Work Text:
“What’s wrong with him?” Dororo startled at the young lord’s voice, still unused to having a third member in their group and almost forgetting who he was in the drab clothing he’d borrowed from—actually, Dororo wasn’t really sure where he’d gotten it. He’d have to find out later. And make fun of him for having the idea to wear a disguise, even if it would probably help them not to be accused of kidnapping or tracked down by Daigo’s armies.
He shook himself out of his musings when he saw what the young lord had meant. Hyakkimaru had stopped walking, clamping his hands over his ears and looking like he was stuck between wanting to stoop down and hunch over his knees, and pushing on or running away. A sharp pang shot through him. His big bro had been doing so much better, even in crowded places. What had set him off with this one? “Bro…” he whispered.
“Hey! What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Tahomaru turned back, addressing Hyakkimaru this time, and moving as if he was going to grab his forearm. Almost instinctively, Hyakkimaru flinched away, clamping his hands down even tighter. Tahomaru frowned, reaching for him again. “I know we didn’t have the best introduction, but you don’t have to act like—”
“Don’t!” Dororo lunged forward, grabbing the young lord’s wrist before he could fully reach him. Tahomaru recoiled from the contact, starting as if to slap his hand away before remembering he wasn’t supposed to be playing the young lord anymore. For now, at least.
There was too much to explain right now, that it used to be a lot worse when he first got his ears back, and it had been better, but sometimes that kind of thing still flared up, that Hyakkimaru didn’t mean to recoil, that his big bro was just expecting him to try and rip his hands away from his ears, force him to listen to all the chatter and cacophony, maybe even speak very close to his ear. It had happened before, and he still wasn’t sure Hyakkimaru understood the priest hadn’t meant to be cruel when he’d done it. To be honest, Dororo wasn’t sure he understood it either.
“Big bro doesn’t like crowds,” he explained instead, tapping his own ears for emphasis. “The noise. He’s gotten better, but I guess this one’s just too much for him.”
By this point, Hyakkimaru had decided against trying to go any further, sinking to his knees and rocking on his ankles, a movement too slight to pick up on for anyone who didn’t know what they were looking for. Dororo flinched as a particularly loud call pierced the murmuring crowd. There really was a lot of noise around here.
Tahomaru frowned. “He seemed fine when he fought my father’s army.”
“That’s different.” Tahomaru looked like he wanted to argue, but Dororo ignored him, instead hopping over to Hyakkimaru and resting a hand on his back. The teen initially flinched away from the contact, curling in even tighter before recognizing him. “It’s okay, bro,” he said, running the hand in a circle over his back. “Don’t worry, it’s okay.”
Their newest member stood for a moment. Some of the passers-by would stop and stare at the scene before them before walking on. Sometimes they would mumble things. “Poor thing” or “What’s wrong with him?” And something about that pissed him off. Especially since he’d pretty much asked the same thing not minutes before.
And so he glared at them until they got the message that their eyes and their damn pity weren’t wanted and moved on. He glared after them for a moment longer before turning back and making his way over to the two, his elder brother and Hyakkimaru’s…adopted?…brother? Hyakkimaru had never corrected Dororo when he called himself a boy, or his brother, for that matter, so it seemed that’s what he was. It was still strange to think of himself as a younger sibling, so he had decided not to question any of it anymore than he had to. Dororo was Hyakkimaru’s little brother at this point, and he would not say otherwise.
Right now, Dororo had taken a piece of cloth from around his waist and was trying to offer it to his older brother, running it over his neck once to let him know what it was and then holding it near a wooden hand. But as far as he could tell, Hyakkimaru wasn’t having any of it, shaking his head and refusing to budge even as the smaller boy protested, “C’mon, doesn’t this help you? It’ll make it quieter.”
He stood watching them, feeling completely useless and wondering just what he thought he was going to accomplish by coming along with them. And that kind of pissed him off, too. Because it wasn’t like he was just some random stranger passing by. This was his brother, too. He forced himself not to think he was more his brother than Dororo, because after all, the kid had been looking out for him for months, and what had Tahomaru done but call him a demon and then change his mind? And for what? Because he wanted to find answers for himself? Because he wanted to see if his brother was really the demon their father said he was? Well, that didn’t seem very likely right now. Why couldn’t he do anything but stand there and glower at everyone?
Finally, he forced himself to swallow both his pride and his nerves. “How do I help?”
Dororo jumped nearly a foot, startling Hyakkimaru as well. “What?”
Tahomaru scowled, repeating the words even slower. “How. Do. I. Help.”
The kid returned his scowl, annoyed at his tone. But that expression soon dissipated in favor of concern as he continued his circle over his brother’s back. “Well, I use this to block out some of the sound,” he showed him the cloth, “but he’s not letting me get it on him right now. Um…this helps.” He gestured to his hand. “Press a little, but not hard. Keep between his shoulders and follow the spine. Don’t go near his arms, ‘cause he’ll think you’re gonna pull them away. But if he pulls away from you, let him.”
Tahomaru nodded, kneeling on his other side and laying a hand next to Dororo’s. “Like this?”
“Yeah. Oh, and don’t talk too loud. And don’t say any more than you have to.”
Running his hand along his brother’s back, he felt him stop rocking. Huh. He hadn’t even known he’d been doing that just by looking at him. But there was something else, too. He hadn’t felt many spines in the past (because really, it wasn’t like he was a doctor or had any interest in being one) but something didn’t feel quite right about his brother’s. But he couldn’t put his finger on just what, and the kid had said to talk as little as possible, so he didn’t ask.
