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Wild youth in Konoha's underground punk rock scene notwithstanding, Tobirama had never been much of a social person. It shouldn't come as a surprise that his aversion to socialising in general extended to the curse on humanity that was social media.
As far as Tobirama was concerned, the online version of social networking had peaked with MySpace and only went downhill from there. Every platform established since then was nothing but a money-grab scheme at best and an extremist recruiting party at worst. And that wasn’t even touching upon the literal brain rot he saw flitting over other people’s screens when they had as much as half a second to spare.
But as steadfast as Tobirama had so far managed to stay in his refusal to participate, every good thing came to an end at some point. He should have known better than to accept one of Touka’s bets just because it was his birthday. The woman hadn’t gone easy on anyone, ever.
"Quit being such a sore loser, it's not as if I'm signing you up on Tumblr." Tobirama briefly forgot his annoyance and mouthed the word as if it would help him make sense of his cousin's nonsense. What even was she talking about? "Although, in all honesty, I'm ninety per cent sure a cryptid like you would feel right at home there. You should give it a chance if you ever manage to pull that stick out of your ass, it’s not as dead as they try to make you believe."
Touka mustered him with a thoughtful expression before she shook her head, and Tobirama tried not to feel nauseous from watching alone.
What had he been thinking? He was no lightweight, but Touka's liver was a black hole. There had never been a chance at winning—and while Tobirama usually was above drinking competitions, there was no one in the world who knew better how to get under his skin and make him do something than Touka. Not even Izuna was quite as adept at bullying Tobirama, no matter how annoying he succeeded in being.
"No, birthday boy. You're getting Instagram," Touka proclaimed as if it should mean something to him, holding out his phone that she had captured after finishing her unreasonable long row of shots quicker than Tobirama. He blinked dumbly at it until Touka lost her patience and dropped it into his lap with a sigh.
"Oh, wow, don't overwhelm me with your excitement," she rolled her eyes as she got up. "The app is downloaded, and you're already signed in. I even arranged a nice little welcome gift for you—you can thank me later."
With those ominous words, Touka threw an overly lascivious wink over her shoulder and made for the door, finally done with imposing on Tobirama on his day off.
Needless to say, Tobirama committed then and there to never ever opening up that damn app.
Tobirama had just wanted to disable his alarm for the next day and go to sleep. Instead, he was lying awake, haunted by a single red dot.
The app Touka had forced on him had a notification.
He still didn't want to open the app, didn't want to know whatever it was that got his devious cousin so excited she risked being hungover in Hashirama's presence the next day. But-
Knowing that there was an unread notification was driving Tobirama nuts. And he was running out of time to sleep.
Since he was unable to ignore the red dot, it left him with very few options: He could delete Instagram and risk Touka's wrath, which was generally not advisable; or he could face the music and open the notification.
Tobirama spent another minute wallowing in his misery before he grabbed his phone with the air of a man facing his execution.
While he wasn't drunk enough to tell himself that deleting the app would be worth Touka's retaliation when she found out—which she would—he was just tipsy enough that he dared to find out what this whole nonsense was about.
Needless to say, he immediately regretted his decision. There were no words to express how much Tobirama was already done with this whole experiment when he opened the notification and saw that someone going by @notyourdaddy had apparently posted a picture while linking Tobirama’s new profile in the description.
Touka had said she arranged for a welcome gift, had she not? Nothing good could ever come from such a ridiculous handle; that much was for certain.
With his eyes closed, Tobirama tried to brace himself. Realistically, what was the worst that could happen? At least it wasn't a sleazy stripper at his door like three years ago. It was just some picture—publicly available, at that—that she wanted him to see.
Tobirama allowed himself to believe the lie he was desperately trying to sell and opened the picture before he could decide otherwise. It was either checking it out now, by himself, or Touka would force him to do it tomorrow, surrounded by his whole family.
He got this.
Looking down at the screen, Tobirama needed a very long moment to process what he saw.
