6.
Madara still eats like he doesn't know where his next meal is coming from. He descends upon his breakfast like a bird of prey, ravenous, and then halfway through his bowl he seems to realize what he's doing and slows down considerably. Hashirama watches him with mild amusement, pleased to note that Madara is comfortable enough around him to forego all those preconceived notions of the cold and austere clan leader Madara Uchiha, all-powerful and uncaring, at least for a little while.
He meant what he had said. Ever since the truce, day by day, Madara has begun to look more and more alive. It's a blessing to see him smiling after so long. Hashirama remembers how Madara used to show up to battles gray-faced and dead-eyed, and his heart feels heavy, as if a pair of hands are crushing it.
Hashirama sets down his spoon and puts his chin in his hand. Madara has no one. All he's got is the bitter lingering memory of four dead siblings and a distrustful clan skulking in his wake. Hashirama knows just how deeply he poured his heart into protecting the Uchiha during the war—he knows how fiercely he still cares, even during peacetime; he knows that as the days go on, Madara can't watch over the Uchiha without markedly separating himself from them at the same time.
Madara has been lonely for a long time. He has no one to turn to now. Hashirama wants to be that person for Madara, he thinks; he wants to be the person Madara can rely on without fail, he wants to be there when Madara feels hopeless and isolated, if Madara wants him. The thought floods him. He's grinning down at the sunlit breakfast table, unable to stop, and then Madara notices and smiles one of his small half-smiles at him and there's a rice noodle stuck in his hair, right at the level of his chin.
"You know you're essentially courting him, right," Tobirama says with supreme disdain, the next time Hashirama asks Madara out to dinner.
Hashirama throws his head back and laughs, because that idea is completely absurd; Madara is his best friend and just being with him like this, with both of them on the same side, is enough to flood him with inexpressible joy. Hashirama is so proud of them both; he's so glad they're both here together. He stirs the vegetables around in the pan, perhaps more vigorously than Tobirama considers acceptable, and a half-cooked carrot lands squarely on the floor.
Tobirama sighs for a long time.
"I'll take that as a confession," he says, setting the table for two.
Late in that first autumn, a deep, bitter cold settles in overnight, and a particularly potent strain of the flu sweeps through the newly-built village. There is a wet chill in the air when Hashirama wakes up that morning, and a sort of freezing gray mist is spreading through the streets as he gets dressed, but Hashirama isn't worried; he never gets sick. He arrives at the office early and boils a pot of tea in the tiny kitchen and puts food out for the cat and gathers his robes around himself and goes to read his overflowing in-tray before the morning crowd appears, only to discover a persistent ache behind his eyes as soon as he opens the first scroll. This is followed by a rather troubling soreness spreading through his throat and nose. With impeccable timing, a cascade of rain begins its assault on the roof, coming down in icy sheets.
When Tobirama arrives at the office with Madara at his heels, Hashirama's hands are shaking and he's been reading the same sentence in the newest soil quality report for fifteen minutes. He's fine. He's not sick. He never gets sick. Madara looks dubious. He pointedly hangs up his wet cloak on top of Tobirama's, so that the largest amount of water possible will drip onto it. Tobirama mutters something about needing to check the front desk, and they hear him grumbling to himself all the way down the hallway.
"Just go home, Hashirama," Madara is saying, barely an hour later. He's perched cross-legged on the side of the desk, thumbing through potential evacuation route proposals, a cup of cold black coffee abandoned next to him by the in-tray. Cold rain lashes at the window.
Hashirama sniffs and drags his damp sleeve across his nose, ignoring Madara's wince of mild disgust. "Office is closed today," he says. "Might as well stay and work while no one's here."
"Work from home!" Madara says, as if this is the most obvious solution in the world, which Hashirama supposes it is. "Or—even better—take a nap, Hashirama, you're coming apart around the ears."
Hashirama laughs. His throat hurts. "If I go home, I'll have to clean my desk," he says.
"I'll make you a pot of tea. Is that too much?"
"Really, Madara, I'm fine," Hashirama says. "I've never gotten sick in my life." He has passed out from overuse of the mokuton, though, and he's been using that quite frequently lately, building houses and shelters and walls and gardens. Even as he speaks, the area behind his eyes gives an ill-timed throb, and he puts his head in his hands. "I'd take a cup of tea, though," he admits.
"Don't move," Madara says, giving Hashirama a warning look. His hair looks more…bristly than usual. He leaps off the desk and goes into the kitchen next door and puts the kettle on. Hashirama can hear him rummaging through the cabinets, cursing.