“Okay. Next, we get him away from the noise.” He moved, pressing his hands near his shoulders. “Hey, bro. Let’s get out of here.”
Hyakkimaru stood, stumbling a little as a nerve pinched in his real ankle. Reflexively, Tahomaru caught him under one arm, the far hand clumsily catching near his elbow. He felt the flinch, rather than seeing it. “Don’t worry. I won’t take your hands off,” he spoke, hating how harsh his voice sounded.
They steered him away from the marketplace, careful not to push too hard or do anything that could feel like ripping his arms away. Dororo found a small pond (more like a puddle, really) that they could sit by while Hyakkimaru recovered, and the three of them sat down, Dororo resuming the circles on his back, while Tahomaru opted to simply rest his hand between his shoulders.
It was still strange to think about in many ways. His brother could weave through demons’ attacks like they were nothing, but had to be reminded not to reach over the campfire for things. He could carry Dororo around like he weighed nothing (which, to be fair, he might have) and hold him like he was the most fragile thing in the world, then turn around and cut down a demon with those same hands, but he needed help not to rip his clothing when he washed it. He could focus through the shouts of battle, crackling flames and roaring fox-demons, but a trip to the market had paralyzed him. There was still so much he had to learn about this strange brother of his.
As well as the little imp he’d picked up somewhere along the way, he noted as he watched the boy’s silent stroking. When Tahomaru had met him, he’d seemed like a loud-mouthed brat obsessed with making money (not that he blamed him, since in the kid’s mind, money probably meant the difference between food and starvation). If he hadn’t seen what happened in the marketplace, he wouldn’t have known the child was capable of such gentleness, or any at all, for that matter.
Tahomaru stretched his fingers to run a light zig-zagging motion over his shoulder blade. He didn’t know at this point if he was more surprised that it felt real, or that his brother didn’t flinch away from it.
Some time later, Hyakkimaru unfolded from his position, cautiously testing with a lighter pressure over his ears before letting his hands slip away entirely. Dororo handed him the cloth, letting him run his wooden fingers over it. From what he’d said and from what they could tell, his prosthetic body parts didn’t feel things the same as his real ones did, but he liked the textures of things even so. Tahomaru had thought perhaps he should start paying attention to the ones he liked, especially as he watched and noticed the slightest upturn of his lips.
Dororo was the first to speak. “Hey, bro. Feeling better?”
He gave the slightest nod, that tiny smile directed towards the boy now.
“Mm,” Dororo hummed. “That marketplace was the worst. If we have to go there again, I’ll give you that before we do.”
There was the slightest catch as he continued running his fingers on the cloth. Tahomaru was surprised he’d caught it, and he rested a hand over those wooden fingers for a moment. A spike of worry shot through him. Would his brother think he was going to take the cloth away now? He quickly withdrew his hand. But to his surprise, Hyakkimaru turned to him, that same small upturn of the lips directed at him now. And that squeezed something inside of him, making him bite his lip to keep it in, even though he knew he couldn’t see it.
“But I guess we could always make this guy go instead,” Dororo interjected, gesturing sharply to him.
“Hey!” Tahomaru sputtered. “Why not you, you little punk?”
The kid crossed his arms, lifting his nose in a gesture of mock haughtiness. “Because I’m a master thief. If I go out there alone, someone might recognize me and try to take me in. Besides, you have to earn your keep, too. You don’t get to be a freeloader just because you’re some lord’s son.”
Tahomaru stood, telling this kid what a master thief he was if he’d been spotted that many times, and besides that, it wasn’t like he sat around doing nothing before, not that he expected a punk kid to know that. Dororo fired back that obviously, he wasn’t doing enough if he couldn’t take down a crab monster that big bro could kill in seconds, ignoring Tahomaru’s protests that it wasn’t a normal monster, and it wasn’t like they could have gotten it without his sluice gate.
He’d honestly contemplated picking the kid up and dumping him in the puddle and was just about to make good on that threat. Dororo himself had started to grab a handful of mud when they realized the level they’d escalated to. With a shared look of horror, they turned back to Hyakkimaru, half-expecting to see hands clamped over his ears or the cloth wrapped around his head. But to their surprise, he had half-turned himself around to watch them—the ebb and flow of their soul flames, probably. (Which was, admittedly, another thing Tahomaru didn’t fully understand.) The barest hint of a smile perked at the corners of his lips, the slightest note of a chuckle slipping out with his breath.
“Broooo!” Dororo whined, flopping down and dramatically throwing his head back into his lap. “We talked about this! You gotta stop laughing at me!”
“You make it too easy for him.” Tahomaru crossed his arms in a flippant gesture.
“Hey, he was laughing at you, too! Isn’t that right, bro?”
Hyakkimaru only smiled cryptically—something that only minutes ago, Tahomaru wouldn’t have thought he knew how to do—and ruffled the younger boy’s hair. Dororo whined in protest, grabbing his hand in both of his, but letting it rest on top of his head as he lay there.
Was this what family was supposed to be like? It wasn’t like Tahomaru had ever had the most normal examples, but this…Well, he supposed he could learn to like this, he thought as he moved to sit beside them. Then he paused.
“Wait, were you laughing at me, too?”