Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

[Naruto] Season of Passage -- Orochimaru-centric

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:15:08 GMT

Title: Season of Passage
Character Focus: Orochimaru
Words: ~650
Genre: Drama pastfic.
Rating: PG
Other Notes: LJ went down and so I wrote. This is me skipping some stones across the water in regard to Orochimaru's childhood, since I have been thinking about the topic lately. This fic actually has so little to do with canon that it's embarrassing.
Verses of lullabyes are taken from real songs, though modified radically.

There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself.
– Erich Fromm

Little child, little child, our mother and father
They have died and now live in on the island of the dead

The melancholy autumn storms that swept down from the north brought with them the season’s first chill. The brooding sky was heavy with clouds, dark and dreary, and cold wet winds whipped through the trees, pulling all but the most stubborn leaves free from their branches. The gutter that ran along the roof was clogged with them, the brown and withered crumpled and crushed along with the brilliantly dying blood-reds and spotted yellows under a flood of rushing water.

Orochimaru dragged one pale finger across the fogged glass of his bedroom window and watched for a moment the silver sheet of rain and shredded foliage through the narrow stripe of transparency.

Summer wasn’t gone, but its beauty was rotting before his eyes.

Oh, and it wasn’t fair; some of those fallen leaves were still so green, so alive. They did not belong in a raingutter; no, they had been ripped carelessly away from their home and thrown down in the dirt to die, stranded and gasping futilely, before they’d even felt the bite of frost.

A shiver wound its way down the boy’s back.

Cold. So cold… So sad.

Dream on, mother is holding you
Dream on, night is enfolding you

The echo of voices long stilled haunted him still, and Orochimaru shivered again and pressed his fingers to the glass. How long had he been sitting there, in the unlit fringe of a lonely room, watching the rain? Twilight had stained the eastern sky black; there would be no stars tonight.

When did it get so dark?

Orochimaru felt for the edge of the bed, noting absently that his fingers were so cold that they lacked proper sensation, and then slung his feet down the floor, hitching the eri of the kimono draped over him with one hand to keep the ancient silk from sliding off his thin shoulders.

The hem hissed across the tatami behind him as he padded over to his desk to light the candles, and he carefully held the long drape of the sleeve back away from the fire and soft wax.

Six months, and the eighty-year old garment was starting to show the wear and tear of daily use.

It didn’t matter anymore. There was no point in preserving it, and Orochimaru thought that when the thing finally split at the seams and fell off his body— when the false dead skin fell away, outgrown and destroyed— he would feel nothing but relief.

Little child, though you are crying and crying, who else will carry you?
Who else will groom you, little child? Our mother and father are dead

All things with form decayed. His mother’s kimono would fall to pieces and he would let that conclude of his season of grief. To all things an end— even regret, even mourning. He would step free from the tatters of old silk and become something new, finished at last with this deep hibernation.

Orochimaru picked up the fragile ghost of snakeskin from where it lay on a clean sheet of paper and held it up to the light gingerly. In a span of a few hours, even with the high humidity of the day, it had dried out and become frail, infinitely more delicate and precious.

Good fortune…
…and rebirth.

Summer was gone and day was ended, but time itself was unceasing and cyclical. Winter would not last forever, the sun would rise again, and he would wake up and remember how to live again.

New moon slender and frail
Quickly will pale and be gone
And you'll come back to me then in the rose of dawn
Just like royalty, from the island of the dead

[Naruto] Unfinished Snippets

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:21:12 GMT

More for myself than anything.

I think it was intended to be Orochimaru/Jiraiya. Hard to tell, so short.

There was nothing between them but that which neither of them could touch.

“I like to see things in motion,” Orochimaru said, something by way of explanation.

____

past!fic, Orochimaru/Anko, training sessions and snakes

“She is…acceptable,” the snake said, flicking her forked tongue rapidly in the spaces between her words. She cocked her head to one side as she slowly lifted her front half up into the air to examine the girl again with one round, unblinking eye, before she twisted around sharply to meet Orochimaru’s gaze. “She may enter into the contract, should she choose… Knowing what is required on her behalf.”

“I know,” Anko said. “I understand the requirements. Blood for blood.”

Orochimaru merely smiled, lips curling back off his white teeth. Anko spoke simply, though he’d explained it to her in greater detail than that; the bargain meant nothing if she did not comprehend that to which she willingly submitted.

“I understand, Shesha-san,” Anko repeated, and the snake half-turned again and dipped her head in a graceful bow. The motley pattern of the brown and grey scales rippled mesmerizingly with the movement.

“Very well. Then we shall meet again,” the snake said before she vanished in a puff of smoke.
____

[Soul Eater] Antebellum -- Spirit/Stein

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:46:34 GMT

Title: Antebellum
Pairing: Spirit/Stein
Words: ~1,200
Genre: Drama pastfic.
Rating: PG
Other Notes: I realized partway through this that my mental image came from a dim memory of a piece of fanart, which shows young!Stein sitting in the center of an empty white examination room; I combined that image with the idea that maybe Stein had been psychologically examined before entering Shibusen, and wrote this is a result.
Crossposted.

Shinigami-sama kept one broad, flat hand pressed against Spirit’s back as he escorting him into the room. It felt comfortable, warm, and it was only in retrospect— years later— that he realized that Death Himself had been preventing him from backing up quickly.

In the moment, though, Spirit was only aware of his muted anxiety, his sweating palms balled in his pants pockets, his own light, shallow breathing.

You’re not worried. Just a little excited. That’s normal. Meeting someone new, meeting someone who’s going to be your partner…

He’d been told enough.

Or he thought he had. Later— years later— he’d reconsider that and then ruefully dismiss the dull ache that throbbed in his chest, in his head. Order another drink, gag it down, shudder, and try to ignore the tight prickling pull of the stitches running down his back.

Shinigami-sama had said that they needed him for this. That there was something about him that was special, something about his soul that made him the best candidate they had for this.

Flattered, Spirit had agreed to give it his best.

The door shut behind them with a quick snick.

The room was white, so white it hurt to look at. It was white and blank and empty, and in the first moment when the boy in the single chair in the middle of the room lifted his head, his eyes were the same.

Spirit started.

Shinigami-sama’s fingers splayed against his shoulders, firm and steadying. “Good morning, Stein-kun,” he said cheerfully, coaxing the last syllable out to play. “You haven’t been waiting long, have you?”

The boy— Stein— slowly tilted his head. Even his clothes were white. His gaze crept down from Shinigami to Spirit, lingered a moment, then moved back upward again.

“No,” he said. “Not long.”

Spirit shifted uncomfortably. In this room, there was no time. There was only the hum of florescent lights, the mellow glow of the walls, the unbearable whiteness. The kid— and he was just a kid still— seemed crushed by the weight of it. How could he know how long he’d been here.

Minutes? Hours?

Days?

No one could have left the kid in here for days.

Could they?

He’d heard some rumors, some strange gossip going around that…

Spirit swallowed down his own nervousness. It was just a room. A plain room with a bored-looking kid. Nothing weird here. “Hey,” he said, and his own voice surprised him. So did his hand, half-raising in a casual greeting.

Stein looked at him again, the veil of vague, clouded apathy clearing from his expression for a flickering second to reveal something...

…something sharper, Spirit thought uneasily. Sharp, and dangerous.

What the hell. He’s just a kid. He’s not even my age yet.

Why is he in this white room all alone?

“This is Spirit-kun,” Shinigami-sama continued like he hadn’t felt the mood in the room. “He’s…”

“He’s a weapon,” Stein finished flatly. He stared openly at the older boy, lifting his face like a cat scenting the air. He carefully folded his hands together as though restraining himself.

Wait. Restraining himself from what?

“Ahhhhh~! That’s would be…CORRECT!” The skull-faced mask bobbed in gleeful affirmative. “CONGRADULATIONS!” Shinigami’s free hand popped from his cloak to point at Stein, his longer reach making it so that his fingertip was a mere inch from the boy’s face. “And you are…?”

“Oh.” Stein didn’t answer, didn’t seem at all inclined to play along with Shinigami-sama’s game. Instead, he seemed to relax, some of the tension dropping from his shoulders as a smile curled the corners of his lips. He leaned back in the chair, poised and cynical, a frighteningly adult expression on his face. “I see. This is another test.”

“Test?” Spirit frowned. He felt as though he wasn’t following the conversation very well at all. He glanced around the empty room again, then up at Shinigami-sama questioningly.

And was surprised to feel the god’s upbeat attitude slump for a moment, as though Stein’s response had caught him off-guard and knocked the wind from him. The pointed finger barely wavered, though, before wagging playfully under the younger boy’s nose.

“Stein-kun, that is…” Shinigami sucked in a breath, then belted out, “INCORRECT!” The finger retracted as the god flipped his hand palm up, shrugging the one shoulder. “It’s not finals time anymore. The tests are over.” Because I said so, seemed to follow along even without an open invitation. “Spirit-kun is here to meet you.”

Spirit allowed a second for the rest of what went unspoken to lope into place. “Hey,” he said again, stepping forward. He kept his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say to the kid. Anything would sound awkward. “You need a partner to participate in classes at Shibusen.”

That, finally, seemed to surprise Stein. His expression didn’t change, but his knuckles—

--his hands, folded neatly in his lap, a pale imitation of manners to reign in his errant fingers—

—went white and his eyes seemed to darken.

They waited for him to speak, but Spirit couldn’t stand the empty gap that lurched there, sick and empty and so damned terrifying, and so he fidgeted restlessly and stepped closer.

He reached out…

…then turned his wrist awkwardly and jerked his thumb at the door.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s stop wasting time in this hole. Let’s get going.”

