Weird enough
Tsunade and Orochimaru each get the eerie feeling that they’re being watched when they step out to take a break from their work.
Orochimaru expects that Kimimaro would be waiting for them, perhaps grumpy at being ignored too long for his tastes.
Indeed, Kimimaro is there, poking his head from around a corner and glaring daggers at the pair of them. But Kabuto is also there, standing with his arms folded and a glare that could freeze the entire ocean.
“You don’t have to look so jealous,” Orochimaru says, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m not trying to replace you.”
The boy doesn’t seem to believe it. He turns his head and toys with his glasses rather than look directly at either him or Tsunade.
“Well. he’s gonna live. For the time being.” he says, already turning around to leave. “Or at least, I'm sure enough that I told his kid brother and his tagalong that."
(Orochimaru marvels at his peculiar habit of gathering such possessive children.)
“Where did those boys run off to anyway?”
“You said they always turn up eventually,” Jiraiya points out, with a shrug.
“They do,” Orochimaru replies. “But I don’t think Itachi-kun would be too pleased if I told him I’ve misplaced his little brother.”
“Alright, alright. I think they ran off outside somewhere, so maybe start there if you wanna look.”
Orochimaru shrugs and heads outside to look for them.
The sunlight is unnervingly bright today. Or maybe he’s just spent too much time indoors lately.
He squints and shields his eyes from the glare, scanning the area to look for his wayward charges.
“Now where could they have run off to-”
“Hey! Knock it off- OW!”
-Well. That answers that question.
Following the noise, Orochimaru strolls over to the training grounds. He finds the boys in a tangled mess of limbs in the grass, Sasuke thrashing around desperately to get out of the headlock Naruto’s trapped him in.
“Now, what on Earth are you up to?”
Naruto immediately releases his companion, a smug grin stretched across his face, bouncing in place with pent-up energy.
“We got bored. I told Sasuke I could totally take ‘im in a fight and he didn’t believe me dattebayo.”
“You fought dirty!” Sasuke snaps back, rubbing his neck and scowling.
“I did not!”
“You did so!”
“That’s enough bickering, you two.”
“But-”
“-No buts out of you.”
Orochimaru folds his arms, and his skin crawls a little at how much his scolding sounds like Sarutobi’s.
“There’s no such thing as a “fair” fight as a ninja, Sasuke-kun. If you want to make it in this world, you can’t be afraid of fighting dirty every now and then.”
Triumphant, Naruto sticks his tongue out at Sasuke. Sasuke returns the favor with a rude hand gesture.
“Do you think your older brother would be happy to catch you behaving that way?” Orochimaru asks, making him deflate immediately.
Sasuke flops onto the grass with an irritated huff, crossing his arms imperiously.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sasuke-kun. Sparring isn’t that big of a deal, you don’t need to pout.”
Sasuke grumps. He wants to argue more, but he seems to recognize that arguing won’t do him any good. Naruto, triumphant, is still grinning.
“Now, if you two want to do something more productive than bickering, I’ve got something else you can do.”
Both children are immediately intrigued by the prospect, and follow him to a part of the training grounds where a myriad of targets of many sizes and shapes are set up. In a latched box are a variety of throwable weapons, which he hands to the boys along with a notebook and a set of pens.
“I’ll tell you what,” he says, grabbing one of the pens and writing each of their names on opposite sides of the page. “If you want to get competitive, why don’t you see who can get the highest score on these targets? I’ll think of some sort of prize for whoever manages it. Does that sound like a plan?”
Just as he predicted, the promise of competition gets the boys hyped up in a moment.
(He, Tsunade and Jiraiya had been the same way as children. And as adults. Apparently competition is a universal temptation.)
“I’m gonna smoke ya!” Naruto insists, already sizing up the targets and the points each one offers.
“Yeah right,” Sasuke sneers. “Try not to feel too bad when I win- Niisan’s been doing target practice with me for years!”
“Well then, I’ll leave you to it- I’m very good at math so no fudging the scores, alright?”
Neither Naruto or Sasuke pays him any mind, already scrambling to get the game set up, drawing lines in the dirt to set the distances and debating the specifics of the rules.
