Kindling

Madara blew out a measured breath, ignoring the deep ache of his body and running his fingers gently through stark white hair, almost glowing in his lap as Tobirama’s breathed out on a thin whine; he hated this, if anyone had told him that he would be sitting in a prison in lightning country cuddling Tobirama Senju he would have laughed in their face (and then thrown then in the koi pond- Izuna was the only person that might have said something like that really) but now that it was happening there was nothing funny about it. Tobirama shifted, a painful shiver skating down his skin as he choked back a pained, thready scream; Madara leaned over, ignoring his own swimming head as he tried to hush the Senju “Easy Senju, easy. Breath, try to match my breathing. Come on, you can do it Tobira, hush now” he murmured, relaxing gratefully when the albino’s breathing eased as he matched Madara. The Uchiha ran his fingers down one pale arm he could only sort of see in the dim light (bless Uchiha eyes even when the sharingan wasn’t active), brushing his fingers against the heavy metal cuff around the thin wrist; he shivered when he brushed the metal (almost two inches thick for fucks sake) and the sharp radiating cold cut through him, fucking things were so cold that the blood from where they had destroyed Tobirama’s wrists (he was going to have scars) was frozen into red ice over the metal, at this point Madara was just hopping to get them off of him soon enough to not leave the younger man incapable of using his hands at all.

He shifted his fingers, glad that he had been left with his gloves as he slipped two fingers underneath the shackle sending out a tiny pulse of chakra as he did so; Tobirama turned into him with a sob of relief at the feeling. Madara grit his teeth sharply, trying not to grind them as he beat back his anger at the fucking lightning shinobi that had snatched them; they had caught him only by turning an old clan contact and sacrificing a ridiculous amount of their fellows to his blade before they brought him down, after that none of them had really wanted to come close to him and risk death (smart), instead they had thrown him in the cell covered in chakra seals and smoked him with some sort of drug every few hours to keep him from thinking clearly enough to plan a way out. Tobirama hadn’t been so lucky, he had been brought (thrown) in a day or two after Madara and had all ready been in bad shape at the time; Madara couldn’t tell how bad it was but he knew his pants were completely soaked through with blood and that Tobirama hadn’t surfaced from his pain at all in the last two days (it worried Madara that the other hadn’t, as far as he knew Tobirama was always thinking- that’s what Izuna said anyway- so to see this blank, pain ridden man was worrying).

The albino shivered and Madara pulsed his chakra again, shifting his fingers and trying to figure out how long he could leave them there without the frostbite ruining them, a little longer before he had to take a break and warm them up; Madara hated that, hated that he ever had to remove his fingers because every damn time he did Tobirama got worse, every time the cuffs cut off Tobirama’s senses completely again (every time he couldn’t feel Madara) he could feel the albino slipping away from him. Madara would probably survive this- all he needed was a minute, just one slip up and he could blow his way out of here; hell just leaving him alone like this wasn’t a good idea, it gave him time to think and plan and that was all he really needed. He would get out of here. He would, Tobirama…. he was afraid he wouldn’t have a chance to get the Senju out of here before he lost the sensor to the pain and chakra deprivation and that would, that would hurt after the last four days (god, he had been here for six days, Izuna must be losing his shit, the whole clan would be- what with the clan head missing). He had grown close to the albino in the time they had been there, hard not to when the normally stern young man (he was only nineteen for fucks sake) was so cuddly and those first few days before he slipped away he had muttered to Madara about everything that crossed his mind (which was frankly hilarious, he had never expected to be treated to a long ramble about the question of why his hair was so fluffy, or about Izuna’s tendency to tantrums, or about the working of a new jutsu he was planning to use to make a blade of lightning).

He didn’t want to be fond of Tobirama, had kept his distance at first- this was the man that had the best chance to kill Madara’s brother- until he realized how badly off Tobirama was and just couldn’t leave the albino to suffer on his own (and Hashirama would never forgive him), he just couldn’t. Madara sighed and winced as he switched fingers for some that weren’t so cold, grimacing as the tight noise that Tobirama made in the seconds with out chakra; fuck, how good a sensor was Tobirama? If cutting of his chakra affected him this badly he must be far, far better than the Uchiha intelligence indicated, and wasn’t that frightening; what were the chances he didn’t know everyone that came and went from the Uchiha compound and everyone they met with? And if he did why wasn’t his clan a lot worse off then they were? After all with that kind of information there was a terrifying amount of things that they could do to disable the clan. Either Tobirama hated the Uchiha a lot less than Madara and Izuna thought or else Hashirama had his brother on a much tighter leash than Madara thought, which just didn’t seem likely given what he knew and had seen of the Senju brothers.

Madara’s head snapped up, there was a sound in the hallway; he grinned wolfishly, they hadn’t smoked him today (he might be able to get both of them out of here after all).