#anyways call it a classic domoz staying to to try and reset a bad sleep schedule bang out a fic in one sitting moment

[domoz]

I'm calling this one, "Intro to an AU that, if/when I actually write it, will take place much further in the future than this, and also possibly be from another POV"

When Hashirama comes of age, they throw a party.

He's thirteen, so much younger than civilian families do it, and despite that he's already been running missions and fighting in battles for years now. Already killed men more than twice his age, though he'd cried about it for weeks afterwards.

He sits rosy cheeked and smiling through the first hour, so pleased to have everyone's attention on him and the blessing that is his mokuton. He's fidgeting by the end of the second, and to all of his son's surprise, Butsuma dismisses them all to go enjoy themselves at the feast rather than have them sit there and endure a tea ceremony.

Back then, Hashirama had been much more obvious with his scheming and had leaned in and whispered about how he bet he could get them to throw him another party when he turned twenty. Kawarama and Itama had nodded in eager agreement, and Tobirama hadn't said anything which meant he did too. They'd ducked between legs and under tables and huddled up together under lantern light to share soft buns swiped from their baskets.

When Tobirama comes of age, he dies.

They weren't any talks of planning a party, and asking for one wasn't even the beginning of a thought on his mind. Itama's funeral was two months ago and even if someone had asked, Tobirama would have refused one.

He wakes up on his birthday to a strange half light outside, and he peers out a crack in the door to find that a thick fog has formed some time during the night, obscuring everything more than a few meters away and casting everything in a monochrome blue-grey. The whole world feels muffled, like this, and Tobirama finds it at once eerie and oddly peaceful.

But he can't let himself indulge in it for too long. The sun is up, which means chichi-ue will be up, and breakfast will be soon. So he dresses himself and goes to the kitchen and… It's empty. Untouched, even. No sign of father, nor of the auntie that normally would have come and gone with food by now.

Troubling.

Chichi-ue would only break his usual routine for an emergency, but it must not have been one bad enough to wake his sons for. Or at least not him, but he might have brought Hashirama, depending… Tobirama experimentally stretches out his chakra to see if his brother is still asleep, but what he finds only makes him frown deeper. Hashirama's chakra feels as muffled as everything else does, not in the way it curls in on itself with sleep, but like there's something blocking him off from feeling it fully. A layer of cloth that keeps him from finding the edges.

Tobirama doesn't pause for even a moment before turning around and marching right back the way he came, until he's at the door to his brother's room. Chichi-ue would expect them to handle their own affairs, even without him there, so it's best if he doesn't let Hashirama sleep in, anyways. Refusing to acknowledge the way his heart is pounding, he slides the door open.

It's not Hashirama's room. Or, it is his room, everything is arranged in the way he likes to keep it, only it's like it's suffered years worth of neglect in a single night. Tree roots have broken in from the ceiling, the door frame, from cracks in the wall, and around them other wild growth has sprouted making the room look more like the forest than even the garden around the house.

Despite his chakra sense insisting that Hashirama is in his futon, to his eyes his brother is not there. Instead there is a white shape, maybe the size of a cat, but it lifts and turns to look at Tobirama when he opens the door. Its face is blank and smooth, except for two empty holes where eyes should be. 

Tobirama slams the door closed. So it's a dream, then. He thinks hysterically, or a genjutsu. But when he flares his chakra as strongly as he can, nothing changes, and when he pinches himself all that results in is a red welt rising on his pale skin.

If it's not either of those then… Then Tobirama really needs to find someone and figure out what this emergency is about.

Forcing himself to breathe steady, he slowly stretches out his chakra sense again, ignoring the way it insists that Hashirama is still asleep in his room. Probably, he needs to find someone who feels real to his senses -- which happens so immediately that Tobirama snaps his chakra back hard enough to make him wheeze.

It’s in the next room down, the room he's only been in once since the funeral. His senses must be broken, he thinks, because they've just told him that Itama is inside, delicate flower-bud new-growth chakra the same as the day he died.

Like he's compelled, Tobirama pads down the hallway to Itama's room. His hands don't tremble as he reaches out to open the door, but his stomach lurches despite his best efforts.

This room isn't as overgrown as Hashirama's was, and there are chimes and charms hanging from the ceiling that Tobirama doesn’t remember being there, but he doesn't have eyes for that. Because sprawled out on his futon, the way he had in life, the way that always made Chichie-ue scowl and reprimand their youngest brother like it was something he could control, is Itama.

Tobirama swallows hard. He doesn't dare move and break the moment. If this is a dream, it's an unexpectedly kind one.

Yet moments stretch on into minutes and nothing shatters. Itama remains right where he is as Tobirama carefully crosses the room to kneel down next to him.

His younger brother snuffles and rolls over onto his side, able to sense a presence nearby, but not yet paranoid enough to wake because of it. Tobirama reaches out a hand -- it still does not tremble, but his throat feels suspiciously tight, and his eyes are burning -- and drops it onto Itama's head.

Itama grumbles, but that is enough to wake him, albeit slowly. When he squints open his eyes and sees Tobirama, though, he sits up all at once.

"Nii-san! Oh!" He exclaims, and then he lurches forward and hugs him. Tobirama hugs back, tight, of course he does but-- He hadn't noticed it before, but like this it's strikingly obvious that Itama is cold to the touch. He can feel no pulse or breath, even though he continues to ramble on.

"I meant to be awake to greet you, but I didn't think you'd started getting up even earlier! Sorry, that must have been pretty freaky." His words pass through Tobirama's ears like water. Itama died, and now Tobirama is here, able to speak with him and hold him again. Does that mean he's died as well? An assassin slipped into his room and killed him before he could even wake?

