Chapter Text
Madara hated the cold more than any other time of year. It was always damp and left a chill in his bones that he couldn’t seem to fully get rid of until spring finally reared its head. Not to mention that this sort of snowy weather brought back the worst sort of memories from the back of his mind and shoved them straight in the present. One of his roommates, Hashirama Senju, tried his best to be overbearing in winter, as though desperate to change his mind about the entire season. As much as Madara appreciated the thought of it—Hashirama meant no harm at all; he was just trying to be a good best friend—it was annoying and really did make things worse most of the time. Just because he appreciated it, didn’t mean that he wasn’t happy to have a weekend reprieve from the eccentric idiot. Hashirama had taken off hours ago to go out of state and visit his girlfriend, Mito Uzumaki.
That meant that he’d been by himself in the large, two-story house that Hashirama had inherited from his father, at least he would be for a little while. He wasn’t expecting Tobirama home for at least two more hours, which might be a good thing. They’d never managed to get along very well anyway. Madara’s temper was too short, and Tobirama was too much of a smartass.
Both of them skirted around each other carefully most of the time, knowing that it upset Hashirama when they fought, but clashing eventually was unavoidable. This weekend was probably going to be that exact case since Hashirama wasn’t going to be there. Neither of them would have to feel guilty about making the too-sensitive man fall into a state of overly dramatic depression that may or may not involve tears.
He had just walked through the door, shivering. It had been snowing on and off all day, and the horrid white substance was now packed on the ground, and it was still falling down from the sky. The pace was sedate, so there was no trouble navigating his way home, but it was still uncomfortable. He hated driving in the snow.
He quickly removed his soaked jacket and his suit coat, moving to his room to get changed, settling into a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants almost immediately, wanting to get warm. The heat was already running on full-blast in the house, but he still felt cold. Part of him wanted to start a fire in the fireplace and sit in front of it, but he was too tired to clean it out first. Settling for a blanket, he just walked back into the living room and settled himself on the couch, covered up. He was still shivering as he waited for his body temperature to return to normal.
“I need to get the heat fixed in my car,” he muttered to himself as he closed his eyes. A few moments later, he was drifting off into a light slumber.
SLAM!
Madara flinched as he woke up, throwing off his blanket and getting to his feet. He looked around wearily, wondering what the hell was going on.
“You’re an asshole. Did you know that?”
Madara slowly turned toward the entry way, it was the direction that Tobirama’s angry voice had come from. Sure enough, the younger brother of his best friend was standing in front of the door, that Madara was certain that he just slammed. He was shivering and staring at him with a positively murderous gaze.
He just stared at him, insulted by the name-calling and confused at the same time. He’d just gotten in, he was certain. He hadn’t been asleep for that long, and all he’d done since he’d gotten to the house was sleep! There was no way that he’d managed to do something wrong. Normally, he was aware of what he’d done to piss the younger off, so it unsettled him that he’d done so unintentionally.
“I’m aware that you’ve called me that more times than I care to count,” Madara replied slowly, rubbing at his eyes. He looked at Tobirama again, this time the view of his angry face was sharper. “Can I ask what I’m such an asshole for this time?”
“It’s snowing outside, and it’s cold as hell!” Tobirama snapped.
“Well, I can’t really control the weather,” Madara informed him dryly. “Did you think I caused all of this? The heat’s not working in my car, you know. I would have made it a nice seventy degrees outside if I had been able to.”
“Shut up,” Tobirama snapped at him. “I know you can’t control the weather, you idiot! Your junk and your car are in the garage. Hashirama’s van is taking up all of the space in the front yard. You knew that I’d have to park in the back, and you didn’t even have the common decency to unlock the back door! The porch’s steps haven’t been salted yet, which was something that I had to find out the hard way! All of my assignments that I was holding fell into the snow, and now I can barely read them because all of the ink is running!”