Stein looked through the space Spirit’s hand should have been. The lip of his tongue, small and pink as a kitten’s, lapped at his lips— revealing his own nervousness— and Spirit felt something loosen in his chest.

“Your hair…” Stein hesitated. “It’s a good color. Like arterial blood.”

Shinigami-sama heaved a deep sigh, and Spirit sputtered helplessly, raked his hands through his hair, and then tried to smile.

Oddly, it worked.

In fact, it was suddenly very easy.

Okay.

He could do this.

He could stand between this kid and the world.

“Come on,” Spirit said again, warmth leaking into his irritated tone.

Stein’s shaking fingers pressed against Spirit’s shoulder. He stared at the five impressions he made in the cloth, in the flesh underneath, seemingly fascinated.

“Alright,” he said. He spoke without tone, without inflection. He cocked his head at the soft hiss of his nails on Spirit’s shirt, then plucked at the sleeve and still didn’t raise his eyes to meet the older boy’s.

Years later, he would think again how simple it was— not just then, in that moment in that white room, but always…

…always so simple.

Stupid, Spirit told himself. The words had no vehemence, no anger. So stupid. It’s your own damned fault.

Spirit always fell in love so easily.

Later— years later, even after
(all the pretty little silver blades lined up in a row in the tray, and he was horrified to realize that he felt no sense of betrayal)
having his heart
(watching her walk away, so confident…watching the end of their partnership, their marriage)
broken again and again
(“papa, papa,” she used to sing in her sweet voice, like light-winged birds lifting, and she held her arms up for him, she used to smile just for him…)
— he still couldn’t find it in him to feel regret for being born with that flaw.

He pulled Stein’s fingers away from his shirt, wrapped his own around them, stilling their nervous energy.

Stein looked up at him.

“Alright.”

Shinigami-sama laughed.

[Soul Eater] A Sharpened Edge-- Spirit/Stein pastfic

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:49:12 GMT

Title: A Sharpened Edge
Pairing: Spirit/Stein
Words: ~670
Genre: Drama pastfic.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Underaged boy kissing.
Spoilers: None, really.
Other Notes: Hm. I wrote a very serious!Spirit. Maybe he's out of character here. I was thinking about that flashback scene, where he is serious when he's dealing with crazy kid!Stein, and wondering what that'd be like, not just working with that nutcase but actually being the blade he uses in battle.
...mostly, I admit, I'm just happy to be writing again, regardless of the outcome.
Crossposted. ...maybe.

It had just felt right.

The action had been no more planned out than a sneeze, a yawn.

It simply was.

Here in the filthy city streets under the mad, mad moon the reverberations of their souls echoed down the alleyways and thrummed in their blood, the perfect pitch they'd created together, that sustained note devoid of meaning and aching with desire which shivered still inside their hearts.

Together, they'd killed. Taken one more corrupt soul.

As they would again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Stein had barked laughter into the ringing silence that crashed down upon them in the wake of the fight, his face upturned to the night sky like a crazed coyote cackling senselessly to its own savage god.

Spirit had jerked in his partner's grip, twisting and transforming, sick with tangled emotion, and he'd felt that if he had to listen to that wretched noise any longer, he'd lose his mind himself.

He hadn't been thinking about it. He'd merely moved in sync to the sound only they could hear.

He'll taste like blood, he'd thought in the second before their mouths came together.

He was wrong. It wasn't like blood at all. He was relieved to be wrong.

Spirit ducked his head and dove in for another taste.

"Senpai..." Stein's breath puffed lightly against his cheek when they broke apart a bare inch, just enough to speak, and Spirit shuddered at his tone, shuddered again as all the hairs on his body rose in response, prickling.

"I'm not just another scalpel for you to use." Oh god, his voice still shook. Why couldn't he just stop trembling.

"Senpai," Stein said again. His voice was calm, level.

Emotionless.

Infuriating.

Spirit couldn't look him in the eye, not now, not like this. He was too afraid of what he'd see there. He was too afraid of his own reactions.

"I'm not just your tool!"

Stein hitched in a ragged breath. Spirit felt the muscles in his throat twitch as he swallowed.

"Spirit-Senpai... Could you let me go now?"

Spirit blinked.

"What?"

Stein squirmed against the clenched fists holding him up against the wall by his shirt, his smaller fingers digging at Spirit's straining knuckles. His heels were off the ground by a full inch. "Let go of me now."

"Ah...!"

Spirit startled violently, his eyes opening in shock, then froze up for a single heartbeat, astonished and guilty.

Then, abruptly, he did let go.

And then he winced when his partner dropped to one knee, unable to catch his balance in time.

Had he really just picked the kid up by his collar and slammed him against the building? Did he really just...just kiss him?

Spirit couldn't remember exactly, but when he licked his lips he tasted wintergreen.

The flavor lingered on his tongue pleasantly.

He turned away to face down the alley, raked both hands through his hair, and took a deep breath.

"I... I'm sorry," he muttered. The moths fluttering around the streetlamps were fascinating weren't they. Look how they danced in the halo of light. Pretty. Innocent. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm sorry, Stein. I didn't mean to..."

"Why?"

Spirit turned quickly to stare at the young tech, surprised, but Stein wasn't looking at him. He'd rolled up one leg of his pants to examine the scrape that now adorned his left knee. Blood trickled in thin rivulets down his shin.

When his partner didn't respond, Stein finally did look up at him and in the same too-calm tone, he repeated, "Why? What did you do to be sorry for? Senpai is an excellent weapon."

Spirit stared for a moment longer, really looking at Stein for the first time since their fight ended, and then he felt the anger and confusion melt away, felt the tension drain from his muscles.

That's it.

He was a weapon with a sharp cutting edge. His technician liked the feel of a good blade in his hand. This is what they were born to do. There was no point in getting upset now. There was still work to be done.

It still felt right.

No, not right, but alright.

It was still alright.

"Nothing." Spirit shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, letting a small, weary smile creep onto his face. "It's nothing."

"That's seventeen," Stein said thoughtfully, then stood up, swaying slightly. A grin slashed across his face and lit up the depths of his eyes. "Eighty-two to go."

"But not tonight." Spirit jerked his thumb toward the road.

"Let's go home."

[Soul Eater] Extracurricular -- Stein/Spirit pastfic drabble

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 06:47:22 GMT

Title: Extracurricular
Pairing: Stein/Spirit-ish
Words: ~300
Other Notes: So, how exactly did Spirit fail to notice freshly stitched wounds appearing all over his body for five freaking years!?
I drabbled most of this up in a comment-thread on my main journal.

There was only one question left.

So then...which would it be?

A local or a general?

Stein considered for a moment, his fingers hesitating over his tools. He'd been contemplating this particular topic absent-mindedly throughout the day, trying to decide which would be more suited to the task at hand, so he'd prepared a proper dosage of both types around mid-afternoon.

When it came down to it, all he really needed to operate was a local, just something to keep the object of investigation from feeling the prick of the scalpel and waking up. That would be simple, and it would leave fewer lingering side-affects.

Stein glanced over toward his test subject.

Spirit, peacefully oblivious to his own fate, was sprawled flat on his back, bedsheets tangled around his loose limbs and hair spilled across the pillow like bloodstain. He hadn't even twitched when Stein had wheeled over to his bedside and experimentally jabbed him in the arm with a needle a couple of times to test if he was out.

He slept like the dead.

If the dead snored, that is.

However... Stein tightened his screw a few cranks. ....a general anesthetic was still an option.

On one hand, it was excessive. The subject was already out cold, and the barbiturate he had prepared would almost certainly last too long, making the test material sleep far into the morning and then wake up slow and groggy.

And on the other hand... Stein's lips curled. Knowing Senpai, he'd probably fail to notice the stitched-up incision on his abdomen in his fuzzy-headed flailing panic of trying to get to class on time. He'd be too frantic at the idea of having to take extra make-up lessons to even see to such a small and inconsequential cut.

Right.

A general it was, then.

Stein grinned happily and reached for the syringe.

[Naruto] Snakedance-- Kabuto/Anko-ish.

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:52:30 GMT

Title: Snakedance
Pairing: Kabuto -> Anko, though it you want to read Orochimaru/Anko and Orochimaru/Kabuto into it, don't let me stop you.
Words: ~1,200
Genre: Drama, introspection.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None, really. This takes place slightly before and during the chuunin exams.
Dedication: erisabesu requested this pairing, and though I didn't get to real smut I do believe that I am hooked.
Other Notes: This was fun! What a fascinating pairing! I will certainly have to do more sometime.
Crossposted.

Mitarashi Anko is everything he is not.

She’s sucking the sticky remnants off of a dango skewer and humming under her breath when they pass in the street; he’s carrying a paper sack loaded with medical supplies and from the corner of his eyes he watches the way her pink lips curl and pull at the sliver of bamboo pursed between them.

He thinks of the sweetness of her dirty mouth and wonders what her sensei taught her.

Her long jacket unfurls in the breeze, drifting out behind her, and the edge of it licks at his knees as they pass; she doesn’t even notice.

She’s older than him and confident, she’s of higher rank. She’s dangerous and inelegant, hot-blooded and beautiful and crass, and she doesn’t see him, she doesn’t see him looking at her.

Kabuto knows that he could make her notice him. He wonders what it would be like to make a woman like that bleed, he wonders if she’d enjoy it.

He resettles his glasses on the bridge of his nose and keeps walking.

Orochimaru told him to keep a low profile.

It wouldn’t do to make a scene.

Yakushi Kabuto is nothing to her.