Itama pushes out of Tobirama's arms and onto his feet, but he stays close, frowning down at him. He's so small, still so small. Two months might have made a world of difference for a child his age.

"I died." He chokes out, because he can't think of anything else over the tide of shock. I'm dead, I've died, I've left Hashirama alone.

"Eh, uh. Not exactly. This is something else." Itama says. He reaches out with tiny cold fingers to tug at Tobirama's arm.

Tobirama blinks. Swallows hard.

"But, you--" Died. He chokes. Is this, then, some kind of retribution Itama's ghost is seeking on him, for failing to get to him in time to save him? Tobirama will admit that he's deserving of it. And so he lets Itama frown and pull him to his feet, out of his room, out of the house entirely, into the fog covered Senju compound. Though, he talks the whole time

"Shigure-sama says I'm supposed to help you. I mean, I was always supposed to. I guess it's pretty lucky that I can, still." Itama chatters, heedless of the way Tobirama is fighting not to break out into shivers.

He tries to focus on the words, but he can't. So he looks at the buildings, but they're not where they should be, and when they pass by them close enough to get a look at them through the fog, they're all wrong; older, and where some are missing additions that they have in life, others have rooms, even entire stories that they didn’t have yesterday.

Distantly, Tobirama can't help but note that Itama is leading him to the graveyard.

"It's normally more lively around here, but I think everyone's staying inside, since Shigure-sama is being dramatic." Itama turns at him, and smiles and waves a hand around to stir up the fog. Tobirama… Grips his hand tighter. He doesn't know what else to do.

He missed that smile.

Itama squeezes back and keeps pulling him along. "Also it still is really early, so there's that, too. Hopefully I can introduce you to everyone later? I mean, no one will actually be mad at you for going to see Shigure-sama first."

Tobirama has stopped trying to make sense of his words, but the wash of them is comforting, in a way. Maybe that's even what Itama is trying to do, but it can only help so much. They're in the graveyard now, and there are shapes in the mist that look more like humans than grave-markers.

One of them bends close enough for him to get a good look at them. It's Hinoki-san, who died last fall, and as pale as the mist around them. She smiles at him.

Head swimming, Tobirama fully expects Itama to lead him to his grave, or maybe Tobirama's own, but instead he walks straight past all of them, and onto the path into the woods behind.

Tobirama doesn't visit the shrine often, but the path is longer than he remembered, and the trees are taller.

"Itama." He says, so quiet that it's almost lost even in the near silence of the woods, "Who is Shigure-sama?"

"Oh! Uhh…" Itama rolls his lips between his teeth, and Tobirama very nearly tells him to stop, because it's a bad habit for a shinobi to have. But that -- doesn't matter any more, does it? The admonishment sinks into his stomach instead. "He's like the boss around here, I guess? Definitely the oldest and strongest, so."

"Okay." Tobirama says softly, and Itama nods and keeps pulling him along. It's not much longer before the shrine looms out of the fog. Tobirama mechanically follows Itama's actions as they stop at the fountain to wash themselves -- it's a bit redundant now, isn't it? -- and then to the haiden, where he claps and bows and shouts "Presenting Tobirama-Senju to Shigure-sama."

Woodenly, Tobirama bows with him, but he can't help a sideways glance at his little brother. No one ever taught him to announce someone like this, he's sure, and he spoke far more confidently than he would have if he'd been made to do such a thing in life.

For a moment, there is nothing, and then reverberating in his bones, "Ah. Well at least he knows his manners even if he knows not his purpose."

Tobirama looks up -- and up -- and up. He had been half expecting --insofar as he could think enough to expect anything -- Shigure to be the ghost of some monk. A shrine keeper from ages past who's duty had kept them here past their own life. What he sees is not a human, but a long whiskered snout, mother-of pearl scales, silt pupils, antlers, a serpentine body that stretches back into the mist that is expelled with each breath.

That -- is a dragon.

Tobirama should kowtow or something, shouldn't he? But he freezes, for once deeply resenting that he has only ever been trained to react to surprises with violence.

There is a rumbling sound. Tobirama isn't sure if it's a growl or not, and all he can really do is force himself not to respond with a panicked noise of his own.

"You are too early." The dragon says, impassively, "You will come back here after you have your human understanding of things first, as it should be."

And then the dragon is suddenly there, in front of him, faster than its size should possibly allow, and its claw is pushing into Tobirama's chest, and it should hurt, but it doesn't. He squeezes his eyes shut on reflex and the only thing that pierces him is bone-deep cold.

When he blinks his eyes open again, he's in his room. The light is warm -- normal morning sunlight, much later than Tobirama would ever usually wake and --

He can't help it, he gasps, entire body wracked with shivers so bad he can't control them. And he's -- at an odd angle. Propped up on something that's not his pillow and being dragged even higher even now.

"Oh, Tobi, are you awake? Are you okay? What happened? Ah, you're so cold." …That's Hashirama holding him together. but he really shouldn't be, because Chichi-ue is here too, watching it happen, arms crossed. Though, he doesn't look particularly angry or even disapproving. Mostly, he just looks… Resigned.

"I--" he tries, but his whole body spasms with another round of shivers, and Hashirama pulls him closer, like it will help.

…It doesn't hurt, though.

He wishes he could relax into it, but he can't with father watching. But with Hashirama rubbing at his back, it's easier to take measured breaths. Enough to help his body relax a bit, even if it doesn't actually make him feel any warmer.

"Had a dream." he gets out, voice still shaking with cold.

Tobirama thinks he should explain more, except chichi-ue closes his eyes and says, "I figured as much." And then, "Pull yourself together and get to the shrine. You'll have new lessons there starting today."

He turns and leaves without saying anything else, even though Hashirama says, "Huh?"

It explains nothing. Tobirama is starting to think he understands, regardless.