Madara was silent, waiting for Tobirama to finish his rant. His brain was quickly waking back up, and he felt concern clench in his gut. Just because he and Tobirama didn’t get along most of the time didn’t mean that he hated the man. It was quite the opposite actually. He liked Tobirama a lot; their personalities clashed a bit too much for them to be any closer however.
“Are you alright?” Madara inquired calmly, moving around the couch and walking toward the entryway. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”
“I’m fine,” Tobirama snapped at him. “But that’s not the point, Uchiha! All of my assignments are—”
“Screw your assignments, Senju,” Madara cut him off, feeling the beginning of aggravation starting to squirm in his gut. “I asked you if you hit your head!” Tobirama had a bad habit of brushing off his injuries as though they were unimportant, which always made Madara weary when something happened to him. He’d feel awful if Tobirama got hurt because of his own pigheadedness.
“Why should you even care about that?” Tobirama demanded angrily, brushing past Madara and throwing his bag on the couch next to Madara’s blanket. “You obviously didn’t care about it when you didn’t salt the fucking steps!”
Feeling a bit more of his patience lessening, Madara coolly reminded him, “I’m not the only one that lives here, and you’re not the only one that had to leave this morning. You could have done it too.”
Tobirama was in his last year of university for some sort of complicated engineering degree that Madara wanted no part of, and Madara had a job at the local law firm. Both of them worked very hard and long hours, and it ended with them being grumpier than normal on the more taxing days, especially when things didn’t go as planned…such as taking a dive down the stairs or being bitched at as soon as your housemate got home.
“I was running late for an exam,” Tobirama snapped at him. “I had to rush out this morning, and I know that you left later than I did! I don’t understand why you didn’t check beforehand. You had way more time than me!”
“No, I didn’t,” Madara informed him. “I was on the phone with a client first thing this morning, which I why I left so late. I had no time to check and see if the person that wasn’t busy from the moment that they opened their eyes had bothered to do what was expected of them! I notice that you never bothered to send me a text and tell me that you hadn’t been able to do it! I got in, changed and sat down. I didn’t know that I was going to fall asleep. You’ll have to excuse me for not rushing to unlock the back door for someone that wasn’t going to be home for another three hours! That’s a good way to get a break-in. It’s like inviting thieves into your home and giving away your things. Don’t worry, though. Next time, I’ll be sure to be more considerate of you!”
“Please,” Tobirama growled back. “I don’t think you even know what that word means. You’re the most inconsiderate, lazy, slacking jerk that I’ve ever met.” Madara hated the way that Tobirama was during an argument. He was still as calm and collected as ever while he spoke, which pissed Madara off even more. He gave off the feeling that he was yelling, though he never raised his voice. He certainly didn’t have to yell to raise Madara’s blood pressure to unsafe heights.
Don’t take the bait, Madara coached himself as indignation started spreading through his body like red, hot flames. Do not take the bait! He wants you to get mad so that you’re the unreasonable one! That information was true enough, but it didn’t help at all. It didn’t matter who was the reasonable one and who was not. When Madara got angry, especially with Tobirama, logic started to feel irrelevant, and all he wanted to do was hurt someone.
“I’m the lazy one?” Madara questioned him incredulously. He marched back around to couch, toward Tobirama. “The last time that I checked, you stay holed up in your room all the damn time, unless you’re coming out to bitch at me! I’ve been pretty damn considerate over the past year, letting you get away with not cleaning your portion of the house and not cooking any meals! Hashirama and I have been taking care of it all after we get off of work, which isn’t exactly easy, because we both know that you have a tough workload. That really shouldn’t matter though, because all of our workloads are hard! Hashirama just wants to baby you because you’re the last brother that he has! You take advantage of it, soaking up all of the freeloading that you can while you’re still with your gullible older brother!”
