Written for Day 1 of MadaTobi Week: Soulmark/Soulmate.
As has been pointed out to me recently, if I ever participate in an Event with a soulmate prompt and do not write it (or in general am given an opportunity to write a soulmate AU and don't take it) my friends will promptly begin questioning the imposter who has clearly taken me over. :P
I love soulmate AUs, and I've never written this particular one (one of the eye colour variations) before but I love it, too.
"What is your colour?" Madara remembers Hashirama asking, innocent and curious, when they were children at the river. Hashirama saw rich earth browns, he knew, because his friend spoke freely about everything, particularly if it was important to him.
Red, Madara had thought, though he hadn't offered the answer, red, red, red, like Sharingan, like fire, like blood.
One of his first memories, the brilliant red in his mother's eyes as she leaned over him, stark tomoe slowly turning. Now he knew she had been memorising him; then all he had known was the pretty red glow and the mesmerising swirl as she smiled at him.
When he was young he had thought the red meant his soulmate would be found in his own clan, seeing the brilliant shades of Sharingan. He had been surprised when his mother gave him a shocked look and petted his hair before gently confiding that it was not the Sharingan that dictated a soulmate's colour. Whoever Madara's soulmate was, it was no doujutsu - their irises were red, red as blood, as passion, as the endless blur of katon-blood-training-Sharingan-battle-death that was Madara's life as a child.
By the riverside Hashirama had spoken of his colour, rich and sweet and thriving, his colour that lit in the earth he connected with so easily, with similar enthusiasm to the devotion Madara felt. Madara could only watch his friend with a shake of his head, amused and confused, and think of the endless spray of blood, bright with life. He could see Hashirama's passion for his colour but privately thought nothing could match the brilliance of his own.
Hashirama's brother, he had confided once, didn't have a colour. Madara's stomach had turned at the very idea. No Uchiha was ever born without a colour, and he couldn't . . . imagine. To have no colour, no soulmate. . . It was anathema to the passionate nature intrinsic to Madara - to all Uchiha.
As he grew older, Madara could read the eyes of his own clan well, his colour lighting up the Sharingan and the nuanced blacks of their dark eyes easy to see. It had pricked at him that the only other eyes he could read so clearly were those of the heartless younger Senju, particularly when they began to work together in the nascent village Madara and Hashirama had dreamed of for so long. Watching those beautiful, bright red eyes and knowing - not mine, not right, icy bastard doesn't even have a colour - had made him hate the man even more, though he could never tell Hashirama the reason why peace was an impossibility between himself and Tobirama, no matter how he asked or wheedled.
"'Dara, wh's it?" A slow, warm shift pressing all along his side, and Madara hums, tucking his arm more closely around his soulmate's shoulders and turning towards him in their bed. Sleepy, liquid crimson eyes meet his own, and Madara bows his head, nuzzling Tobirama's face.
Tobirama smiles and returns the gesture, brushing a soft kiss to Madara's cheek and curling one strong arm around his back. Madara purrs and draws his soulmate into a languid kiss, heavy-lidded eyes keeping his own gaze.
With Madara already casting back freely through years of memories, it can't help but bring back their first kiss; tense and sudden, brilliant red glaring at him despite the softness of Tobirama's mouth against his own. He had been so incensed and yet couldn't help but press into the heated kiss that had been pressed on him . . . then they had drawn apart and he had watched Tobirama's face shading in with faint colour between the red streaks, spreading down until his collar had flushed with blue.
Then the rest of the world had filled in with bright, living colour, but Madara had been unable to tear his eyes away from Tobirama's face, shock and anger and delight and guilt flaring in a sickening tangle in his chest as Tobirama's eyes widened. Taking in the colour flooding into his own world from Madara's dark eyes with dizzyingly quick glances.
Tobirama stays close as the kiss breaks, hugging Madara a little tighter and humming a soft inquisitive note.
"Memories." Madara says quietly, fingers trailing along Tobirama's hip.
Tobirama's hand slides up to rub along Madara's shoulder, then tuck behind his neck, encouraging him to bow his head into affectionate nuzzling, their brows resting together, black and white fringe mingling. "Bad?" Tobirama asks, his low voice offering understanding as his touch offers comfort.
Madara shakes his head. "Memories of you." he says honestly, and Tobirama startles for a moment, then smiles, soft and almost shy. Madara never ceases to be amazed that the coolly analytical terror that is Senju Tobirama is also shy and sweet and so warm.
Tobirama's grip tightens and his lips catch Madara's again, body arching to press companionably into Madara's. He smoothes a hand up Tobirama's side, roaming to his back across his shoulder blades.
Tobirama's fingers find his hair, carding through it and somehow avoiding catching on any of the tangles Madara knows it has picked up while he slept. Tobirama's deft fingers quickly picked up a better knack for dealing with Madara's hair than he's ever managed himself.
As their lips part Madara sighs and rolls onto his back, tugging his soulmate after him. Tobirama lets himself be pulled, though not without a quiet laugh, stretching out at his side and shifting to rest his tousled head on Madara's shoulder as he throws a leg over Madara's. He is warm and reassuringly present, although once Madara would have found it impossible to imagine this position being relaxing - being pinned with someone else's weight, slowing his ability to move, to react, if need be.
Tobirama strokes his chest and murmurs a sleepy reminder to rest, and Madara smiles, closing his eyes. Memories play behind his lids, but the litany of smiles - soft and fond, sharp and smug - tousled hair, pale skin, and always red, red, red this time only soothes him into a peaceful sleep.
So did Tobirama really think he had no colour as a child, or did he realise black was his colour but put Hashirama off by saying he saw no colour anyway? Who knows!