"Oh my god."
He spared a single thought to thank all known deities that he had looked at his phone and got annoyed by the dot, that he had checked it out while he was alone. Unobserved.
No matter how ridiculous the photo was from an objective view, his body reacted all the same, growing hot and bothered in a matter of seconds.
There was only one person who knew the real reason why Tobirama had suddenly decided to stop pursuing a professional swimming career despite his enthusiasm and obvious talent. While those tiny briefs certainly helped him cut an impressive figure, they did absolutely nothing to hide his appreciation of the competition.
Never in his life regretted he more that he had told Touka about his helpless arousal whenever he saw attractive men enveloped by water. Never in his life had he loved his cousin more.
Madara had been unhappy; that much was clear by the pinched expression on his face. The wry quirk of his lips might've passed as a smile if one ignored the scrunched eyebrows, but no matter the mighty frown, Tobirama was slightly thrown by his whole face being exposed in the first place—untameable black hair held back by a tall coral crown and floating around Madara’s naked upper body like a storm cloud, underlining his apparent foul mood. Then again, who could fault him? Somehow, his entire lower half had been stuffed into a glittering honest-to-god fishtail.
Despite his obvious discomfort, the ridiculous getup, the asshole still managed to look somewhat regal. It was a true feat, especially considering the pink banner reading Happy Birthday, Princess <3 floating above his head.
There was so much going on, Tobirama couldn’t hope to understand any of it. He didn’t even try, in all honesty. All Tobirama could really focus on was how the light had broken on the surface, painting lines on Madara's exposed skin and throwing the muscles in hypnotising relief. Bubbles of air around the soft lines of Madara's face drew undue attention to the fact just how pretty it was, not as sharp and unrelenting as Madara’s general personality would’ve made one believe.
Tobirama didn't know how long his eyes were glued to the screen—taking in every single detail as he grew uncomfortably hard in his pants—but when coherence finally returned, he was beyond suspicious.
Madara and Touka couldn't stand each other. No matter how versed she was at blackmailing Tobirama, Madara was an entirely different beast that she had yet to crack. And while Madara admittedly had been his gay awakening as a teenager, the other had married soon after—a woman at that—and Tobirama had never made an effort at getting closer afterwards.
In short, there was no way in hell Madara would’ve suffered such discomfort just to cater to his best friend's little brother's secret kink. And even if he had—which was a very big if—he sure as hell wouldn’t have posted a picture of himself online. The man was notoriously distrustful of leaving online traces and lived even more off-grid than Tobirama himself, who had at least a smartphone.
Something didn't add up.
Hoping for some insight, Tobirama opened the profile. And nearly dropped his phone.
Money-grab schemes indeed.
@notyourdaddy — but my dad. No, I'm not looking for a new mum, quit asking. But if you want to give your favourite daughter some pocket money, here's my Patreon. To commission a personalised thirst trap, contact me on OnlyFans and I'll see what I can do—NO NUDES!!!
What-
Madara didn't have a daughter.
But he did have a son. One with whom he had a very complicated relationship, thanks to the gaslighting harpy his wife had turned out to be. As far as Tobirama knew, because of the utter shitshow of a divorce that had dragged on for a year or two, it had only been a few months ago that Madara had been granted full custody of the boy.
Did Madara's son pimp him out without his knowledge?
Tobirama wanted to dismiss the foolish thought, but-
Wasn't Obito's birthday around a week before Tobirama's? Touka was always three steps ahead with her schemes, so she would have prepared this in advance. If Obito was in with it, his birthday and compulsive need to needle his father would’ve certainly given the opportunity for this particular photoshoot without Madara being any wiser of its true purpose.
Hashirama did mention that Obito was testing Madara's boundaries in any which way, trying to find a limit of what his father was willing to do for him. While Tobriama wasn't close to Madara, he knew Obito wasn't likely to find any—whatever one might think about Madara, no one sensible could ever doubt that the man was devoted to his family in every way.
