Heavy Blood

18. Tobirama

We showered for over an hour.

We didn't have any more sex, just stood in the hot water pouring down on us, holding each other tight. His body felt soft and small against mine, yet steady, like an iceberg with most of its mass beneath the surface. The whole setting was incredibly romantic, the bathroom walls made of the same terracotta-red tiles as the rest of the church, the showerhead made of brass. The bathroom filled up with mist in an instant until we could barely see anything but each other, which was honestly exactly the way we wanted it at that moment.

"Izuna, you're trembling..."

"The rashes..."

Oh... I held him close to me then, my arms around his shoulder blades, and he, in turn, clung to me.

"Never do that again. You hear me?"

"Yes."

"You promise?"

"Yes."

The relief I felt was palpable because I whole-heartedly believed Izuna was a man to keep his promises. After our shower, I looked him in his eyes while drying him with a towel.

"I'm sorry about your brother", I said.

Izuna looked down. "Thank you."

"I found your note." Izuna jerked. "Sorry, it was on your bed, and I was in a panic. What did you mean by it?"

Izuna looked incredibly heartbroken then. "There was one last thing we could try for Madara. A new drug, a monoclonal antibody. It's on experimental stage, but it has had promising results with young cancer patients. But I couldn't afford it anymore." He got tears in his eyes, and they started streaming down his face. Izuna had a strange quality to his crying; he could cry with tears without altering his face or his voice. It was incredibly interesting to me. "I feel terribly guilty. I just keep going over and over in my head the things I could have done to actually pay for it."

"Izuna, no!" I said immediately. He looked at me questioningly. "I'm sorry, it's just... No." I put my fingers to my temples, naked still in the bathroom, Izuna swept in my towel in front of me. It would be blood-stained from the rashes in his back. He opened it up, and I stepped in, hugged him close. "I won't tell you 'You're not sure it would've helped' or anything like that. I know you would have thought it was worth a shot. But you did more than enough. Honestly, I think you did too much."

"What do you mean?"

"You suffered in order to pay for your brother's treatment. Even if you knew he had no way out. You became homeless. You were raped, for Christ's sake. I didn't know your brother, but I don't think he would've liked how far you went." I felt Izuna tremble then, and I immediately regretted my words. "Sorry", I said, planting a kiss on the top of his head. "I'm so sorry, it's not my place to-"

"No", Izuna interrupted softly. "I'm just relieved. Hearing it from you... It makes a difference, you know?" I took his hand then, led him to the bedroom where we both got dressed in clean clothes. "You're so good, Tobes."

I looked down, uncomfortable. No-one had ever really complimented me before, and I wasn't entirely sure how to handle it. "I do my best."

We lay down in bed then, closer to him than I'd ever felt to God. What am I doing with my life believing in something that wants to take this away from me? We talked for a while, about anything, really, until I heard Izuna's breaths become slow and symmetrical. Then, I gave him a glance and stood up.

Barefoot, I tip-toed over the stone floors of the top floor of the church, my feet whispering over the cold, uneven surface. I went down the stairs to the church itself, then down to the cellar. I walked down the corridor, trembling, until I reached the door, and opened it. I stood in the doorway, took off all my clothes again until I, for the second time that night, stood naked. I went to the wall, took the discipline from its place, stroke it. Izuna... It was covered in a mixture of his dried blood and mine, and the picture of him slumped and bloody on the floor created a lump in my throat that I wanted to throw up. I bit down hard, tried to ignore it, to shut down my feelings as I always did in here. Then, I lifted my hand...