“Just let go,” Hashirama says, at once resonant and forceful. Wood on skin hammering a reflection of his pulse – It’s really not so difficult when he’s like this. Tobirama sinks like sediment in murky waters, settling right where he needs to be, soft and weak to it, pliant and warm.

Warm. Hashirama's hands are always warm, big and warm, thick palms and neat nails. They press against Tobirama’s sternum, gifting him some of his ever-present heat. The contrast always strikes Tobirama – Hashirama is big and warm and alive, practically flowering, chakra a verdant tremor that wraps around him and fits skin to skin, tighter than a glove. Hashirama is all the range of the sun – demolition as much as an embrace, bringing Tobirama's blood to a heady boil. He’s always hungry for it. It’s too much. It’s not enough. Tobirama is a turbid river, churning, angry, greedy, tugging anything in reach below with his grasp. His father always told him he asked for too much –

– But now, like this, it doesn't matter so much, how greedy he is. There's nothing to be done with the greed, breath too shallow, lungs too tight. Hashirama wouldn’t let him speak even if he wanted to.

They’re bathed in silver moon and golden candlelight through rice paper, sealed in silence. Tobirama is as naked as the day he was born, bound into something pretty and decorated with new-growth. Hashirama is draped in the fabrics of his day-to-day life. Sensation has marooned words, a divorce as clean as a scalpel’s incision.

“Breathe,” Hashirama commands, even as he wraps the mokuton tighter about his chest. That, too, is warm. ”Tobirama,” he says – only his name, a staunch refusal to mark them as the brothers that they are. “Breathe. I'll stop if you don't.”

The whine surprises them both – it comes from somewhere deep inside Tobirama's chest, meek and lowing. Hashirama's brow furrows and he brushes the sweat-slick strands of Tobirama's hair off of his forehead, pity and naked affection intermingling. Tobirama makes a staunch effort to breathe, to do as he’s told. Inhale. Exhale. It's never been this hard.

He’s never been this hard.

“Good,” Hashirama indulges, and, just like that, kindling fire is an inferno, pulsing through his core. He whines again. Bites his lip to stop it. Helplessly cedes when Hashirama pries his mouth apart with his fingers, inescapable, probing over his tongue and the roof of his mouth, sweet symphony.

Tobirama gags – of course he does. He's only human. His throat convulses and Hashirama practically croons, mokuton tightening where it digs into Tobirama's wrists, thighs, stomach. All the parts of him that are still soft. All the parts of him left to be pried apart. Hashirama aims with unerring precision, eyes big and bright and unwaveringly fond.

The point where the pleasure becomes pain is a muddy line – there isn't so much of one without the other. Gently, without ever coming up to the surface, he's laid out across his brother's thighs, head turned into Hashirama's hand, softness so sweet as to be sour. There's something about tenderness that curdles in his stomach. He writhes for a second, unsettled, before Hashirama manages a firm grip on his hair, sting grounding him.

”Be good,” Hashirama commands, leaving no room to argue. He wouldn't, even if he could. There's nothing in him left for it. “Stay still.”

It’s all the warning he gets – Hashirama’s words, the tenor low, a possessive grip. The first blow threatens to run him aground. The force of it is numbing, fire and then ice, his mouth opens in a wordless cry, weak to it already. His hips jerk forward, eagerly pressing into the futon, aiming for mokuton, seeking the sort of grasp Hashirama has on the side of his face – loose but present, ever-affirming, a reminder of his presence. The next blow resonates through his body as an echo in a cave. He feels it down the backs of his thighs, up his back. It fills out his cock, pooling where he’s spread for his brother in a steady stream.

Butsuma always had him stay quiet. Hashirama coaxes out his voice. After the third strike, palm-flat, Hashirama soothes over aching skin, blood-warm and throbbing.

“You’re so perfect for me,” he whispers, almost a confession, kept quiet so that Tobirama knows it’s for his ears only.

No pain is so decadent as this, no pleasure so rich. He has to bite down on Hashirama’s palm just to regain some semblance of composure, finely attuned to the hitch in his brother’s breath, the slap in reprimand that makes his body ring like a bell. He squirms for more, base and senseless, and Hashirama’s answer is his sweetest mercy, palm ringing out in the silence of the room until Tobirama is a smear across his thighs, nothing more and nothing less than where the mokuton has him outlined, no end and no beginning without Hashirama. They are made of something that is at once equal and opposite – upper and lower, spring and winter, older and younger, bound by blood and a duty only to each other.

Flesh on flesh echoes, a thousand overlapping sensations as indistinct and enormous as the clamor of a crowd. Between one moment and the next, his release feels instantaneous, taking him by surprise. It leaves his nerves raw and frayed and messy, voice run ragged and backside aflame. On the downstroke, his thighs lock up and he spills, the intensity overflowing from his eyes, salt onto his brother’s hand, bruised beautiful from the imprint of his teeth and anointed by his tears.

It’s everything painful, everything pleasurable, everything he needs just to let go –

– And so, sticky and spent across his brother’s thighs, he does.

Hashirama’s erection pokes into his lower back when they readjust, a scalding point of focus. His brother’s endless presence makes him feel small, pulled up sideways until they’re shoulder to chest and Tobirama’s head lolls against Hashirama’s shoulder, boneless and freshly made. He soothes Tobirama’s aches with a steady hand, clears the sweat off of his brow with a cool cloth, trickles water into his lax mouth off the tips of his fingers.

Hashirama’s casual yukata is sticky against his lower back. He’s careful not to touch where it stings. When Tobirama has had his fill of the water, his brother holds his hand over Tobirama’s heart, beating insistently, slow and steady. Hashirama never softens, hips twitching lazily into the notches of Tobirama’s spine. Time loses its meaning. Every turn of his pulse lasts in microscopic increments, stretching to span eons.

He comes back to himself a little – it must show in his eyes, because Hashirama begins to loosen his bindings, absently stroking over his chest. The panic comes all at once – the flash of lightning, sticky-hot greed for what he cannot have – he comes apart at the seams without the mokuton to hold him together, clumsy fingers grasping at wood hard enough that it bends and moans without breaking.

Stay.

The realization is immediate. Hashirama’s steady understanding transcends words. His eyes crinkle at the corners, leaving lines that stay. Age becomes him. Hashirama doesn’t apologize, but he does reverse, and the vines creep back over pale skin, quickly filling out into shape.

There are red prints on Tobirama's wrists, thighs, stomach. All the parts of him that are still soft. All the parts of him left to be pried apart. Hashirama aims with unerring precision, eyes big and bright and unwaveringly fond.

“You’re okay,” Hashirama promises, and Tobirama is.