He’s entering the village as she’s leaving it; she’s on assignment and still she slows for a heartbeat as she bolts past him, as a curiosity shoots through her mind, bright and brief, as to what he was doing out at the gate by himself without teammates or commander, this no-talent genin who never passed the exams and yet every year tried again.

He’s only five years her junior and he’s going nowhere.

The morning sun slides over his glasses, throwing brilliant barbs of light like supernova stars into her eyes.

He’s sweet-tongued and gentle-handed, not completely incompetent at medical ninjutsu, better than he seems, she thinks. He’s perhaps not a fighter despite being long-limbed and lithe, he’s careless in an artful way that reminds her of better ninja, his soft smiles are as queer as the ones that curve the lips of her snakes.

And now he’s caught in her gaze, his dark eyes visible again behind transparent lenses, his dark eyes wide as he takes in the sight of her charging past.

She remembers the story of fighting at Bellflower Pass and of the boy that was brought back to Konoha like a spoil of war.

We will kill you and we will take your children, we will make your own sons your enemy, Orochimaru had said when the rumor reached them— that was fifteen years ago, a lifetime ago— and he’d tossed his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed and Anko had squirmed at the sound of it.

She doesn’t know why she thinks of Orochimaru now.

She pushes her mission to the fore of her thoughts.

No distractions now.

Kabuto shares all information with Orochimaru-sama, but since the Sannin does not ask of those chosen to supervise the exams Kabuto smiles and does not volunteer the name of the second proctor.

He does not wish to spoil the surprise of their reunion.

Anko does not forget or dismiss her questions, but neither does she ask anyone else what a lone genin was doing unaccompanied outside of the village jurisdiction.

Intelligence and discretion were two crucial traits that had enabled her to survive her sensei’s training.

He is not sure whether he admires Anko, or if he despises her.

Kabuto observes the way she holds the clipboard when he calls out his retirement from the game— no need to continue playing, not with the Master in attendance, his sharp eyes gleaming as he stares hungrily at his newest pet, the Uchiha— and he wants to laugh.

He understands what’s going on and she does not.

Orochimaru stands five feet from his own sensei and nine from his previous student, ignoring both of them as they stand and discuss his subordinate's low status and uninteresting achievements.

She’s murmuring his name and stats, and Kabuto watches her mouth forming the syllables of his name. He can tell that she’s confused as to why he’s quitting now, this far into the exams. He’s never passed, failed six straight times, and yet he’s ducking out though he’s no green rookie and could still stand a chance if he was smart and lucky.

He reminds himself that she is something Orochimaru cast aside, unwanted, and garbage is to be despised.

She doesn’t see him, and she can’t understand.

When the preliminary third exam begins, those not participating in the duels retire to watch from the balcony that runs the full length of the room.

She leans against the railing, her heavy breasts squashed against her forearms, and a little smile flicks about her lips.

She watches the kids fight and he watches her over the tops of his glasses.

When the Hyuuga girl is injured, Anko straightens up and leaves for the back rooms and he finally sees an opportunity.

“Mitarashi Anko-san,” he says and she jerks around to look at him, caught off guard.

Her eyes narrow as she takes in his smile. “You don’t belong here,” she says. “This place is off limits.”

“Is it?” His voice is very, very mild, and he pushes his glasses into place as he continues, still smiling. “I’ve been watching you for a while. I just wanted to tell you how much I admire you.”

“Oh?” Anko lifts her brows, disbelieving and warily curious.

Careful, careful…like handling a tripwire, like negotiating with a snake. She could draw blood before he even blinks, and he does not doubt her willingness to do so.

Kabuto closes his eyes for a moment and sighs. It was so rare that he spoke his mind that he found it tiring. “Yes,” he says then, and when he looks at her again his expression is muted, soft and true.

“Somehow, you were able to learn to live without Orochimaru-sama. I, regretfully, find that is something which may not be possible for me.”

Surprise slowly floods her pale hazel eyes, filling them up so that they open wide, wider than he thinks is possible…

Kabuto wants to fight her, he wants to fuck her, he wants to see if he can still taste or feel Orochimaru inside of her, but his Master would not appreciate any disruption of his plans. He’s said too much already.

…and then, in an instant, kunai are flying toward his face.

The bunshin pops out of existence.

Kabuto smiles to himself when she comes back out onto the balcony some while later.

Her fists are balled in the pockets of her jacket and she stalks into the room with the long-legged stride of a furious wildcat and, no, she doesn’t stop near the Sandaime to speak with him about what just occurred and Kabuto is oddly pleased with that.

She’s loud and brash and loyal to Konoha, but she understands intimacy.

When she raises her turbulent eyes to his across the room and glares, Kabuto smiles and waves.

Anko draws her thumb across her own throat in a quick, subtle message, then mouths at him, Later.

He nods, still smiling.

He looks forward to it.

[Naruto] How Wings Work-- Deidara-centric

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 01:15:40 GMT

Title: How Wings Work
Pairing: Deidara-centric, some implied Deidara -> Itachi
Words: ~530
Genre: Character introspection
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Through chapter 359.
Other Notes: Playing with bird symbolism.
Crossposted.

Twilight falling, and the crane, divine messenger, has strewn the stars out from the cloak of his wings…

“So you’re an artist, too, un?”

Konan tipped her head toward Deidara, a sense of acknowledgment evident in her subtle pause though her eyes were indifferent on him. “I am the Word of God.”

“Ah.”

Inspiration embodied— literally. The Breath of God itself.

His camera-eye flicked and whirred, futilely trying to capture the words as they rolled off lips as pale and perfect as porcelain, and he lifted his hands out from his sleeves and opened them to show her his found treasure: a delicate paper crane that perched in the cradle of his palms.

Konan looked at the bird a moment in silence, and then turned away.

After a few steps, she spoke again. “Longevity. Peace. It stands for such things as that which someone like you might not understand,” and then she was gone, disappeared into the darkness of a heavenless earth, following the footsteps of her god.

Dawn breaking, and the raven, guardian of the dead, calls the last lost souls in from their wanderings.

When their eyes met across the cavernous room, after the extraction of the Bijuu, Deidara seethed silently, all four sets of teeth gritting against the rage that threatened to tear free from his shaking tongue.

How could someone else’s art have captivated me like that?

When their eyes met, Deidara reminded himself again that now, once more, nothing was as it seemed— the world was silk slipping through grasping fingers, breath fluttering from dying lungs.

Now, once more, he was trapped within the scarlet ring of the Sharingan, in an artificial world full of unmanifested surprises and terrors.

No one looked back at him. There was no soul behind that gaze; like mirrors, Itachi’s eyes only showed Deidara himself— lost and foolish, inadequate, just a beautiful boy in love with sweet death.

Phantasmagorical cynosure, Deidara thought, envy and desire churning furiously in his gut.

Uchiha Itachi exploded in an unkindness of ravens, and Deidara stumbled backward from the sudden onslaught of razor beaks and raking claws…

…only to open his eyes and realize he was alone.

High noon, and the hawk, soul of the sun, screams his lonely paean of annihilation and consummation.

Deidara smoothed his hand against the back of his sculpture, and the tongue in his palm curled left dark wet steaks on the clay. He sent his chakra flickering through the goshawk-shaped creation and it shifted its blunt-feathered wings as though it were truly alive, yearning for the skies, eager to hunt.

The clay reverberated with his own desires, an extension of his own spirit.

Sasori-danna had disappeared into the darkness of the heavenless earth hours earlier; he’d crawled down one of his burrows and would not be out again until night. Like a true scorpion, he hid from the blazing desert sun though, nerveless, he did not feel its burn.

The heat rose up out of the sand in baking wave; lights shimmered along the horizon, blue and silver: more hallucinations, he thought, sliding slivers of trembling insanity.

Another glimpse into an artificial world, full of surprises and terrors.

Waiting.

Deidara spread his wings and sprang into the sky.

[Naruto] Metamorphe -- Kabuto-centric-ish

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:20:07 GMT

Title: Metamorphe
Pairing: Implied OroKabu-ish...?
Words: ~360
Genre: Drama, speculation, mindfuck
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For newer manga chapters.
Other Notes: First!-- I will get to fic requests. I've been working on them a bit, but then I got bunnied by this.
Second!-- This reminds me a lot of this jossed fic, but I think it's different enough that I'm not repeating. Formatting this was also bastardly; I hope it makes sense.
Third!-- my boyfriend finds my fanfic habit ridiculous, so I'm speeding through this. Kind of disappointing, 'cause I think I could make this really, really fucked up if I had the time.
Crossposted.

“Poor thing...”

“…found him covered in blood…”

“…surprising that the boy survived. His chances of recovery…”

“…traumatized. He may never…”

“He’s a very fortunate boy, though his parents…”

“What was a boy doing in the middle of…?”

He hadn’t had a name then. He was just “the boy”-- the boy from Bellflower Pass, the boy who survived.

He was…

…who am I?

The man who was once the boy from Bellflower Pass shuddered and wiped the sweat from his brow with a trembling hand. He had been running a high fever for two days.

The voices weren’t there, he knew that.

He was disoriented and delusional, and even his own superb medical knowledge was unable to buy him any more time. His potions and pills were useless, unable to stave off the transformation.

He was losing.

(Are you?)

It wasn’t clear anymore.

His hands had shaken when he’d injected the vial of blood into the crook of his own elbow.

He remembered that he’d tried to convince himself at the time that he wasn’t acting irrationally out of fear and grief.

He’d refused to hesitate before pushing the plunger home.

In the end, what had he become?

He’d also refused to think about the consequences of poor judgment.

Only what you helped him to become.

Orochimaru-sama had been…

(Immortal. I am immortal.)

What, then, am I becoming?
(We are becoming.)

