bitter years apart punctuated by loss and war. What an incredible thing it is, the younger man thinks listlessly as he turns his face into the wind, to be bound so strongly to another without the obligation of blood.
"Izuna?" Madara's worried voice tugs him from his musings, and he turns to the source, unseeing. "Are you alright?"
"Of course, nii-san."
"Is it too crowded?" the elder presses, sensitive to his brother's every whim.
The protectiveness still irks Izuna a bit, though he knows Madara means well. He has been several years without his sight and has adjusted to the perpetual darkness, but still his aniki treats him like a porcelain puppet – easily breakable and unable to function without guidance. But he knows these streets as well as he knows the knots in the floorboards of his bedroom, and he does not need anyone to tote him along like a bride on their arm; he is more than capable of taking care of himself, even if he may fumble and swear at the pitying gazes that follow him like the sun on his back. Still, it seems to give Madara a sense of purpose, a way to ease the guilt that always gnaws at his gut like a parasite, so Izuna allows himself to be led about in such a demeaning manner.
"Perhaps a bit," he concedes, growing weary of being jostled by drunken passerby. "And fireworks will start soon, won't they? I don't want you to miss them, nii-san. Should we find a spot to watch?"
The elder tenses at the words, the hand atop Izuna's clenching slightly over slender fingers. "Otouto…."
Even Hashirama seems to still with Madara's rigidity, his mindless banter with civilians and festival goers dying like a candle flame under canvas. Sighing with a good-natured snort, Izuna waves the strain away as if it were but smoke, arching a tailored brow to the pair with wicked amusement. "It was a figure of speech," he tells them. "You can't seriously believe that I am capable of insulting myself, now can you?"
Despite the Hokage's loud, boisterous laugh, Madara scowls deeply, but he is silenced by his brother before he can manage a complaint. "Hashirama-san," Izuna chimes, laying on the charm suspiciously thick. "Would you be so kind as to fetch us more sake? Certainly you know the best vendors, and aniki has always been fond of a toast beneath summer fireworks. We will find a good place to watch."
The Senju readily agrees, capering off in his happy fog of inebriation, declining drinks from civilians by declaring that he has been assigned a mission of national importance. Though Izuna cannot see their astonished, apologetic faces, he is sure that he would find them extremely amusing judging from Madara's groan and the tug upon his arm as his usually rigid posture wilts like a dying flower. He laughs openly, pleased with himself as they walk in comfortable silence for a long while, the din of the village festivities dying out behind them. There is a small hill, largely bald of trees that sidles up to the face of Hokage Mountain just north of town, and he is sure that it is his brother's intended destination. It is quiet and modestly removed from the bustle and lantern light, and Madara guides him carefully, prudent to avoid any roots or stones that may trip him along the way. They both sigh as they flop down into the grass, just close enough for the elder to nudge Izuna playfully with his foot.
"'Aniki has always been fond of a toast beneath summer fireworks'?" he echoes back to his younger brother, mildly offended amusement in his tone. "When have I ever done such a thing?"
Izuna shrugs lightly, folding his arms behind his head with a wry smirk that Madara can scarcely see for the darkness. "You haven't," he laughs. "But it gave the stupid Senju something to do besides ruin the fireworks with his incessant chatter. We will have sent him on a merry chase."
"How can talking ruin something that is nothing more than noise and lights?"
"I'm sure he would find a way."
"Izuna," the Uchiha patriarch scolds with feigned intensity as he fights back a chuckle; but the younger still hears it plainly and smiles despite himself. "That idiot saved your life when I couldn't."
Not deigning to respond, Izuna simply shakes his head, feeling blades of grass tug playfully against his unbound hair as they tangle in its length. The silence that follows in the wake of his wordless reply is heavy with recollection, and his brother's guilt grows so large and anguished that it presses upon his chest, fills his lungs like drowning in the muddy water at the bottom of a lake. He reaches out, fumbling over red clay earth that his sure to stain both of their yukatas, and takes Madara's hand in his own, warm and comforting. The callouses that riddle knotty palms and fingers; the slender scars that mar pale flesh, nearly forgotten in their insignificance; they each mark his brother as a warrior – as a warrior for what he believes to be right, for his family, for those that no longer live. But Madara never has known when to stop fighting.
"Nii-san," Izuna says, little more than a whisper. "Stop your worrying. All I need you to worry about now is the fireworks that are about to start. I want to know each color, each shape in detail."
He can sense the smile on Madara's lips through the perpetual darkness, and broader fingers close snugly around his own. "'Zu, I…" the elder begins, but his statement is quickly silenced by a cheerful bellow from the base of the hill.
"Madara! Madara, I got your sake! I made it in time for your toast!" Hashirama hollers, barreling through the trees like an ox with a whip at its backside.
Cringing, Madara hoists himself to a sitting position and casts a glare to his brother, who seems to sense his frustration and smiles sweetly in reply. "I wish you hadn't told him that."
"New tradition?" Izuna offers with a wicked grin.
As the first fireworks begin to burst and fizzle overhead, he turns his face unseeing to the sky and laughs – a loud, wholesome sound like he has not made in ages that leaves him breathless and his belly sore. He can practically feel the colors upon his cheeks, spiraling in great blossoms of red and blue and green that kiss along the shrouded hollows of his eyes apologetically, and he sighs with contentment. How opposed he had been to such alliances as these; but now as Madara and Hashirama sit bickering and undoubtedly spilling the Hokage's hard-sought sake across the ground, he cannot help but be relieved.
"I swear, stupid Senju," the elder Uchiha barks, "I have to look at your stupid face every damn day in that big ass rock, if your face shows up in these fireworks as well, so help me kami I will kill you!"
Hashirama chuckles as he tucks a cup of the potent liquor into Izuna's grasp, his hands unexpectedly steady and his voice oddly sober as he leans to speak into the younger man's ear, a peculiar gentleness in his words. "Are you enjoying yourself?" he asks, honest.
"Yes," Izuna replies, a smile on his lips despite his surprise. "I am. I truly am."