Chapter Text
It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but always the overachiever, Hikaku took his plea for help and ran with it like a man possessed, attending to Madara's needs before he had the chance to properly realise their existence in the first place. All Madara could do was sit down, sip Tobirama's excellent tea, and let it happen in quiet bafflement.
One had to marvel at Hikaku's underhanded ingenuity, though. Nothing he did betrayed the fact that it was a development so fresh, Madara found himself spooked into a bout of paranoia the very next morning by something as simple as a laid out set of clothes that miracously appeared while he had been in the bath, unmaking all relaxation he achived by much dreaded breathing excersices until he send out his senses and found Hikaku already puttering around the estate. The transition was executed so seamlessly that Tobirama had no reason to suspect that running the household was so far beneath Hikaku's skillset and rank—it would've been laughable if the reason for it hadn't been as dire.
As it was, Tobirama had no way of knowing that the house was reorganised around him not only to accommodate his sudden presence but, more importantly, done with Madara's growing blindness in mind, making it easier to navigate without the use of his eyes but, eventually, on the memory of counted steps alone. Memory that was quickly built by walking the new paths side-by-side with Hikaku, who steered Madara with the slightest pressure against his arm as they kept their chakra contained lest they tripped Tobirama off to Madara's struggles.
Not that Tobirama had much opportunity to witness any potential misstep in the first place. After he had been so open on their first morning, Madara did have some tentative hopes for how their cohabitation might proceed, but as usual, he found his expectations crushed by reality when the former Senju became increasingly more evasive in an impressively short span of time.
Rather than sharing his thoughts and being open to Madara's cues as he had in the beginning, now Tobirama only spoke when directly addressed and otherwise held himself back without giving off any sign of actual disdain. The mixed signals would have been curious if not outright annoying, but in all honesty, for now Madara couldn’t say he minded all that much. With how back-to-back the latest bunch of life-altering things had happened, he was thankful to have at least a moment of reprieve to readjust and collect himself as much as possible for someone with his volatile temper.
With Izuna still his heir but not trusted to fulfil his duties, the administrative minutiae of the clan's day-to-day business were soul-crushing even during the time that traditionally and officially was supposed to be spent without attending to such. Hikaku taking over the most mind-numbing aspects of it certainly helped, though—especially because it was easier on his eyes to have Hikaku give a verbal run-down of his work and ask for approval rather than Madara straining his eyes to make sense of the tightly written numbers and script.
Still. When it became obvious Tobirama would find a reason to step out whenever Hikaku had to impose on their shared time in pursuit of his self-assigned duties, Madara felt himself slip despite his ongoing conscious effort not to.
On one hand, it soothed his paranoia to know the other man wasn't listening in to these very mundane but very telling administrative tasks, but on the other hand, it left him unsupervised, and the ugly paranoia sitting in Madara's chest like a living thing did not like that in the slightest.
"You don't have to leave, you know? No matter what name you've worn before, now you are spouse to the clan head and entitled to these informations."
Not really, in all honesty. If Izuna or any of the elders were to know that Madara allowed Tobirama any sense of entitlement, never mind in context to knowledge that could very well cripple the Uchiha if it reached the wrong hands, they would have a collective stroke.
A thought that brought Madara a brief surge of petty satisfaction before Tobirama's obvious hesitation burnt it to ash.
Before Madara could properly start spiralling about what the hesitation might mean, Hikaku picked up his slack yet again and doubled down on Tobirama. While the words didn't properly register past the rushing in his ears, just from his cadence alone, Madara could tell Hikaku must've been wearing his most ridiculous expression—the one that turned his natural resting bitch face into a devastating show of earnest concern, and weaponised sincerity in a way that left the unsuspecting utterly defenceless against his offensively reasonable nature.
While it had been a tense few days with the new normal settling in between the three men finding themselves cohabitating the Uchiha main estate without prior warning, it became much more bearable after the issue of the ever more withdrawn Tobirama had been resolved and the former Senju, too, began to properly—if hesitatingly—settle into the spaces deliberatly but quietly left open to him like one would do to coax a street cat.
And just like an unobstrusive cat gracing any home with their quiet dignity, Madara found that Tobirama's calm presence was something to appreciate in a baffingly similar way. Not unlike a cat's purr, the other man's chakra tended to fill the room he occupied like cool mist, soothing the stressed flickering of Madara's flame without any apparent—or even conscious—effort.
An additional boon of this new development was something so utterly unexpected that Madara risked a quick activation of his sharingan to check for genjutsu or a trick of the shadows clawing at the cracks of his sanity. In his defence, who would have thought the controlled man would have a habit of mumbling while reading? And that he read the same poetry Madara was fond of in the first place?
Not that Madara would point it out, of course. He was content to have found a way to enjoy his private hobby without imposing on Hikaku more than he already did, and whatever else could be said about Tobirama, his voice certainly lent itself to reciting poetry at a low volume. Madara could almost fool himself into thinking it sensual.
Which, for the record, he did not.
That particular line of thought was an easily avoidable complication he did not need while his private life was just returning to some semblance of sustainable peace and normality.
In all honesty, Madara had no idea what must have transpired between Tobirama and Hikaku after he'd taken his leave that allowed his husband to be suddenly so much more at ease, but while a quiet voice at the back of his head warned him of a conspiracy, he was mostly just glad when the general air within the house finally warmed.
He hadn't even noticed how cold Tobirama had been until he opened up ever so slowly, allowing himself to occupy space instead of making himself scarce as if he'd been an invader rather than a guest—no, a honoured spouse. Because all things considered, that's what he was. What Madara needed him to be.
Wanted him to be.
He was sick and tired of living with a ghost. And it was only now, when he dared to verbalise this sentiment in the privacy of his mind, that Madara realised Izuna hadn't shown his face once since their return to the compound, despite officially sharing a home. And much to his surprise, Madara found he didn't even really mind his brother's absence all that much.
While both men were quiet by nature, sharing the estate with Tobirama and Hikaku meant that there were always signs of occupation, of life, within the house, and it kept the creeping darkness invading his mind at bay, the whispers quiet, when he heard them putter around the house, felt their chakra eddying out whenever they relaxed enough to forgo the control that sensors were prone to maintain in proximity to each other.
Even when sitting alone in a room, Madara hadn't felt lonely once.
What soothed his peace of mind the most, though, was something impossibly more mundane: Madara couldn’t even remember a time of regularly shared meals at home, and he relished in the new routine. Especially when Hikaku always made sure to present food the same way, so Madara didn’t look like a fool finding his way. And Kanako-obaachan’s cooking didn’t dull with repetition either.
Speaking of-
"Kanako—sama sends her regards," Hikaku randomly declared on the final day of the reclusion said woman had insisted on without ever coming by to check whether or not Madara honoured her demands. "She planned to stop by, but found herself occupied elsewhere."
The ambiguity of it all sparked his curiosity, but Madara didn’t need his full sight to realise that Hikaku was deeply spooked by whatever had transpired with the old woman—not that it was an unusual occurrence. Rather than allowing the sudden surge of suspicion clawing up his throat to be voiced out loud, though, Madara washed the urge down with a mouthful of soup.
If there was one person beyond Hikaku Madara didn't need to worry about, it would be Kanako. What could the woman even do? All things considered, she was probably knitting a welcome gift for Tobirama. Or did whatever else harmless old ladies busied themselves with when they weren't pinching cheeks and commenting on people's poor life choices.