I could find you Darlin’, in any life
“Tobiramaaaa.”
“TobiRAMAAA.”
“TOBIRAMA!”
Sighing, the white haired seventeen year old reluctantly pulls himself out of his meditative trance, his sensing jutsu reaching out one final time to brush against the warm-hearth-knitted-blankets-eye-of-the-storm chakra that he has grown so fond of.
In recent years his sensory range has expanded drastically, along with his combat prowess and chakra control - to the point where he can single out and focus on stronger chakra signatures all the way out to the Uchiha village… so that he can keep an eye on them for any attacks or movements, obviously.
“TOBIII! Stop ignoring me, Otouto!” Hashirama whines, draping himself across his younger brother’s shoulders dramatically.
Releasing a deeper sigh, Tobirama fully removes himself from the meditation he had been relaxing in, already mourning the loss of that comforting warmth.
“What’s wrong, Hashi?” He asks.
“What’s wrong is that my brother is a loner who barely interacts with the clan all day and if I don’t seek him out myself, I won’t get to see him for over a week!” Hashirama moans, body practically melting on top of his brother, who pretends to push him away, secretly basking in the heat of human touch and his brother’s lush-forest-dew-drops-wet-earth chakra signature.
Wincing at the rebuke which, while said jokingly, is a very pointed dig, Tobirama merely hums in response. He can’t refute what Hashirama says, because he knows it’s true.
Ever since he was young, he’s tried to avoid the majority of the clan, except from on the battlefield. His bone white hair and ‘tainted’ eyes have marked him from birth as an outsider in his own clan, some people even claiming he’s a changeling left for them by some trickster God. Only his brothers and cousins didn’t hate or fear him growing up… and now he only has Hashirama and Touka left.
Even so, he used to attempt to be friendly with his clan when he was younger, but ever since his sensory skills really started to develop and grow, he finds it easier to remove himself from the rest of the Senju and their disdain - there’s a big difference between knowing you are disliked and actively being able to feel the discomfort and disgust your own clan members experience when you walk by them.
Yeah, it’s easier and more comfortable for everyone involved if he keeps himself hidden away in his quarters, where he can create jutsu in peace and find his own way to help and contribute to the clan that doesn’t make everyone around him shy away.
Not that he can’t still sense their disdain within his rooms, but he can distract himself with nicer feeling chakra and happier, kinder emotions…
“Tobi, you’re doing that thing again!” His brother snaps.
“Hmm? What thing?” Tobirama asks his brother gently, melting into his body, enjoying what little human contact he can get.
“That zoning out thing you do! I’m trying to talk to you about how you need to get out more and you’re ignoring me!” Hashirama whines, voice rising into a shout as his frustration washes through Tobirama in waves.
Wincing at his brother’s emotions, the white haired boy lets out a huff of annoyance. It’s not as if they haven’t had this conversation before.
“You know why I don’t spend time with the clan, Ni-san, and can you please try to reign in your emotions, I’m too tired to block you out right now,” he sighs: and he is. He only got back from a 2 week long mission two days ago and has since then only managed to have a 3 hour nap, before getting started on all the paperwork that has accumulated in his absence - paperwork that his brother should be filling out instead of him.
But, that is the way things have always been between them; Hashirama goes out and chases his dreams, marrying a woman he genuinely loves and constantly trying to talk to Madara-sama about peace, while Tobirama is keeping their clan running from the shadows, is constantly on watch for any movements against their clan, is protecting everyone on the battlefield while his brother hops about in a two man tango with his platonic soulmate, is always thinking up and perfecting new jutsu to keep them safe, is always exhausting himself in the name of a clan that wants nothing to do with him.
Sighing once more, he opens his eyes in surprise when his brother pulls away from him, radiating upset before he closes his emotions off, cocooning himself in neutral chakra so that Tobirama can’t sense him as strongly.
“That’s not fair, Tobi,” Hashirama says, shaking his head in disappointment, making Tobirama curl into himself. “I can’t always be restraining myself around you just because you can’t be bothered to pull in your sensory range, and neither can the clan. It’s not their fault, you know?”
Hanging his head in shame, Tobirama doesn’t reply. He knows its not anyone else’s fault that he’s such a strong sensor, and that the clan never asked for him to be able to sense their emotions the way he can - and why should they have to change their habits just to cater to him? But he had thought his brother would understand that sometimes he’s too tired, too drained after all the effort he puts in, to try and pull his natural sensory range back into just himself.