The man who was once a child left standing alone and bloody on the battlefield of Bellflower Pass could not find it in him now to regret. He’d started with nothing, and yet now he was full of a new life which kindled in the empty spaces of his heart.

He had offered his body to his master often enough to have long accepted the inevitable.

(You will not be completely consumed.)

Devil’s deal.

He’d heard those words before. He’d never been sure whether he believed the promises Orochimaru-sama swore to those shinobi who’d sacrificed their flesh to him before, but now...

(Your consciousness will survive our integration, and our power…)

The monster that had been Yakushi Kabuto tipped his head back and laughed.

[Naruto] Brood of Vipers -- Oro/Karin drabble

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:38:34 GMT

Title: Brood of Vipers
Pairing: Orochimaru/Karin, subtly Karin -> Sasuke, implied Orochimaru/Sasuke
Words: 225
Genre: Dark, introspection
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Up to current chapters (414-ish)
Other Notes: This, uh, was meant to be Sasuke/Karin. Or even Karin -> Sasuke. I fail. Also, I ship Orochimaru with anything that moves.

There were scars, and there were scars.

Karin didn’t remember anymore all of the stories that accompanied the irregular rings decorating her body-- borne in battle, details lost to time, they served her as reminders of life and death, and the thin line between the two.

A few were memorable.

Fewer still mattered.

There was a similar round scar on the slope of Sasuke’s shoulder— the toxic trefoil of the curse seal and the wavering border some fool had erected around it, hoping to contain the black venom under Sasuke’s skin.

Karin didn’t bear a curse seal.

It was not because Orochimaru hadn’t favored her— he had, indulgently so— but because her chakra destroyed the foreign enzymes as simply and easily as it would destroy a virus.

Orochimaru had found her inability to be infected fascinating, and her reaction to his experimentation amusing.

Those were marks she could not forget.

Each bite had dug deep into her flesh, and venom that could not kill had burned through her body.

Sasuke only had that one, that single moment.

Karin wondered if he, too, had thrown his head back and cried out when fangs penetrated his skin.

One moment.

She wondered if his beautiful young body had been wracked with more than just poison-pain.

Once.

Karin wasn’t sure if she was more envious, or more smugly satisfied.

[Avatar] Forests of the Night -- Azula/Zuko drabble

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:29:39 GMT

Title: Forests of the Night
Pairing: Azula/Zuko
Words: 211
Genre: Drabble, drama, smut-ish
Rating: PG (?)
Spoilers: Only for where Zuko ends up by the beginning of 3rd season.
Other Notes: ...don't ask. Just...let this one ride. I'm goin' to hell.

The first night, Azula prowled the palace hallways, assured of her own territory and restless in hunger.

She was a tiger burning bright; the flame in the wall sconces danced to the tune of her heartbeat, the thrum of her blood, alighting her amber eyes. Firelight and shadow striped her skin in alternating bars of onyx and gold.

Her brother was sleeping in the room that had lain empty for the last three years.

Her brother… Her lips curled back off her teeth when she thought of him, as though she could breathe in his scent and let it linger on her tongue, her empty belly tight and hot.

She was a tiger, and he just a man.

No. A boy still becoming a man, a fighter and yet not a warrior.

He slept now, like a child, his boyhood bed, at peace in the palace of tigers.

Prey.

His survival instincts were…weak.

The night air was warm and steamy. The chorus of summer insects rasped and buzzed in the tall grass; their harsh love songs hung in the umoving air. Heat lightning flickered along the horizon.

The hallway light threw her shadow long before her, stretching across the floor, onto the bed.

“Zu-zu,” she purred.

And then she fell upon him.

[Naruto] Fiddling in the Shaping-Time -- Oro/Anko pastfic.

Sat, 10 May 2008 20:17:33 GMT

Title: Fiddling in the Shaping-Time
Pairing: Orochimaru/Anko, with hints of Anko->Minato, Orochimaru->Tsunade, and Minato/Kushina.
Words: ~7,000
Genre: Drama, pastfic, introspection, slight smuttiness.
Rating: R
Spoilers: For a lot of pre-canon goings-on.
Other Notes: This is really heterosexual— surprising for me.
Go easy on the con-crit this time, please; trust me, I am painfully aware of its faults.
Crossposted.

The first ten years they tried to saddle him with genin teams, Orochimaru failed them. Simply. Unequivocally. Without debate or argument or fanfare.

He stared at them— through them— and rolled his eyes, sighed heavily, and snidely began the endless tongue-lashing. He mocked their weaknesses; he pricked their childish, arrogant suppositions and dreams, needling them relentlessly until, one by one, they fell silent, all bravado swept away; he ruthlessly taunted them with nightmare visions of war-torn lands, blood and death, pestilence and betrayal.

He twisted them deep into genjutsu, slithering deep into the crevices of their vulnerable minds; he toyed with them, luring them into traps loaded with poisoned kunai and exploding tags and writhing serpents. He watched the fear dancing in their wide eyes just before he closed white fingers round their wrists and crushed the small bones.

Orochimaru licked the taste of sweat-salt and tears from trembling skin and smiled before he finished dashing the last sweet drops of hope from them.

Sarutobi questioned him once, briefly, but Orochimaru shrugged, the corners of his lips quirking, and said simply, “They were too weak.”

Tsunade understood— or rather, she thought she did, and Orochimaru did not mind her…understanding.

“You’re right," she sighed once, and closed her eyes before she could see the flash of amusement in her teammate’s face. She leaned back against the railing of the channel, her arms crossed under her full breasts, and the wind caught the pennant of her hair, pulling soft curls loose to tickle her cheeks. Orochimaru watched her, watched the sun pour gold all over her, watched and said nothing, waiting for her to finish.

“It doesn’t seem right, does it? They’re just kids… stupid, scared kids. It’s supposed to be like training wolf cubs, not like sending sheep out to the slaughter. If we’re not tough on them here, then they’ll be killed. Better they face you as an opponent than the enemy.”

Tsunade thought she understood.

Orochimaru did not mind.

“I don’t have time to waste on lost causes,” he answered, and it was her turn to smirk. Cynicism was not the best look for her, Orochimaru thought, but he liked seeing her wear it anyway. It was such an ugly look for such a pretty face, and he did so enjoy the contrast.

“Selfish bastard,” she said, pure honeyed savagery, fiery and sweet all at once, and Orochimaru laughed shortly. “Still. Still such a selfish bastard. You never change.”

“That’s the idea,” he agreed, smiling at her.

Tsunade lifted one fine brow questioningly, then shook her head. She didn’t want to know; she knew too much about him for her comfort as it was.

“We were younger,” she said instead. “Strange to think about it… We’d already fought for years by the time we were the age academy graduates are now. In a way, we’re relics… survivors of a time so different than the present that the rules we lived by no longer apply.” She squinted up at the sky, then lazily rolled her head against her shoulder to look at Orochimaru. “Times change, even if you don’t. “

The river chuckled and burbled against the concrete channel walls.

“Let Jiraiya play with the snot-nosed brats. Just like in Amegakure,” he snorted. “He’s still one himself, after all, still thinking it’s all fun and games. The fool actually thinks it’s some sort of privilege.”

“Isn’t it? Isn’t it a privilege to be asked to share everything you’ve learned with the future of the village? To shape new shinobi?” Tsunade shrugged as she pushed off of the railing. “Think about it, will you?” She waved casually over her shoulder at him, leaving him to consider her last words.

Idiocy, Orochimaru decided, is contagious in this small village.

And isn’t that the truth! he sourly thought sometime later while pacing his underground lair, waiting on the results of his latest experiment. Idiocy was inherent in the creed being passed down, generation to generation— cultural stupidity revered. Everyone born into the village inhaled the same air and ate the same food, and every breath and every bite was tainted with foolishness.

The villagers were Konoha and Konoha was the villagers, and everyone thought in vapid platitudes…everyone except him.

He was different.

Somehow, he’d been…immune…to the mealy-mouthed groupthink that dominated the village. He’d rejected it even while he was very young, and he had grown up developing his own ideas on life and death and the art of war— ideas that had no place in the land that had borne their creator.

Psychological immunity… Now there was an interesting concept.

If Konoha had produced him, then couldn’t it— in theory— produce something else different too? Not the same as him, of course, but something that didn’t fit in here, either.

Something interesting and unique.

Something new.

Orochimaru picked up a scalpel and smiled.

Experimenting made him very, very happy.

The first time, he accepted a trio of genin. Better odds, he decided, to have three at a time, and less suspicious-looking since three was the typical number.

Orochimaru quickly remembered why he had not involved himself with students for so long. He hadn’t the patience for them, really, despite his students’ obvious respect for and fear of him. They didn’t dare disagree with their teacher— cowards, he thought— but they shifted uncomfortably and averted their eyes, silently resistant to his teachings.

He wondered what they told their peers and their parents when training sessions were over, when they returned from assignments.

Orochimaru killed them within nine months. Their bodies went to his lab, and a few identifying remains— a lock of hair, an earring, a scrap of cloth— went to the Hokage, and the whole thing was written off as a terrible accident, a mission gone tragically wrong.

So sad, the losses of war.

He was excused from training another team for another year.

It was frustratingly difficult, and while Orochimaru enjoyed challenges, he did not appreciate feeling incompetent, especially not in front of a line of stubbornly unspeaking children.

Konoha children, he thought, were the worst. Perhaps their minds could have been opened to other possibilities once, but after the academy… No.

Orphans were best.

Orochimaru liked finding strays on the streets, filthy little gutter rats ready to accept anything he gave them, eager to speak with someone who would actually listen. They weren’t afraid of him; he showed them the only kindness they’d seen in years. He stroked their lice-infested hair and smiled at them; he gave them bread and praise, and took them to warm shelters where they could stay. He used them and they did not mind because he gave back to them more than anyone else had ever bothered, more than they expected.

