(Prompt taken and tweaked from this list here)
Tobirama had always been his own sort of mystery, far out past the realms of Hashirama’s understanding. How his mind seemed to work in riddles, logic so advanced it was almost inhuman, seeing and solving issues long before anyone else had a chance of sniffing them out.
How he could spend hours at a time stock still, processing and meditating and analyzing whatever strand of the universe he’d grabbed onto then, picking it apart to see the very foundations of the world - and often tear the laws of nature to shreds to make his own.
A logical man, through and through, patient with the things that had Hashirama’s head hurting from a single glance. Gaze sharper than the blades he practiced with for hours at a time, steel and red glinting in the moonlight, reflecting his passion.
Yet the very things Hashirama wished his brother would have patience with, would listen to reason about, were the very things Tobirama would dig his heels into the ground with, baring his teeth and snarling in offense.
“Stop being so contrary and kiss me.”
With his back to the kitchen counter, boxed in by his little brother, there was little Hashirama could do but stare into the red seething pits of his brother’s soul. He took a single, shaky breath, though it did not calm him as he’d liked.
“Did you, or did you not, say you wanted to?” The heated question was more a statement. Hashirama fiddled with the long sleeves of his yukata, guilt and shame eating at the depths of his own soul.
“That doesn’t… Otouto, I can’t, and you know that.”
Hashirama dared to look away, feeling his resolve crumble as it always did under that intense stare. For once, he had to stay strong (he didn’t want to be strong, not about this. Never about this), had to make sure Tobirama understood why they could never be (his heart shatters at the thought, another casualty of being the heir he’d never wanted to be in the first place).
“Kissing me is a death wish. You know what father would do if he were to discover…us.” It hurt to say aloud how dangerous their situation was, just as it hurt that he’d never allowed anything to come of them in the first place. He wondered briefly which feeling might finally do him in: the guilt of lusting and loving his last living brother, or the shame of ever feeling guilty of it in the first place.
Tobirama snorted, and the sound cut right through Hashirama’s morose musing. “You think I care what he thinks? What anyone might think of us? Anija, if you have ever known me, you know how little I care for the shunning of taboos.” He rolled his eyes, and was quick to clap a hand over Hashirama’s mouth before he could speak. “If your protests or concerns involve in any way my safety, or my standing in the clan, don’t speak of them. My choices are mine to make, not yours - and I chose you long ago.”
As Hashirama’s eyes grew big and watery, Tobirama leaned forward, placing a kiss over the hand still covering his brother’s mouth. “Anija, if you need time…I understand. I won’t push you on this.”
Catching the hand falling away from his mouth, Hashirama squeezed it in his own, whispering in the small space between them. “I love you, I truly do. I just- When I’m the clan head, otouto, when Father’s not here…can you wait that long?” It was selfish, he knew, to ask his brother to wait for him. And so very hypocritical, weak of him to fall as he always did - so quickly and so easily to the man he loved with all his heart.
Tobirama’s smile was soft, touched with a hint of sadness, but he nodded still. “As long as it takes, I will wait. Until the day I can stand by your side.”
Even after asking for and receiving such a promise, Hashirama pulled his brother close, pressing their lips together to taste what he shouldn’t have nor want. Someday, he would taste without bitter shame, love without guilt, and be free from the shackles of war and fear. Until that day, these moments of impatient pining and boiled-over grief from lack of touch would have to do.
Perhaps, then, he should be more thankful for his brother’s oddities, and his habit of latching on to what he wants - and never letting go.