“Have fun with that. Make sure you’re back inside by sundown.”
They still don’t respond, but he’s pretty sure they heard him. So he heads back inside anyway, leaving them to their fun.
Hearing the eager sounds of happy children receding into the distance brings a strange sort of warmth to his heart.
(Funny. He’d assumed his heart had gone far too cold for that to ever happen.)
“Those children are going to be the death of me,” Orochimaru complains to himself, dusting off his hands and getting to work repairing the machine Tsunade requested.
It’ll be an easy repair- he’d acquired it under dubious circumstances, but it only needs a few minor parts replaced and a good cleaning to be as good as new.
Pulling on a pair of rubber gloves, he sets to work. The work is the sort of satisfying, hands-on work he thoroughly enjoys, falling into a rhythm that has him humming a little as he puts everything into place.
There’s something so very satisfying about the click of metal on metal that he enjoys so very much.
It’s rather like the inside of a human body, but without the blood and fascia and gooey parts that make fishing around in one so unpleasant. Tendons and arteries replaced with wires and tubes, and permeable flesh replaced with sleek, pretty metal.
There’s a charm to it. If it were possible to craft himself a body out of this sort of material, he would be sorely tempted.
(Though of course, he would miss certain parts of having a human body…)
“Need a hand?”
Startled, Orochimaru jerks upright and bashes his head into the hard metal. Stars pop into his vision, a sharp metallic taste flooding his mouth.
“Fuck-”
“Sorry! I didn’t mean to sneak up on you-”
“Jiraiya I swear to god-”
Orochimaru can’t think of a suitable threat with the world spinning around him. He pulls himself out of the machine and upright, rubbing the knot already swelling on his head and glaring daggers at the man.
“What do you want?” he growls.
“I just wanted to see you. You’ve been at this for a few hours now, and I thought-”
-Orochimaru finally notices that Jiraiya brought onigiri and some water for him. He looks rather sheepish, somehow giving off this boyish charm despite being so large (and far too old to be considered a boy).
He huffs, snatching one of the onigiri and stuffing it into his mouth to silence an insult.
(that would be unfair, considering Jiraiya is only trying to help.)
“You think it’s gonna work now?” he asks, peering at the machine over Orochimaru’s shoulder.
“I know it’s going to work.”
“How did you even come across something like this, anyway?”
“If it’s any business of yours, I got it cheap from a scrapyard. It was going to be trashed, but all it needed was some cleaning and a few repairs and it’s good as new.”
Jiraiya tilts his head.
“You seem awfully sure of that.”
“I don’t like making a habit of doing things I’m not sure of.”
Jiraiya looks like there’s something on his mind, but he can’t gather the nerve to say it.
Orochimaru finishes off the offered food, then gingerly examines the knot on his head with his fingertips, wincing at the sharp pain even that gentle touch elicits.
“Next time you want to do me a favor,” he says, with an irritated half-scowl, “I’d appreciate you knocking first.”
Pulling at the back of his neck awkwardly, Jiraiya looks sheepishly away.
“...I swear I didn’t scare you on purpose.”
“Sure you didn’t.”
The words come out far more sarcastically than he wanted them to. But Jiraiya laughs it off anyway.
“Here, let me take a look at it-”
Jiraiya handles him a bit too roughly, making his former friend hiss out a warning.
“Ah sorry, that looks pretty bad. Hang on, I’ll be right back-”
Without waiting for a reply, Jiraiya darts out of the room, leaving Orochimaru standing in the middle of the chilly metal room.
Bemused, he turns back to the machine to wrap up the few minor repairs that need to be done.
When he connects it to the power, there’s a brief, shrill sound, then a low, crackling humming sound that reverberates in his bones.
Perfect.
Jiraiya returns as he’s basking in the satisfaction of a job well done, carrying a bag of ice wrapped in a towel.
“Here, to help fix my fuckup.”
He unceremoniously plops the ice onto Orochimaru’s head, still wearing a suitably guilty expression.
“Still as much of a klutz as ever, huh?” Orochimaru asks, holding the ice in place and wincing as he adjusts to the cold.
“Shut the fuck up or I’ll hit you on purpose this time.”