They looked at him as though he was god.

He raised up the weak and sick, and they exalted him and served his glory.

Someday soon, all of Konoha would understand his power.

Jiraiya was the first to comment on his frequent absences from the village.

“Wow, you’re still alive!” he exclaimed sarcastically, hooking his arm around Orochimaru’s neck in order to half hang on him. “Haven’t seen you in so long, I was thinkin’ that I missed the funeral! You know how much I wanna give the eulogy.”

“Get off me, you moron!”

“You kinda look dead… Oh wait, you’ve always looked like that.”

Orochimaru wondered again why he hadn’t yet killed the blockhead. Oh, yes: people would notice. What a shame.

“Do you actually want something or are you just trying to piss me off, Jiraiya?”

“Hmmm…” Jiraiya smirked mischievously and waggled his eyebrows as he leaned in far too close for Orochimaru’s comfort. “I wanna know what you’ve been up to all this time. Never see you around anymore… And even when you’re here, you’re not here, if you know what I mean. So what’s up?”

Orochimaru stared at him.

There were eyeballs floating in jars of saline in the laboratories beneath the village. Genetic samples were lined up in test tubes awaiting further distillation. There were bodies laid out on the hard tables, and iv racks shivered as fluid dripped into the still, pale arms.

Jiraiya stared serenely back, waiting with more patience than his teammate thought he possessed.

Two day’s travel to the north, a small-but-growing community of children rescued from the streets slept and ate and trained. Those who’d tried to run were locked in cages, awaiting Orochimaru’s command and consumption, and more than a few of others regarded them as traitors against their savior.

“I’ve been studying,” Orochimaru said finally, coldly. “Since the last treaties were signed, there’s been nothing else to do.”

“True enough. Although…” Jiraiya paused thoughtfully. “…it’s better this way. I’d rather have the free time to research and write and train up my team than worry about when another fight’s gonna break out. You should think about that, too. Now that the wars have died down, you know Sarutobi-sensei’s gonna ride your ass about teaching some students.”

It would look good, Orochimaru thought. It would be good cover. It was expected of him, and if he wanted to see his other projects through to completion, then he needed more time without interruption. And when he was Hokage…

“Perhaps.” Orochimaru pushed a stray lock of hair behind his ear, considering. “Perhaps… Perhaps you’re right for once, Jiraiya.”

This time, there would only be one.

He would sift through the miserable slag until he found one rough semi-precious gem buried in the mud.

Opportunity was a pretty girl child with pale brown eyes and a sharp wide smile.

“What’s your name?”

The girl proudly jerked her face up toward him.

“Mitarashi Anko, Orochimaru-sensei.”

“Are you afraid?”

Anko hesitated a moment, furrowing her brow, and he watched her eyes flick rapidly back and forth as she scanned his face, trying to glean more information from his expression . She looked at him, unfazed and unabashed. “Afraid of what?”

“Power.” Orochimaru spread his hands out in an all-encompassing gesture, and a smile began to blossom on his lips. “Are you afraid of becoming powerful, little one? Are you afraid of becoming more than you ever dreamed you could be? More than they thought you could be?”

He’d spoken similar promises to the street scum he’d picked up over the years, and he was accustomed to seeing disbelief and hope flicker across their dirty faces in response. Their eyes said yes, please, please!, before they even fully understood what he was offering them, before they could even decide if he was lying to them or not.

This little girl, on the other hand, was not looking hopeful or confused or unbelieving. She was looking at him very strangely. Almost…skeptically.

“I’m not afraid of you. Or of learning new things. Actually,” she said, perking up and brightening, “I want to learn something cool. Everyone acts like you’re really scary, so you’ve got to know some really cool stuff. Like how to kill a guy just by looking at him or something.”

There was a very long pause.

Anko added, “I don’t think you’re that scary-looking. I like your tattoo.”

“Oh, do you,” Orochimaru said drily.

“Yeah. That’s pretty wicked. Can I touch it?” Small tanned hands stretched out to catch ahold of his wrist.

Her knuckles were criss-crossed with pink and white scars and scrapes, her nails were dirty and bitten short, and there were tough calluses on her palms. She was rough and active, no slouch in her basic training, obviously. Four warm fingers brushed across the inked serpent’s head delicately, lingering a moment before Orochimaru pulled away.

Anko blushed and jerked back, then curled her hands into fists, restraining her too-curious fingers. She gave sharp, tight laugh— a sound too mature, too self-aware to come from a child’s throat— and raised her eyes to his again despite her slight embarrassment.

She licked her lips. “Wicked,” she said again, and Orochimaru grinned.

“Indeed.”

The girl might not be the best specimen, but she was different than the others, her mind cracked open just a touch more.

And if it didn’t work out, he’d still find a use for her one way or the other.

Their sparring sessions were short and brutal.

“Man…” Jiraiya drawled disapprovingly when he first saw Anko tagging along after his old teammate, a week after their first training. “Didn’t you ever learn how to pull your punches, you bastard?”

Orochimaru narrowed his eyes, then glanced behind him, analyzed the damage, and shrugged. “I only used taijutsu, and I didn’t break any of her bones.”

“Mm. I suppose you think that’s fair.” Jiraiya downed another glass of sake. It was seven o’clock in the evening, and he was already well into his cups. His last mission had been unexpectedly difficult and he desperately wanted to forget it ever happened. “What’d her parents say about you training her like this?”

“They didn’t say anything at all. They’re dead,” Orochimaru responded coldly. It was part of her appeal.

“Just like—” Jiraiya was drunk, but not drunk enough to finish that thought out loud. Orochimaru tended to not appreciate reminders of the past. “That doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want,” he muttered instead.

“It’s ok.” Anko clambered up onto the barstool next to the other sannin, hissing softly in pain as she struggled with the rungs. One eye was swollen shut, but the other gleamed brightly as she sat up and smiled at him. “I don’t mind. I used to beat up all the boys in my class all the time, so I guess I needed a challenge.” She laughed. “I’ll try harder next time and win for sure!”

Jiraiya boggled.

Anko grinned.

Orochimaru savored the shocked silence.

“I figure,” Anko continued after a moment, “if I can beat Orochimaru-sensei, then I can beat anybody, right? So I’ll train harder and lose a lot and then one day I’ll never have to lose again.”

“Holy shit,” Jiraiya managed finally. Then, “How old are you?”

“Not old enough!” Orochimaru hissed, and that quick reaction caused white brows to arch in surprise.

“Ok, ok… Geez, aren’t we getting touchy.” Jiraiya held his hands up in a placating gesture, but he couldn’t hide the furiously crazed grin that split his alcohol-flushed face. “I’m just playin’; you know that.”

Orochimaru leaned forward over Anko’s head, dropped one hand onto her shoulder, and smirked at his old teammate. His pale fingers squeezed the muscle trapped between them slowly, rhythmically, and Anko practically purred at the attention despite her myriad of bruises, her eye narrowed in a contented arc of dark lashes.

Jiraiya couldn’t entirely believe what he was seeing; he’d never seen Orochimaru do anything quite like that before for any reason, and he never would have believed that anyone receiving such attention would look so delighted with it.

It was beyond strange; it was utterly surreal.

“Ah…” Orochimaru chuckled softly, a bare breath of laughter that caught in the girl’s mop of hair. “But this one’s mine to play with, and I don’t share well.”

That was beyond frightening; it was absolutely, completely horrifying.

Jiraiya stared wild-eyed for one appalled moment, then slid off his stool and staggered away from the bar to vomit in the street.

Within two months, Anko sported noticeably fewer bruises.

She’d always been a little rough around the edges, an unfeminine and brash little tomboy who played a little too hard and hit a little too far below the belt for the comfort of her peers, uninterested and unconcerned with the types of things which preoccupied the other girls’ minds. She hated flower arranging, thought dressing up was a waste of time, and knew that all boys were bores.

She was changing, though, inch by inch.

She dropped the last of the baby fat that had stubbornly clung to her belly and gained three inches.

Her skirts got shorter, bare scraps of leather wrapped from the peaks of her pelvis to mid-thigh.

Her shirts got shorter, too. They rose up and up until they barely covered her small breasts.

She started letting her hair grow out longer, though she still kept it clipped back out of her face in a wild, messy spray.

Within five months, she had her own ‘wicked’ tattoo winding around her forearm.

Anko liked the snakes. She enjoyed listening to their soft, sibilant voices, especially when they nuzzled their blunt noses up against her ear to whisper to her their own secrets and tricks. They wound around her warm body; they slithered into her jacket sleeves and wended down her shivered back. The touch of their silken scales raised her own skin in gooseflesh.

Her mannerisms changed, too.

Her walk turned into an aggressive rolling strut. The world swayed with her hips.

She was precise in her movements, no motion wasted.

She laughed easily, freely, but her smiles were feral and dangerous.

Within eight months, Anko was a predator.

Orochimaru watched his student stretch backward like a wild cat over a tree limb high above the forest floor of their meeting place. She leaned back further, and then gravity caught ahold of her; she flipped her long, lithe legs over her head and arched into a graceful dive toward the earth, righting herself at the last moment to land easily on her feet.

“Sensei!” She grinned up at him happily, her pale brown eyes gleaming almost hazel in the warm afternoon sunlight. “What are we doing today?”

“I want you to tell me,” Orochimaru pulled an apple from his supply pouch and held it against his lips, his smile hidden behind it, “why forbidden jutsu are forbidden.”

