He'd dreamt of her, last night.
Half-defined images and sounds, phantom touches he's tried to shake have followed him since he woke. She won't come to his room, he holds no delusions about that, and he briefly considers going to hers but thinks better of it. Mito was the one he asked to see her there for good reason.
It's difficult to feel bitterness over the pains of the situation when it makes it that much easier to follow the impulse of the moment without further justification, knowing there's no better time or place.
"Izuna." She looks up at him over the seal scroll spread across her lap. "Come closer."
When she comes around the table, he has her kneel in the space between the table and his lap, facing away from him as he works her belt loose so he can slip her bottoms off entirely. Her shirt is long enough to cover most of her, but he can't resist the impulse to run his hands along her bare thighs.
"Tobirama—"
"Allow me this."
She can hardly say no easily, he's aware. He still does not stop.
He works himself free and pulls her back against him, has her sit with her knees spread over his so he can feel the wet slide of her against the length of him. However much she sulks and scowls over his touch, she's always so quick to be ready for him. There's an honesty in her body he finds nowhere else and he feels himself becoming fixated on it.
When he pushes her up by her hips and fits himself inside of her, he wonders how her eyes look. Does she allow her pleasure to show where he won't see it?
Bringing his hand between her thighs to massage her swollen nerves, he takes great pleasure in the way it makes her seethe, as though his ability to bring her off is a personal affront. Initially, he'd truly only intended to make the experience more bearable for her, to do what was decent, but now—she swears above him, furious, as her climax takes her apart and it feels like a personal victory to him every time her will is lost to her body. She cannot deny her own pleasure forever.
Now she's finished, he kneels up. The movement leaves her half-sprawled over the table, cursing over something or other that was knocked to the ground. It hardly matters. He allows himself to take her rougher than he has since they were wed. To watch how she claws at the floor and listen as she struggles to keep herself quiet. To wonder how deliberate the backwards push of her hips really is.
•
Ten days on from the wedding, Madara comes to visit.
She is so pleased to see someone who loves her that she forgets to be angry. Hashirama smiles pleasantly beside him and Madara looks as though he expects her to hit him as she runs to him from across the fledgling garden and throws herself at him hard enough to wind them both.
"What took you so long?" She missed his embrace, he doesn't let her go.
"I wasn't sure you'd want to see me. You said—" She pulls back, keeping hold of his arms so she can shake him.
"I was angry, then. I am angry now, but—I've missed you, brother."
The relief on his face when she calls him her brother once more aches in her chest. In truth, she is still bitter—perhaps more so for how abandoned she'd felt when, even after Hashirama promised to speak to him about time spent with the Uchiha, she hadn't heard so much as a word from him.
Madara loves her, that she's never doubted, but some part of her had worried he may not want to have her back home. That perhaps her fears were well-founded and the clan saw her as a traitor over a marriage she'd had no say in.
Any anger she feels, though, can be forgotten for a while in the face of the relief she finds in her brother's embrace. He's the first safe moment she's found in nearly a fortnight.
All five of them gather for a meal. Tobirama and Madara remain as pleased by each other's company as they've ever been. Hashirama jokes that there's no reason to be so cold, now that they are brothers.
It does not help the atmosphere, but privately Izuna finds the way their expressions sour so similarly quite amusing.
She's grateful when Hashirama and Mito find some errand or other as an excuse to give she and Madara some time to themselves. The moment Tobirama realizes they're not coming back and he is faced with the prospect of passing time with just she and her brother for company, he leaves without a word.
"Does he treat you poorly?" Is the first thing Madara asks once Tobirama is out of earshot. In truth, she's not sure how to answer. Most women, she thinks, would find him amenable enough, if utterly dull.
She does not.
"As well as can be expected."
"You didn't speak to him at all."
"What kind of wife argues with her husband in front of the guests?" The joke lands too bitterly and she feels the sting of her own words. "Madara, it's not even been a fortnight, how much change did you expect?"
"There's been plenty. I don't care for the way he looks at you. Like he owns you." Izuna is baffled by her brother's naivety.