But again, this is a conversation they have had many times before and he never wins an argument against his older brother.
Huffing in disappointment, Hashirama reaches out to ruffle his brother’s hair. “What am I going to do with you? When are you going to realise that I’m just trying to help? The clan wants to see you, you’re the one that is pulling away and staying at a distance, not them. You can’t blame them for finding you difficult to deal with when you don’t give any of them the chance to get to know you, can you?”
“…I know, Ni-san. I’m sorry, I’ll try to do better,” Tobirama whispers, shoulders up to his ears as shame and guilt bite at him. His brother is right, he knows that he is the problem, otherwise everyone wouldn’t despise him so much, he just doesn’t know how to fix it.
Maybe he can create a jutsu to change his eyes permanently? Then they won’t see him for the demon he is…
He is brought out of his musings by his brother stamping his foot on the floor.
“See! This is what I mean! I try to talk to you and you just ignore me! How is anyone supposed to get along with you when you spend half of the time staring into space instead of talking to people! Clearly you’re not interested in what I have to say, so I’ll leave you alone,” Hashirama says, turning and walking towards the door, pausing in the open doorway. “But maybe you need to think about the way you treat people and that maybe the problem isn’t their behaviour, it’s yours.”
With that final blow, his brother walks out, slamming the door behind him.
Squeezing his eyes shut to hold back his tears, Tobirama lets out a shaky breath, then another, and another, until his heartrate has calmed down and he doesn’t feel like his chest is going to explode with his heartache anymore.
Again, this isn’t the first time, nor the second, that his brother has implied that he is the problem in the clan, not the other way around, and like all the other times Tobirama feels a little bit of the warmth left in his heart chipping away, replaced with cool indifference.
The amount of himself that is slowly being replaced by the unfeeling monster in his chest terrifies Tobirama, but with every glare and whispered insult, with every stray kunai on the battlefield sent by the hand of one of his own kin, with every mission that keeps him away from home for longer and longer periods of time, he finds himself slowly succumbing to the icy relief he finds in dissociating and closing himself off.
He once did that for over two months before he had to pull himself back out of it because in his haze of indifference, he had let a kunai through that almost killed Touka, scaring him half to death.
Shuddering at the reminder of his cousin’s near death experience due to his negligence, he does what he always does when the cool ocean of his chakra becomes too much for him to handle: he allows his sensory range to spread back out, flowing through the rivers and trees between them, until it gets to the Uchiha clan.
Even when he isn’t walking around the senju compound, making everyone miserable, there is a general air of discomfort. The senju aren’t a happy people, and their elders are a grumpy, judgemental lot, making sensing the clan all the time a hard thing for Tobirama to endure without those emotions slowly seeping into him.
In contrast, the Uchiha are a happy clan. Sure there’s the odd flair of anger or frustration, but it is suppressed quickly and good feelings are soon to follow. Immersing himself in the chakra of their village, Tobirama basks in the open feelings of affection, admiration and joy the clan has for each other, smiling to himself when he feels the bubbling chakra of a group of young women, the calluses-fresh-cookies-spring-water feeling chakra having clearly told a joke that got everyone laughing.
Moving away from them, he passes over a family who all feel like contentment and full tummies, a young couple that both exude shy affection and delight, and an old man who feels sleepy with the pride of a job well done, until he finally gets to the chakra he’s looking for.
Warm-hearth-knitted-blankets-eye-of-the-storm chakra floods Tobirama’s senses and he can finally relax again after the disaster of a ‘conversation’ with his brother.
Sighing out loud he focuses, anchoring himself into the safety and protectiveness of the chakra signature, before opening his eyes and pulling the next bit of paperwork he has to handle towards himself, smiling gently as the coolness in his chest starts to thaw in the face of his favourite chakra signature’s overwhelming heat.
Losing himself to the steading rhythm of ink scratching on paper, three hours quickly passes and he is finally done. Putting everything away neatly, he manages to drag himself across the floor to his futon with drooping eyes and weak limbs, where he curls up into a ball.
Finally able to rest properly for the first time since he set off on his mission two weeks ago, Tobirama is lulled to sleep by the feeling of knitted blankets around his shoulders and the warmth of a burning hearth fire many miles away.