Notes: Thank you, everyone! I shall continue to experiment away a little longer. :) This time I just wanted to write something about the murdering glares going all around when Tobirama found his brother talking with Madara about who would be Hokage...
Summary: Blind is the one who cannot see. Blinder still can be the one who does.
Blindness.
Hashirama sees what is happening. Of course he does, he is no fool.
He sees the way Madara's rare smiles sour as if they had never been more than a whim of the imagination. He sees the silences: Madara's arms drop dead when the second before they had jested. His body turns the other way, refusing all contact. All it takes is for Tobirama to show his face.
Hashirama also sees how his brother's eyes consistently shift away from him, towards Madara, even as he addresses his brother alone. Tobirama is not as outwardly expressive, so it is the only obvious sign that he lets slip of his unease around the other man, but Hashirama always catches it; and if he does, then he must assume that Madara does too. Although he does not possess the same advantage of having known the younger Senju his whole life, the Uchiha's eyes are nothing if not perceptive.
All three are aware of it, but none dare speak of it: that boiling hatred and festering mistrust that lies just under the surface must never be verbalised, never acknowledged, lest it explode in their hands. It is a strenuous balance which they keep, a silent compromise that was never agreed upon.
Madara loathes Tobirama for being alive when he murdered Izuna. His very existence is salt to a wound that remained gushing, oozing pestilence. Tobirama, too discerning for his own good at times, senses it. Hashirama's instincts tell him that he is not privy to the whole story, but he is certain that Madara's poorly disguised grudge is at the root of his younger brother's continued mistrust.
Hashirama hates the tension. It frays the bonds that tie them together and eats at the trust that exists between them. He does not know what to do about it anymore other than to keep up with the pretence and hope that one day the lie becomes the truth. Madara suffers because he has no brothers left and, no matter how hard Hashirama tries to take him into his family, he persists in the notion that he is alone. As long as Tobirama lives, Madara will not accept that the Senju know his pain.
So all that Hashirama can do is hope. He hopes that, in time, his friend – his brother – will realise that he is not alone in his hurt. If only he would allow it, they could split the burden between them and move forward, to a future that he cannot promise will be without tears, but where they will at least not have to dry them on their own.