All things considered, it probably was the only thing that would save Obito's neck.
Then again, the boy was, what, fourteen? What were the chances he could pull off such a scheme? Tobirama might just imagine things. Being tipsy and horny had probably given him a completely wrong impression of what was going on.
Heading back to the profile's gallery, it only took a glance to realise that, no, Tobirama hadn't gotten the wrong idea. If this really was Obito's doing, the boy had a successful future ahead and would be filthy rich before he hit twenty—if he survived the fallout of this scheme and stayed out of prison until he reached adulthood. This couldn't be legal, right?
As far as Tobirama could tell, every single photo was a snapshot of Madara in various states of undress or otherwise charged. Each moment one alone would’ve appeared innocent enough when the photo was taken, but displayed in sum like this, there was no denying that the vast majority of these posts were thrist traps of the highest order.
Especially those where Madara was fully clothed and intensely gazing into the camera, sometimes with a haughty smirk that made Tobirama's stomach do a funny little flip which he was more than willing to blame on the remaining alcohol in his blood.
Randomly clicking one of the photos just to escape the combined effect of the gallery, Tobriama's breath caught when he was met with a sight entirely unexpected and all the more lethal for it.
Madara wore a white shirt, but, soaked to the bone as he was, it was entirely see-through and clinging to his strong chest, exposing every single line of muscle. As visually pleasing as it was, Tobirama was utterly captivated by the way his head was thrown back as he laughed, freely and unrestrained.
Before Tobirama could do something as stupid as deciphering how the picture made him feel, he closed the app and opened his contacts instead. For all that he had rarely ever needed to call Madara, Hashirama always kept him up to date with his number, just in case.
"What?"
As always, Madara took the call like the grumpy old man he was at heart. Then again, it was the middle of the night, and a known early riser like the Uchiha had probably long since been in bed.
This was a bad idea. In his haste to avoid his own spiralling thoughts, Tobirama didn't even know what he should say. Except maybe that it was somehow Touka's fault.
"Tobirama? Is everything alright?"
Huh. It might just be alcohol-infused wishful thinking, but was that worry in Madara's voice? How particular.
"It depends."
There was a brief pause at the other end of the call before the sound of rustling sheets made Tobirama wonder whether or not Madara slept naked.
What the fuck?
Abort!
"Touka forced me to get Instagram today."
Another pause, and Tobirama could basically hear the frown etching itself into Madara's apparently stupidly pretty face. This wasn't good. Tobirama had gone nearly two decades ignoring the slight infatuation he'd felt as a teenager towards his brother's friend. He didn't need to be caught up with a belated surge of horniness now. He was far too old for that.
"Tobirama," Madara almost growled, voice a register lower than usual, and gravely with sleep to boot. This was so, so bad. "It's two in the morning. If there isn't some life-or-death situation going on right now-"
"Did you know that you have a profile, too?"
Silly question, Tobirama already knew the answer.
"What." Not even a question, wow. Tobirama was encroaching on dangerous territory.
"Yeah. Allegedly run by your daughter. Someone's making money by posting… stuff."
Smooth. Real smooth, Senju. One could almost believe you capable of running people in circles with nothing but your words.
He was never drinking again.
Scratch that, Tobirama was getting properly shitfaced as soon as this call was over. But he was never opening Instagram again.
Thankfully, Madara didn't seem interested in any more conversation, so Tobirama's lack of functioning brain cells might have gone unnoticed after all.
"If you'd excuse me. It seems in about thirty seconds, there will be a life-or-death situation after all. OBI-"
The call disconnected before Tobirama could say anything else or witness a murder. Either way, it probably was for the best.
He was just about to throw his phone to the side, already debating on whether he should go to bed or drown the memory of the whole night in another sake bottle, when another intrusive thought crossed his mind.
Touka and Obito had gone to great lengths for that picture. It would be a waste for it to get deleted without having been saved, right?