“Mmm… Because they’re dangerous for the one performing them. Some of them require more chakra than a lot of people have, and a lot of other ones can injure or kill the shinobi using them, even if they’re done right.”

“That’s half of it. What’s the other half?”

“Other half?” Anko frowned.

“Not all forbidden jutsu are dangerous, but all of them are forbidden nonetheless. Why?”

“Because…” Anko trailed off, unsure. Her brows furrowed, and she picked her thought up again slowly. “Because they’re…not right. They’re… um… They’re wrong. They’re wrong to do, even in battle.”

“Immoral, you mean.” Orochimaru tossed her the apple. “Yes. Some jutsu are forbidden because people find the techniques they employ repugnant. Now…” He held up a slender finger, catching Anko’s attention before she took her first big bite. “Tell me: who makes these decisions? Who decides what jutsu are too terrible for anyone else to ever learn?

“Oh. I don’t know.” This was an unexpected topic of instruction. Anko had always been curious about kinjutsu, but had resigned herself to never knowing anything more about them sometime during her academy years. She pocketed her fruit; lessons now, rewards later. “The Hokage, I guess. And the elders. They make all the rules ‘cause they’re wiser than us.”

Orochimaru made a soft irritated noise in his throat, and shifted his weight uneasily. For a short minute, he was somewhere else entirely, somewhere beyond the bright forest. He was gone so often from Konoha, disappearing for days and sometimes even weeks at a stretch. He left Anko with histories to study, jutsu to practice, and strange weapons to learn how to handle; her apartment was littered with handwritten books filled strategy problems ranging from go board set-ups to battlefield situation for her to solve in her free time. Homework, she thought disgustedly. He went away and he left her behind to wait all the time, and now, again, he’d gone inside to someplace she couldn’t ever follow.

Anko wanted to pound her fists against his chest into the bulk of his flak jacket until he came back and at least looked at her again.

“It’s not fair!” she said suddenly, and Orochimaru’s attention snapped back to the present moment immediately, his amber eyes wider than she’d ever seen them before.

He was surprised.

More than surprised…though Anko couldn’t decipher the strange, wild air that shivered around him. She trembled like a live wire, feeling faint with giddiness, euphorically triumphant. She knew what he wanted. It had been an accident, a Freudian slip, but she knew now.

She threw her arms out in a frantic gesture toward him and cried out again, “It’s not fair! That’s… They haven’t the right! It’s our choice, isn’t it? Our choice to enter the academy, and our choice to train and study, and our choice to risk our lives! So why shouldn’t we be able to do what we like to stay alive and come out on top!”

She slammed into him before she’d even realized she’d began moving. She clawed at the front of his jacket savagely, and jerked her chin upward to look at him. A crazed, desperate grin slashed across her face.

“Orochimaru-sensei… You’ve made your own decisions, haven’t you? Haven’t you!” Anko’s fingers tightened on handfuls of canvas again. “I understand. I understand. And if… If you’ll let me, I’ll live or die by those choices, too. I’ll…” She searched for better words. “I’ll abide by your code, sensei!”

The solid frame began to shake beneath her.

Orochimaru drew in a deep breath, tossed his long hair back, and let his laughter loose to echo through the woods.

Startled birds tore from their branches across the white skies.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

“You grew up fast. What, are you in some kind of hurry?”

Anko whirled on the unexpected voice, a trio of kunai slipping into hand.

Namikaze Minato held up his hands and chuckled half-heartedly, shaking his head. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Geez, you get a scary look on your face when you’re surprised, Anko-chan!”

“Ah,” she said, feeling the blood rise to her face. “…sorry.” The blades vanished up her jacket sleeves and she dropped her gaze away from his eyes toward the relative safety of his sandals. His toes, while quite attractive as far as toes went, were not as difficult to face as the brilliance of his smile.

“’S’ ok,” Minato shrugged amiably and fell into step beside the younger nin. “I understand. You’ve been training hard lately. That tends to make you edgy. We’ve all been there once in a while.”

“Yeah… I guess.”

Anko winced at the sullen sound of her own voice, but Minato seemed not to notice. He was humming under his breath.

“Haven’t seen you chase Obito down and threaten his life in like… what? Six months?” he said after they’d walked another block. They passed the turn she’d needed to take to get back to her apartment, and she didn’t say anything. “He lives in eternal terror of you, you know.”

Anko mumbled something under her breath.

“I suppose that fear’s justified now,” he continued, oblivious to Anko’s internal agonizing. “I hear they’re expecting you to ace the jounin exams in a year or two. You’re on your way to the top.” Minato laughed. “By the time there’s a new Hokage, you’ll probably be in ANBU or something.”

Anko stopped in her tracks and finally forced herself to look up, needing to see his face. “Namikaze-san…” She swallowed hard, and struggled to keep her hands from forming tight, nervous fists. “Do you… Do you think— Who do you think Sandaime will pick as his successor?

Minato stopped as well, looking very surprised...and then his expression softened. He understood. “Oh. I don’t know, Anko-chan,” he said nonchalantly. “That’s not really something for you to worry about. I’m sure that he’ll choose well. Sandaime understands the heart of Konoha; he knows what we hope and dream and what we need to carry on.”

“O—” Anko bit her traitorous tongue, held back the torrent of words holding all her faith and fear.

“What?” His voice fell on her as gently as the twilight slid down over the village, hushed and dark. “You can say whatever you want. It’s alright.”

She startled violently when Minato’s hand fell lightly onto the top of her head; she trembled under his touch, more afraid of his kindness than she’d ever been of Orochimaru’s scathing cruelty.

A petty deity needed no excuse for malice; whereas a beautiful young man’s casual benevolence seemed unearned and undeserved.

Anko lifted her face, eyes wide and throat silent…

“Hahahaha!” A red-haired woman pounced out from the shadows. “There you are— oops!” She looked around wildly, since her target was, in fact, no longer there at all. “Damn!”

She waved cheerfully at Anko before vanishing in a puff of smoke, hot on the chase of the Yellow Flash.

Anko stared at the empty street.

She drew in a deep breath of cool night air, and that eased the ache in her chest.

Everything was lost in an instant, except that which she never had to begin with.

Anko knew what kind of sacrifices her capricious god might demand in exchange for an evening’s solace.

She knew, and she accepted, because she could stand anything but spending the night alone.

A place for everything and everything in its place meant nothing at all when there was too much of everything and too little room in which to put it. It was a late night in a dark location far outside the jurisdiction of any village or clan, and Orochimaru was beginning to think that perhaps he’d tried to choke down more than he was capable of digesting all at once.

Back in Konoha, in the underground, the experiments continued, and it was becoming harder and harder to procure the subjects he needed to finish them with accurate results. Tending the other irons in the fire left less time than he would have liked to devote to his ongoing projects; many of his samples rotted before he managed to finish them, and he found he needed to be pickier about what type of work he wanted to focus on during the time he had.

The first four rounds of fetal manipulation had all failed, which was not surprising, considering he was working with genetic material from a long-dead source. Orochimaru cursed every moment he spent grinding the Shodaime’s bones into dust and then soaking the dust in acid baths— such a waste of time! If only he’d had the foresight to save even a single hair from Tsunade’s golden head before she ran away, then…!

Well. Orochimaru gnashed his teeth together in frustration. He hadn’t. And that’s all there was to that.

And then there was Anko-kun, so close and yet so puzzlingly, impossibly difficult to pin down. She’d reminded him a little at first of his ex-teammate; Tsunade’d been a brash, brassy tomboy of a child, too, outspoken and unafraid. It’d made him wonder what it would have been like, training someone like the Shodaime’s granddaughter— what could he have done with such source material!

But Anko was wary as a half-tame wolf cub with bared teeth and tightly restrained tail flipping between her slinking hind legs; instead of becoming tamer with time, though, she was becoming increasingly more feral, pulling away and startling easily. It was such a pity; she’d begun so sweetly, trusting him implicitly but something was drawing her away and muddling her loyalties.

Perhaps if he brought her here, to the northern lands where he’d taken all the other lost children and formed his base of power…

“Orochimaru-sama?” A young boy stepped cautiously into the room and bowed his head quickly, avoiding eye contact. “Sir… There’s some sort of commotion outside. I think someone’s trying to…um,” the boy’s voice dropped fearfully, “…break in. He’s killed Daiguro and Isamu already, and he’s… he doesn’t look like he’s stopping anytime soon.”

And now this… Orochimaru stood up, and the boy shot away in instinctive terror. There was no reason to flee, though. He was calm.

This lair was not in Konoha. This was his place. Orochimaru enjoyed chaos, but only the kind that he controlled.

There was blood spattered on the walls and puddled on the floor.

Orochimaru stepped over the wreckage of two young kunoichi toward the evident cause and winner of the short battle.

A boy with wild ginger hair huddled in a corner, and most of his body was covered in gore. He whimpered and trembled pathetically; he rocked in place, face hidden in the crook of his arm, and muttered softly to himself, though his words were tear-stained and choked, incomprehensible.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk…” Orochimaru glanced around again, then snorted good humoredly under his breath. He stopped a few feet from the boy and when the echoes of his footfalls died down into silence, he added, “You’ve made a rather large mess, haven’t you? Are you done now? Had your fill?”

The boy slowly lifted his head from the cradle of his forearms to stare. Horror scrawled large across his face and stared out from red-rimmed, blood-shot eyes so wide they seemed to pop from his face. His Adam’s apple bobbled; his mouth opened and closed a few times wordlessly.

“Yes?”