Jiraiya wants to be mad, but he sees a playful light flicker in Orochimaru’s eyes, that cheeky smile playing on his thin lips, and he melts.
(Damn it. He missed that. He missed that face. He missed that smile, that light, that- well, everything.)
Jiraiya doesn’t like feeling stupid. But he thinks he can physically feel his IQ dropping the longer he’s in this situation.
He doesn’t know what else to do in this situation. He feels his insides squirm with a far too familiar, but far too uncomfortable feeling.
“Hey uh-”
-Damnit. He’s far too old for this shit, isn’t he?
“Hm?”
“Is it alright if I uh- I mean, I wanna-”
Despite having spent most of his time in the past few years writing, Jiraiya’s brain seems to have lost the majority of his vocabulary.
Orochimaru still understands what he wants, in spite of that.
“Idiot.”
He grabs the back of Jiraiya’s neck, sharp nails biting into the sensitive flesh, pulling his head in for a kiss.
There’s a hunger in the way he kisses. A desperate desire to devour.
An unspoken plea for proof that this is real.
It’s still weird. So weird.
But so much of their lives has been weird already. At this point fighting it would be stupid.
At this point, they’re far past the point of worrying.
Orochimaru’s back hits the wall, trapped between the cold metal and Jiraiya’s body heat. Jiraiya reaches large, rough hands up his shirt, shamelessly groping his breasts on impulse and making him moan.
It’s been a long time since he’s been handled so roughly. And longer still since he’s enjoyed that sort of treatment.
(This body is far too sensitive. It should not be this easy to get him this worked up.)
They break apart to take great gasps of air- only for a few seconds before devouring each other again. Jiraiya jams his knee between Orochimaru’s legs, forcing them apart and groaning in appreciation when Orochimaru grinds down onto it to get a bit of friction.
Jiraiya didn’t know Orochimaru could make sounds like that. Maybe Orochimaru didn’t know, either.
Maybe after another thirty seconds of carrying on like that, and Orochimaru seems to come to his senses.
“Enough-” he halfheartedly moans, shoving weakly against Jiraiya’s chest.
“But-”
“-I said enough!” Orochimaru repeats, more forcefully this time.
Still flustered, he ducks out from under Jiraiya’s right arm, picking up the ice pack from where it’d fallen on the floor and pressing it back onto his head.
He screws his eyes shut, trying to calm his racing heart.
“I think you should go.” he says, pointing to the door with his free hand. “Now.”
“But-”
…No use arguing. It’s already too awkward anyway.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, shaking his head in disbelief as he excuses himself.
He escapes the room. Turns a corner. And runs straight into Tsunade, standing with her arms crossed and a are you fucking kidding? expression on her face.
“Uh- hey. So you uh-”
He hangs his head in shame.
“You heard that, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
Tsunade’s eyebrow is raised so high it vanishes into the fringe of her blonde hair.
He braces himself to be scolded. Yelled at. What the fuck are you thinking? What if the children walked in? What the fuck are you doing getting so cozy with Orochimaru after everything that happened?
Something like that.
But the lecture doesn’t come.
“When did that happen?” she asks instead.
“I uh- when did what happen?”
“That.”
Don’t be stupid is the unspoken second part of that statement.
“Uhm- a week ago I guess?”
Tsunade’s thin lips press into a tight, thin line.
“What?”
“Just-”
…why does she look concerned?
“What happened?” she asks, wary like she’s worried about the answer. “I thought-”
“That’s a good question without a good answer, if I’m being honest.”
Tsunade pinches the bridge of her nose.
“You know what? I don’t think I wanna know.”
“So whaddaya need?” Jiraiya asks, trying desperately to change the subject.
“Well I was gonna see if Maru was finished fixing the CT scanner yet. But I think I’m just gonna wait.”
(She can’t even look him in the eye. Is she embarrassed…or maybe she’s jealous?)
“I’m uh- gonna go get some air,” Jiraiya says, walking past her in his haste to get away.
She calls after him, telling him to get back there, that she still wants to talk, but he ignores her. Even though it hurts to do it.
How humiliating. Jiraiya can’t get outside fast enough.