Love is needed the most by those who deny it

If you are still in the mood for some drabbles I'd just love some drunk!Madara confessing to Hashirama. Whether that's a love confession or that he wants to bite out a chunk of his arm and eat it, or any other weird - Madara thing, I don't know!

Hashirama had been surprised when Madara agreed to have a drink with him to celebrate the new alliance between their budding village and the Sarutobi and Shimura clans. In his private thoughts he’d imagined Madara as being teetotal, shunning the shinobi vice of alcohol as he seemed to shun the others of female company and spending money on anything that wasn’t for his people’s benefit.

He’d been wrong.

“On three,” Madara declared, dark eyes fixed on Hashirama’s in challenge as he raised his cup. “One, two—”

Hashirama tipped his head back, barely allowing the alcohol to touch his tongue as he knocked it back. Even so, that passing acquaintance with his taste buds was enough to leave an impression. He screwed up his face and fought down the urge to cough. “Damn. What is that?” he exclaimed, squinting at the jug between them which Madara had rustled up from the depths of his kitchen cabinet. It was a far cry from the plum wine or sweet sake he’d been imagining.

Madara huffed with amusement. “We call it Yomi Water,” he announced, expression a touch smug. “Brewed by my clanswomen.”

“It’s got quite a kick to it.” Now that his cup was empty, the overpowering aftertaste had dulled enough to taste almost pleasant. He cleared his throat and picked up the jug to pour Madara another drink. “Somehow it never occurred to me that your clan would be much for brewing shōchū.”

“Yes, well.” Madara shrugged, eyes lowered to the clear liquid as it filled his cup. “It was made as an anaesthetic.”

An anaesthetic. The Uchiha clan were not exactly renowned for their healing techniques; most medical ninja treating their clan during the war were captives. His thoughts filled suddenly, with the idea of Madara’s younger brother Izuna, dying and already dehydrated, chugging this Uchiha homebrew as a painkiller until the smell of it came seeping out of his wound. He pictured Madara necking it, before faceless medical ninja held him down and plucked out his eyes.

Hashirama suppressed a wince. ‘Why do I always seem to shove my foot in my mouth when I’m around you?’ “I see,” he managed, and hastily changed the subject.

As the evening wore on, it became clear to him that while Madara wasn’t the sober, monkish individual Hashirama would’ve pegged him as, he didn’t have the greatest tolerance. After the first two glasses his cheekbones were dusted with a pink flush, that only deepened and grew brighter as the evening wore on.

“Remarkable I tell you,” Madara was saying, his hand gestures expansive.

“What’s that?”Hashirama questioned. He’d been too busy watching the flush spread down Madara’s neck and over the triangle of skin exposed by his casual yukata to pay attention properly.

Madara looked at him, expression deadly serious. “Flying fish.”

“Come again?” Hashirama couldn’t help laughing.

“You laugh,” Madara snapped, jabbing a finger at him. “But it’s the truth. They get the best of it. To be able to go swimming down into depths we can’t even imagine without even –not even giving a fuck about breathing right, and then they just – whoosh.” He threw his hands towards the ceiling, fingers splayed. “Take off over the horizon. As far as they want. Who even knows what’s out there, if you go far enough.”

Hashirama hummed in agreement, charmed by the thought of him and Madara taking a boat and sailing off the edges of the map to explore the uncharted regions. He’d miss the forests, but the company would make up for it. “They don’t actually fly though,” he felt the need to point out.

“They fucking do,” Madara argued, raising his chin. “I’ve seen it.”

“You have not.”

From here the discussion went from arguing about whether varieties of fish that could actually fly as opposed to just gliding over the surface really did exist (“Are you calling me a liar?!”) to somehow ending up talking about whether the daimyō’s emissary had a face that looked more like a duck or a fish. The two of them were huddled together, tears leaking from Madara’s eyes as he laughed uproariously at Hashirama’s slurring impersonation of the daimyō’s wife.

The bottle of shōchū lay on its side under the table, empty and forgotten.

“Ahh,” Madara sighed, the remnants of his laughter still lingering on his face as he leant his cheek on Hashirama’s shoulder.  “I love you so much.”

Something in Hashirama’s brain grew very still. Silence rang in his ears. His heart whizzed around somewhere near the ceiling twittering like an overexcited swallow. His head was on fire. “You do?”

Madara shifted, glancing up at him disapprovingly. “Psh.” He slapped lightly at Hashirama’s chest. “’course I do. Don’t act dumb.”

“I’m not, that’s – I mean,” Hashirama stammered, acting and feeling incredibly dumb. “I love you more!”

“The hell you do! Prove it.”

“Alright, I will!”

“Hah, I’d like to see—mpff!”

The aftertaste of Uchiha homebrew tasted much better when it was on Madara’s lips, Hashirama decided.

(The following morning, when they woke up in Madara’s bed together, naked as the day they were born beneath the blankets, they were both too hungover to think much. Despite this, Madara got this hunted expression on his face and made to bolt, until Hashirama pulled him back down and placed a palm cool with medical chakra to his temple.)