“…help.” The boy managed one word and then clutched at it desperately. “Help. Help… Help me. Please… Please! Oh god, please help me!” He uncurled and fell across the floor. His limbs shook as he tried to push himself up, and he reached for Orochimaru frantically, clawing at the air. “Help! You’ve got to help me, I don’t want to do this, oh please…oh please…oh please…”

Orochimaru watched the boy raggedly crawl toward his sandals. “Help you not do what?”

It seemed self-evident, but he asked. This didn’t seem like a crazed attacker bent on invading his sanctuary. This seemed like a scared, useless child caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“I… I don’t want to kill people. I don’t want to, but I can’t help it! It’s not me, and I hate it, but I can’t help it!” The boy grabbed at his own head, collapsing back onto the floor, and loosed an ear-splitting agonized howl. Shadowy shapes raced across his skin, staining half of his face with dark blotches. Orochimaru’s attention sharpened instantly.

“No! No! N—Yes!” Spittle flew from his clenched teeth, and the boy shook as though having a seizure. He gasped wildly. Part of his body twisted, and muscles roiled under the skin. “Nnnnn… No! No… No.”

What was that? What nearly happened there? Orochimaru wanted to grab the kid shake him. He wanted to breathe, Yes, yes, yes! into his ear until he stopped fighting himself and let whatever was meant to happen, happen.

“You’ve got to help me,” the boy mumbled at Orochimaru’s feet. “You’ve got to help me. You’re the only one. I don’t want to hurt anyone else. I’ll do anything. I’ll try anything. I’ll endure anything. It doesn’t matter… I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.”

“What’s your name?” Orochimaru grinned at the damnable good luck. Whatever the kid had— some sort of bloodline limit?— it was a godsend. He could certainly help his poor young man, especially since he was so generous with himself. “If you’re going to stay, it’s only proper that I know your name.”

“Juugo.” The boy looked up, full of numb gratitude. “Juugo of the Scales.”

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Namikazi Minato grinned, a little embarrassed to be the center of so much attention; beside him stood two other fools, both looking proud and pleased as punch. The wind caught the length of Jiraiya’s hair, sending it lashing out behind him like a white dragon’s tasseled tail, and Sarutobi had had to pinch the brim of his hat with two fingers to keep it from flying wild blue yonder until he passed it to the young blond man standing between them.

The sun was beating down fiercely, with the first breath of summer’s heat, and almost everyone in the village was assembled to see the announcement of their new Hokage. Waves of people below the tower swelled and swayed; they roared out their approval when Sarutobi spoke drowning out his words with their crazed chorus.

Anko was caught in the crush of bodies, asphyxiated by the strangling denseness of the hoards, and she couldn’t shout, couldn’t scream; she was breathless and voiceless, choking in the sweaty heat that blanketed the crowd.

She’d never felt so grateful in her life.

Minato embraced the village, everything about it. It was clear as still water to anyone who looked. As the Sandaime had been as a devoted father to them, Minato would be as a faithful bridegroom, happily in love with his arranged wife until the end of days. He would live for her, die for her, protect her with all his heart and strength.

She’d never been afraid of Orochimaru before, not even when he’d locked their fingers together and all but demonstrated a mutual suicide kinjutsu. He was her sensei. He was powerful and dangerous, but that’d only meant to her that she was learning from one of the very best. Orochimaru’d fought through endless wars his whole life, and if he was prone to blood-chilling moments of inhumanity, Anko understood. What would she be like in twenty years? After she’d killed people who did not deserve to die, after she watched friends and comrades drop one by one from the ranks, after she’d seen the best and worst humanity had to offer…what then? Would she, too, frighten others merely by looking at them? Would she take to drowning her memories in sex and sake? Would she run and hope to god she’d never have to face her past again?

Anko understood that the same forces that created a legend also could create a monster. There, but for the grace of god, went she.

She’d never feared him until now.

People were beginning to surge upward, pressing forward to offer small gifts and congratulations, and Anko felt herself pulled by the riptide irresistibly up the winding stairs toward the trio at the tower top. There were snakes inside her belly eating her up; she was pregnant with fear, swollen and clumsy. She didn’t know where she was trying to go; she only knew she couldn’t stay here any longer. She struggled to turn and fight against the current, stumbling and flailing recklessly.

“Hey, hey, hey… What’s this all about? This isn’t a battlefield, you know.”

Anko’s hands began forming seals before the grip on her shoulders managed to turn her around.

“It’s you!” Jiraiya’s fingers caught hers in the middle of the ox form, and his brow furrowed. The line of people swirled around them. “Are you alright? You’re…pale.”

She stared, wild-eyed for a moment. She knew how she must look. Sweat drizzled down her back. “Please…” she said finally, tugging against his hold. “Orochimaru-sensei… He…”

Jiraiya’s lips thinned into a bloodless line and he closed his eyes. “No.” He shook his head slowly. The chords in his throat stood out violently, and for one perfect moment, Anko could see right through him. He was so transparent to her that she startled again, another spike of anxiety digging into her.

Shinobi were never supposed to be caught so vulnerable.

“No. That’s a different story. It couldn’t be written, not this time.”

“I don’t know what to do.” Anko licked her lips. It was selfish. It was self-preservation. It was desperation. “What am I going to do, Jiraiya-san?”

“You…?” The question startled Jiraiya back to the present moment and his eyes popped back open. A lopsided grin slid across his face, and he stroked his chin with one hand consideringly. “Well… I suppose you could stay the night with me.”

Anko’s mouth fell open. Some strange, inarticulate noise emanated from her throat.

Then she realized she was laughing.

Then, she realized, so was Jiraiya.

Her fear melted away under the hot sunshine, standing and braying out laughter together with a man of equal power to her fierce sensei and who did not fear him. She understood now where the new Hokage’s sense of loyalty derived, and a sense of complete security enveloped her— she was part of the village, and those who loved Konoha loved her, too. She was part of this place, blood and bone; she’d fought at the Sandaime’s word and she would continue to fight under the Yondaime, ready to give her life for her village.

And in return, they would keep her as near to their hearts as their profession would let them.

“How ‘bout we just go get a drink instead?” Anko smirked and laid her hand on his broad, tanned forearm, cocking her head upward at him fetchingly. “My treat? I think we all deserve it.”

Jiraiya grinned.

It was over a week after the ceremony before Anko saw Orochimaru again.

Storms had swept over Fire Country, bringing sweet rain and flickering lights that illuminated the night. The trees and grass were shimmeringly verdant, glistening under gray skies, and everything had taken on a dark, drenched glory.

She’d spent all morning training in the Forest of Death, and she, too, was soaked to the skin. The rain pulled strings of dark hair down from the clip that held it and stained her jacket nearly black, and she tipped her head back to let chilled drop cool her flushed face.

“Anko.”

She’d been expecting it— she’d learned to always expect him, and she always would, even long after he’d left Konoha forever— but the sound of his voice still startled her.

She whirled sharply and then stumbled backward, choking on her greeting; how had he gotten so close without revealing himself?

Orochimaru’s lips parted, showing perfect, even white teeth in a terrifyingly congenial smile.

“Come. I have something to give you,” he said.

Anko never told anyone everything that had happened that night.

“Take off your wet things.”

The sound of the lock clicking into place was lost in the drumming beat of the rain on the roof.

The ANBU squad who handled the case had pieced together some of the events on their own.

“Orochimaru-sensei…?”

“Do you trust me?”

She narrowed her eyes and confessed, “I don’t know anymore.”

“I should feel hurt.” He laughed and stroked her blushing cheek. He laced his fingers through her damp hair and leaned in toward her until their foreheads touched. His eyes were liquid gold, softer than she’d ever seen them. “I have a gift for you.”

Anko felt the tension start to drain from her, puddling at her feet like the rainwater running from her body. Warmth spread through her body.

Genjutsu?

“A very special gift.”

“What…?” The word dragged awkwardly. She should look away. She should, and she couldn’t.

Orochimaru cocked his head and pressed his mouth to hers, stopping her before she wrangled her thought into completion.

There was a wall at her back that hadn’t been there before— she was sure of it; when had she moved?— and she was braced against it in an awkward position. One of her hands was caught and pinned in a vice-like grip; her left knee was raised up and out, supported underneath by a strong arm that nearly lifted her off completely up off the floor.

“Good girl,” he purred into her ear. “Make this easy for yourself.”

Wet heat slithered down between her small breasts. Anko couldn’t place the strange snapping-popping noise at first, and then she understood: the mesh of her fishnet bodysuit was being torn apart as his tongue slid insistently downward.

There were things that had happened that many guessed at, but none would ever know.

She arched against the wall, her moist pink mouth wide as she cried out. A tremor raced down through her and jolted her hips forward.

“Oh… Oh! O-Orochimaru-sensei…!”

His teeth were digging into her shoulder, but she barely noticed. It was just another sensation added to an overloaded system on the verge of collapse.

At least, until the pain hit.

Rust poured down her back, screaming pain like ancient hinges in her spine creaked wide open to let the dying nerves crawl sickly out. Foreign enzymes eddied in her blood, and the poison of the curse seal branded her soul with scorching black fire.

When she woke up, three days later, she was alone.

The Sandaime had been the only one to hear the majority of the story directly from Anko, start to finished, but she’d left out the personal, not daring to give voice to memories she wished had been annihilated in the flames of agony. Anko spoke only in generalities.

Indeed, the devil himself had been in the details.

[Naruto] Pick-up Lines -- Orochimaru/Jiraiya

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:03:38 GMT

Title: Pick-up Lines
Pairing: Orochimaru/Jiraiya
Words: ~2,600
Genre: SMUT. Smut, smut, smut.
Rating: R
Spoilers: None.
Other Notes: This was started AGES ago. I’ve always want to finish it. I’ve also always wanted OroJirai frottage with biting and snarking. Now, my life is complete.
Crossposted.