Tobirama visibly flinched at Madara’s words, and it was amazing to watch. A little more than a year ago, Tobirama’s younger brothers Itama and Kawarama Senju had both died in a freak car accident. It had made the entire family fall into a horrible depression that they had just recovered from a few months previously. The brothers were a tender subject that would take very many years of grieving to start casually speaking about. They had been like brothers to Madara as well, and mentioning them left a bitter taste on his tongue, but he knew that it was nothing compared to the pain that the Senju’s felt. He knew that he’d struck a horribly low blow on Tobirama by bringing that up, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care at the moment. Not when the younger man had been the one to start this argument. He’d definitely feel like a total ass about it later, though.
“If anyone is taking advantage of Hashirama, it’s you,” Tobirama growled at him. “You’ve been doing it since our childhood. You always came over and mooched off us for weeks at a time. You never went home, and Hashirama always said it was because your family sucked. I’m sure that they did. What happened to the spoiled little Uchiha? Did they take away your PlayStation because you wouldn’t clean your room?”
Madara froze at that, rage boiling from his veins. “No,” he said coldly. He’d be damned before someone as pampered as Tobirama was going to speak to him like that. He turned around and pulled his shirt over his head. He knew that the younger man would see the map of scars that ran across his skin very clearly. It was impossible not to see the grotesque image that they created. “This is what they did when they were angry at me.”
He clenched his eyes shut as memories of his drunken parents telling him that he was a demon child and needed to be taught a lesson. He teeth rubbed together at the pain that it had caused when a knife had slid across his skin. Hashirama’s parents had wanted to call the police, but Madara had begged them not to. Hashirama had been the only light in his life, and he was terrified of the thought of it being taken away. Luckily, Hashirama’s mother had been a nurse and was able to properly bandage his wounds.
When he pulled himself out of those dark memories, he realized that silence rang through the room. Regret and anxiety churned in his gut, making him nauseous. Why did you show him that? Madara asked himself silently as he quickly lowered his shirt back down. He swallowed back a grimace as he just stood still. He didn’t want to turn around and see the damnable pity in Tobirama’s red eyes. Hashirama had been the only person to neve show him any pity over what happened. Sure, the older brother had been angry over the situation, but he’d never pitied Madara. He’d just offered him a safe haven to go to when he felt like everything was turning into too much for him.
“I’m leaving,” Madara said abruptly. He rushed back around the couch and snatched his keys off the wall. He hurried out of the door, cursing as the cold hit him. He hadn’t even thought to bring a jacket. He rushed down the steps, being careful not to slip and darted to the garage. He’d stay with Izuna for a few days until things blew over. Honestly, he didn’t know how he would be able to face Tobirama again after that.
The snow was starting to fall down even more now, but Madara didn’t pay any attention to that as his mind continued to reel. He was kicking himself and he felt his throat close slightly due to panic.
How? How had he been so damn stupid?! He quickly put the car into reverse and drove out of the garage. He saw Tobirama in the driveway, his face no longer blank. He looked almost panicked. He waved at him, trying to get him to stop, but Madara just ignored it, driving around him and out of the yard. He didn’t look back, not wanting to know what the younger man was going to do. Hopefully, he would just go back into the house and get warm.
Madara sighed and tried his best to relax in the leather seat of his Lexus, but it was hard when it was so cold. His teeth were chattering, and his fingers were numb on the steering wheel. It probably would have been a better idea to take Hashirama’s van, but it was too late now. There was no way that he was going back.
He turned out of the neighborhood road and onto the highway. The entire road was deserted, and the snow was getting even worse. He squinted through his windshield, cursing at the fact that he could barely see five feet in front of his car. He leaned forward a little, hoping that a different angle would help…of course it didn’t.
He cursed. It would be a better idea to just pull over. Driving like this was insane. No matter how upset he was, he wasn’t irrational. He slowly pressed his foot on the breaks, prepared to slowly come to a stop, when he felt the vehicle loose traction. He cursed himself for still being so distracted. He was going too fast, and his instinct to slam on the break had already settled in. He felt the wheels lock and the car started swerving. The last thing that he remembered was seeing a large ditch being lit up by the headlights of his car.