"Can you say such a thing about a husband you sold me to?"
"I didn't sell you—"
"Do not start with the pedantry—"
"It's not pedantry, I just—I would never have made this choice for something so petty—"
"Leave it," she snaps. "Why are we still arguing over a fate already sealed?" She knows he's truly missed her because he doesn't try to argue that it was her who made it one.
"I'm sorry. I just want to know that you're well." If only you'd been here ten days ago, three days ago, she thinks as she follows the lines of remorse written across his features.
"I am as well as can be expected."
"But you are safe? If you were not—"
"What? You'd throw away the village and the peace you dream of to bring me home?"
"You know that I would. You're his wife, but you're still an Uchiha." You're mine, she hears. Madara has so few people left, she knows the lengths he would go to for her. "If he were to treat you poorly it would be an offence to all of us."
"I know." She reaches out to grip his hand, squeeze it tightly before letting go. "But I would not let you. What's done is done, the only thing worse would to have it all be for naught."
She doesn't tell him about all of the blood spilled on their wedding night, nor the way she hadn't dared close her eyes for a week. She is angry, still, but she feels she has been nothing else for weeks and the simmer of it has grown dull. For now, she'd rather his company than his remorse.
They talk about her training with Mito, how the clan have been adjusting to life as part of the village, and how pleased they both are by the fact that she'll be spending more time with the Uchiha again, soon. She hasn't yet decided whether or not she'll tell him why.
It's his idea that she make the time into something official and she likes the sound of it enough that they make plans to meet with Hashirama and discuss the idea further later in the week. It's easy to see, now, that she's allowed herself to become so mired in her misery and paranoia that she's isolated herself. An entire village is being built around her and she's seen none of it.
When he leaves, she swears to herself that she will not wallow another second. She has no intention of pretending at happiness where there is none, but she hardly needs to sit in her own pity any longer, suddenly desperate to chase away the dregs of it.
•
"You're close with your brother."
"Isn't that a stupid thing to say?" Despite the derision of her words, there's something in her underlying demeanour that feels undeniably pleasant.
Izuna has never been easy, least of all in his company, but for some days she'd seemed quieter in a way that went beyond words. Perhaps it had just been the exhaustion, but the visit from Madara seems to have returned the life to her and Tobirama is faced with the unfortunate reality that between his wife and his brother, time spent with the detestable Uchiha will be far too frequent.
"I only mean to say that you seemed angry with him at the wedding, but you were quite pleased to see him today."
"Should I not be pleased to see my own brother?" His jaw tightens and he reminds himself to be better.
"It seemed sudden—"
"Of course. You would be the petty type, wouldn't you? Holding onto needless grudges for far too long—" There is humour in her voice, and he wonders at her nerve to mock him when the state of their marriage is entirely a construction of the grudge she bears him.
"Between us, you are the one holding petty grudges, if anyone—" Her expression slips and he realizes too late that she'd been having fun. Teasing him. And he has ruined it and made their argument real.
"How unfair of me, to not have shown proper appreciation for the way you violated me."
"Izuna, I did not mean—"
"No, no, please. Would you like me on my knees while I bite my tongue to keep from retching? Or does that leave me with too much dignity for your liking? Perhaps I should beg you, that's what you asked of me, isn't it?"
Her vicious tone begins to fray at his nerves.
"What is this pernicious need you have to twist every word I speak into something reprehensible?"
"You asked me to beg you. They are only two words, I've not forgotten them. If you cannot stand to hear them repeated, perhaps you should watch them more carefully."
"A threat? Have you forgotten your place in this house so quickly?"
"Oh," she is seething, now, and he feels as though he'd like to throttle them both, "I never forget. You never allow me to, not for even a moment. Everything is your generosity, isn't it? The bed I sleep in, any privacy I'm allowed. Even my body is yours, isn't that right? My own chakra you would take if you felt so inclined. I am aware."
It's exactly what he'd wanted her to understand, exactly what he'd meant for her to hear, and now that she's voiced it, he hates her for it.