The more Hashirama thinks about it, the more surreal and miraculous it is that the same Madara Uchiha everybody talks about is actually here, in this tragically mundane office with him, filling out paperwork and making him tea and sitting on his desk. He's really here. Their story could have ended in blood and fire and tears about a thousand times, but it just—it didn't. It's wonderful.
"Thank you, Madara," Hashirama says as Madara passes him a teacup and climbs back onto the desk, but he means to say a lot more.
He feels much less sick by the end of the day, thankfully. By nightfall, the skies are clearing, and stars are beginning to appear, winking against the firmament. Tonight feels like an important night. Hashirama wants a drink.
"I'm going to go spend some money," he announces to Tobirama and Madara as he locks the office. "Care to join me?"
Madara shakes his head—of course—but Tobirama is gathering his things. "I'll meet you there," he says, lips twitching. "And do spend your own money this time, will you?"
Hashirama smiles at Madara as they step outside together. The night air is blessedly cool against Hashirama's face. He won't pretend he's not a little disappointed that Madara isn't coming with him yet again, but such is life. "You know where I'll be," Hashirama says, "if you change your mind."
He doesn't mean to stay out as late as he does, especially in his current state. Five drinks later, or maybe four, but he's lost count now—either way it's more than he should have had, and more money than he should have spent—Hashirama is serene and warm and drunk and comfortably numb, sitting quite still at the end of the counter with his chin resting on one hand. The world has gone blurred at the edges, the way watercolors bleed into wet paper. It's stiflingly hot at the bar, and Hashirama feels as if he is being slowly smothered by pipe smoke and trailing garments, all fine sleeves and long fraying hems and neatly stitched clan symbols: Sarutobi, Senju, Yamanaka. Drinking together like brothers, Hashirama remembers, and a smile slowly spreads across his face, amplified by the hot room and the alcohol. He misses Madara. There are no Uchihas at this bar; they have their own place—well, Madara doesn't go to any of the bars (such a shame), and Hashirama really wishes he was here. He looks around. He's lost Tobirama somewhere in the crowd, but he thinks he's probably too drunk to try and find him right now. Actually he's probably the most drunk he's been in a while. This is confirmed when he goes to stand up to let a crowd of new arrivals pass through to the bar and the floor lurches up at him. Hashirama stumbles into the wall and knocks over someone's glass with a flailing arm—he can almost hear the village parents explaining to their children in a few days' time that the esteemed leader of the Senju clan is in fact a good-for-nothing drunken layabout—he can't convince his eyes to focus; the room keeps getting darker.
Then Madara's actually there, his chakra sparking against Hashirama's own, safe and scalding. Hashirama breathes in and it's Madara's familiar smell, smoke and sweat and wool and leather and another thing he can never quite place, a bittersweet sort of warmth. And then Madara's hands are cupping his face, brushing his hair out of his eyes; one arm reaches around, pressing into his shoulder—their bodies are colliding, Hashirama's back resting solidly against Madara's side—Madara's hands are cold and pale and miraculous and Hashirama's face is painfully hot.
"Madara?" he says, knowing precisely who it is but wanting to hear Madara say it himself. Yes, I'm here, Hashirama, it's me.
"Yeah," Madara says roughly, and his grip tightens on Hashirama's shoulder, steering him away from the bar. "Let's get out of here, get you to bed, Hashirama, come on."
Hashirama's heart leaps. Some sort of drunken appreciation is blossoming in his chest, a great rush of affection, admiration, awe. Madara. Madarais here. It's really him.
Hashirama tells him so. "It's really you," he says, beaming. "That's wonderful. That's just so wonderful. You're…you're the best." He jabs an index finger into the center of Madara's chest as he speaks. "I really love you, Madara, I love you so much, I'm so glad you're here with me. Thank you so much for everything, I'm so glad you're—That's amazing, that's—that's—"
He can't stop; his mouth keeps moving without his express permission, and the words keep pouring out. "I just love you so much, Madara," he says once more, and he rests his head on Madara's shoulder and twists his fingers through Madara's hair (and it's soft!) and lets his eyes slide closed.
Madara stops dead in the middle of the bar. His hold on Hashirama's shoulder is painful now. But there's no time to dwell on this strange reaction because moments later Hashirama realizes he really, really has to vomit.
He shares this information with Madara, who makes a strangled, uncharacteristically helpless sort of noise in the back of his throat before dragging Hashirama outside.
It's sort of poetic, Hashirama thinks dizzily. Here they both are, the two most powerful people in the world, childhood friends turned enemies turned allies, two halves of the driving force that combined against all odds in order to turn war into peace, and Madara is holding Hashirama's hair out of his face as he heaves into the gutter in this village that they created together, as equals.