"If I am such a tyrant, why have you not run back to your brother? Why do you stay, or are you still pretending you find my touch so repulsive?"
"I am not pretending—"
"Do you truly think I don't notice the pleasure you take, or is it so easy for you that you haven't realized? Half the time, you're ready to take me before I've even touched you. Who is it you believe you fool, Izuna? Or perhaps it's nothing to do with me and your body is so eager that anyone would do, which is it?"
"Are you honestly so stupid? To imply I'm a whore when you're the only man who's had me? You were there, Tobirama. How much insecurity can one man bear?" Her evasion answers enough in itself but her words give rise to too much anger to linger on the satisfaction of her slip.
"You are too weak-willed to even admit to your own wants—"
"Says the man who cannot look his wife in the eye."
"Last time I did, you tortured me for it."
"Yes, while you laid in a pool of my own blood, spilt when you raped me—"
"Spilled at your own hand."
"Because death seemed preferable to you—"
She cuts herself off and stands abruptly, leaving the room. He has half a mind to follow her, too angry to leave things unfinished, but has no time to follow through before she returns to the room with her blade.
"We should spar." He is unbalanced, to say the least.
"You want to spar with me? Now?" Incredulity colours his tone, he wonders if she's aware of her own absurdity.
"I want to hit you, this seems the most appropriate way."
"I'm not sure that's—"
"Don't pretend you wouldn't like to hurt me, as well. I'd prefer you do it like this." His fists tighten at his sides. She will forever think the worst of him.
"I had no plans to do otherwise."
"I'm sure."
He's being goaded, he knows he's being goaded, but the knowledge it's happening isn't near enough to stop him from meeting her in the clearing some acres back from their home.
Like this, everything is simple.
They match each other blow for blow, hold nothing back. Not fighting to kill, but not fighting for fun, either.
Each strike is a weight off his shoulders and he can see the same remembered ease mirrored in her movements. It's a wonder they haven't thought to do this sooner, it comes so much easier between them than talking. If they never speak again, he thinks, they may even learn to enjoy each other's company.
He sits in the grass, arms folded forward over his bent knees as he regains his breath, and appreciates the familiar ache of a good spar running through him. Beside him, Izuna lies sprawled on her back in the grass, presumably doing the same. He asks the one question that their fight couldn't alleviate.
"Do you truly hate it so much when I touch you?"
"I don't understand why you do it."
"We must—"
"No. Not that, I hate—why must you always make me—" For all her bluntness, this still flusters her. He struggles not to be endeared, though it's a quality he usually finds irritating.
"Do you not enjoy it?"
"I do not hate it and that is precisely the problem."
He does not understand.
"However we feel about this," she gestures loosely between them, "I am your wife, and I don't resent the expectations that come with that in the way you think I do," which is not, he notes, even slightly the same as not resenting them at all, "but—it's just a further humiliation, isn't it? I feel sick with myself every time you prove that I am not only alone in my new home, but I cannot even trust my own body."
He feels ill. To embarrass her had been one thing, penance for the way she infuriates him, a step, perhaps, towards the permittance of more mutual pleasure. To know that instead, she feels alone, that his actions have only made it worse—
"I have not been kind to you."
"We have never been kind to each other," she corrects.
"No, we have not, but we are married, now, and I have not given proper credit to how much more that has cost you than it has me." When he'd seen her greet her brother with such enthusiasm, he'd truly considered, for the first time, what it must mean for her to be without him. "I still have my home, my clan, I'm with Hashirama most days. I imagine to be without all of that is difficult enough, made worse by our history."
She is silent for so long he has to look and be sure she hasn't fallen asleep.
"I'll hate you even more if you start being nice to me." She spits the word out as though it disgusts her and it's a small mercy she keeps her face turned to the sky, doesn't catch the way it makes him grin.
"I can promise you, I will never be that."
A/N: I think Izuna is the exact type of person who would make you want to bash your head into a wall when you argue just to end the conversation 😌