Tsunade had staggered home an hour past, her pale-haired lover’s arm wrapped around her waist to help hold her upright as she stumbled groggily out of the bar while leaning heavily on him. She flapped her hand at her teammates as she wobbled out, admonishing them to behave themselves for once— not that she expected it; even drunk she knew better than that— before pressing close against Dan with a happily loopy glance.

She could have stayed longer, but from the way she was looking at her boyfriend, she had other plans for the evening which were more pleasant than listening to her comrades bicker at one another.

Jiraiya watched her and her lovely pert ass go with a mournful expression, his own gaze a little unfocused from the sake, then sighed and sucked down another dish of the clear liquid, shrugging it off. He’d had gone home with someone by now too if he could have, so he couldn’t blame her. All his efforts for companionship had gotten him was a faded pink mark on his cheek and the hostess’s refusal to speak to him— she’d only listen to Orochimaru now, dammit— and his teammate’s look of amused contempt.

He blinked again slowly, attempting to concentrate on the only company left to him to see if Orochimaru was still staring at him like that, but the other nin appeared to be settled into his own thoughts, calm and quiet.

He’ s really too pretty to be such an utter bastard, Jiraiya thought, not for the first time, his drunken gaze sliding down the feather-soft fall of his long hair, admiring the way that the shorter strands curved against his high-boned cheeks and framed his face; he knew women who’d kill to have hair that silky and glossy. It would feel cool and sleek between his fingers, softer than his skin but not by much, and it’d be lovely fanned out across white sheets like spilled ink.

The sake flushed his face, giving the too-pale skin a pink tinge and ruddying his parted lips; his eyes were shadowed deep green under heavy lids and thick lashes, contrasted by the smudge of purple rimming them and dripping down the outside bridge of his nose, and when he wasn’t being a complete prick…

After a moment, Orochimaru lifted his head, attention coming back into the moment, and he raised a single thin brow questioningly. “Problem?” he asked, toying with his own saucer of sake; his finger traced the lip of the china cup in endless, mesmerizing loops.

Jiraiya couldn’t pull his eyes away from the way that the pale digit dragged around and around, so graceful that ripples didn’t even form on the surface, and his head felt heavy and dense; he caught himself sinking down toward the table in order to be on level with the fascinating display. “Hm? ‘Uzzat?”

“You’ve been staring at me for the last ten minutes. I’m wondering if there’s a problem.”

“Hn. Yeah.” Jiraiya managed to jerk his eyes higher as he sat up, trying to seem more sober than he was really feeling. Unfortunately, he was immediately arrested by the small patch of smooth, creamy skin between Orochimaru’s collar bones, the curve of the lines of his throat, shadows of hair trickling down over his shoulders, and fuck it, he’s got nothing to lose, right? “I think I've had a little too much to drink tonight because you're starting to look pretty good.”

The look that Orochimaru shot him over his cup could have melted granite, and Jiraiya suspected that he’d covered a choke of surprise skillfully against the back of his hand. “In that case, I suggest that you stop drinking, you idiot lech. Save your skirt-chasing for actual skirts…oh, but wait; you can’t actually get a woman to look at you twice, now can you? Must be all that charm…” Sarcasm oozed venomously from his tone; he’d gotten over his surprise quickly. “Or your rugged good looks?”

“Hey, I may not be the best looking guy here, but I'm the only one talking to you,” Jiraiya countered, the corner of his lip twisting in a smug sneer. Such a pissy little bitch; Jiraiya bet that he was just jealous— he’d noted the way that Orochimaru’s attention lingered on other men, the tight focus of his strange serpentine eyes when his interest had been caught by some other talented male shinobi…of course the bastard was irritated; he couldn’t spark the interest of his own admittedly attractive and skilled teammate.

…this line of thinking didn’t lead anywhere good, now did it?

Orochimaru lifted his brow again, and it was difficult to tell how insulted he was feeling and how likely retaliation was in the next few seconds.

Jiraiya didn’t want to be hit and then turned down for the second time this evening.

Quick! Recover! Chances of sex slipping! his booze- and hormone-pickled brain screamed at him.

“Besides, you can’t let me go home alone in this state.” Jiraiya creatively improvised as he stared in wide-eyed earnesty across the table, feeling faintly proud of himself.

An appeal to the bastard’s sense of superiority would surely win him over. He couldn’t not be moved by that…

“What state would that be? Drunk? Or horny?”

Jiraiya snorted softly and slammed down the rest of his sake, then he slithered off his seat, managing to keep his feet under him despite the fact that he couldn’t feel his legs and the floor kept moving. “H’oh… shit,” he breathed, and flailed for a grip on the edge of the table. “Yeah. Oh, yeah. Both, actually. Mostly drunk…”

“Really drunk.” Orochimaru deftly swept up the sake bottles before they rolled off the table and shattered.

“…S… still… Hell. Still pretty horny, too.”

“You’re probably too much of the former to do anything about the latter.”

Jiraiya leaned on the table and squinted across it. “What’s that s’pposed to…? Ehhhhh! You think I drank too much to get it up!? Is that what you’re sayin’!? You… You bitch…!” He pushed off of the table and stumbled back a few feet, pawing at the ties on his hakama. “Show you, y’bitch…”

Next thing Jiraiya knew, he was unceremoniously shoved out of the warm, well-lit bar hard enough to send him reeling. He thudded into the middle of the street, hands still down his pants and breathless from the impact.

Well, that got his attention.

The crunch of gravel under sandals was all the warning he got before Orochimaru grabbed the back of his kataginu and pulled.

“Get. Up,” he hissed.

“Gurk!” The collar of his mesh shirt cut into Jiraiya’s Adam’s apple. Instinctively, he lashed out with both feet, twisting awkwardly against the strong grip, and felt vindicated when he was suddenly able to breathe again for a moment…before he was yanked off-balance again, this time forward.

“Hi!” he said cheerfully at rather close range, and Orochimaru winced from the sake-laden breath in his face, writhing between the street and Jiraiya’s sodden heaviness.

“Get. U—ulp!”

Jiraiya didn’t really care to let Orochimaru finish, so he took advantage of proximity…

All’s fair in love and war, right?

…and his teammate’s bitchiness…

Then isn’t everything doubly fair in something that is both?

…to shove his tongue into his open mouth.

Orochimaru’s squirming increased violently and Jiraiya grinned against his bared teeth as when sharp canines cut and bruised his lips— too drunk to get it up, huh? Yeah, right! Even one hundred percent plastered, with stones digging into his knees and Orochimaru wielding his teeth indiscriminately, and oh shit…even with Orochimaru… even with him, then…

“C’mon,” he panted when he broke away to wipe blood from his mouth, still grinning crazily. “Come on; I’m gonna have sex with you tonight one way or another, so you might as well be there.”

“Will saying ‘yes’ to this idiocy get you off of me?” Orochimaru snarled.

Jiraiya hesitated briefly, trying to quickly judge how pissed off Orochimaru actually was. He sounded pretty ticked, but he wasn’t acting any worse than usual…considering the unusual circumstances. Jiraiya decided he probably still had some more rope to run with before he ended up hanging himself.

“Actually, I think it’ll get us both off.”

Ten feet of muscular tongue slashed out and plowed directly into his face, tumbling him back into a shop wall.

“Izzat a ‘yes’?” Jiraiya slurred, fumbling his way back to his feet. Strange, he was beginning to sober up a bit, but this whole thing still seemed not entirely unreasonable. Well, he’d come up with far worse ideas than bedding a snake before.

Orochimaru had rolled up onto a predatory crouch, automatically preparing himself in case his irrational-seeming teammate pounced again, and he stared at him consideringly. “You assume I’m as desperate as you.”

Jiraiya shook his head and laughed sharply. “No. I know…” he leered at Orochimaru over that word and stepped closer. “…you like interesting things. Think of it as an experiment.”

Orochimaru’s brows shot up and the corner of his mouth quirked in a surprised smile that blossomed into low laughter. “Oh…? Heh! Heh-heh-heh…” He fell silent a moment, head bowed and shoulders shaking as he tried to wrangle in his strange good humor. When he glanced up again and slowly stood, his eyes caught the lamplight and glittered. The distance between them seemed small and suddenly heated. “That’s brave of you, Jiraiya. Very brave.”

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

“I can’t let you go home alone in this state, now can I?

Jiraiya nodded vigorously and cocked his head down the street. “Let’s go, then.”

“Yeah. Let’s go back to your place and do everything everyone’s going to assume we did anyway.”

“W— WHAT?!” Jiraiya stopped in his tracks and looked around wildly. “Why would they assume that? What the hell!”

“You did make a bit of a scene in the bar,” Orochimaru reminded him, and shoved him into moving again. “Everyone was watching.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone.”

“Even the cute waitress?”

“Especially the cute waitress.”

“Shit.”

“I have no sympathy for you.”

“The only sympathy I want from you right now— or ever, actually— is the sweaty, horizontal kind.”

“I think I can be accommodating.” Orochimaru flashed his teeth in a particularly disturbing grin that made the hair on the back of Jiraiya’s neck prickle.

In a good way.

Or at least a way he could get used to.

“Think that’s the first time you’ve said that.”

Jiraiya reached for his keys as they started up the stairs to his apartment.

“First time for everything. You’re proving that tonight yourself.” Orochimaru snickered raspily and cut in closer, looking up at his teammate while pushing him back against the stairway railing. His fingers trailed down the open edge of his kataginu, slowly…slowly…and Jiraiya caught his breath as they dipped lower against his stomach and into his loosened hakama.

“Shit,” he said again, closing his eyes against the wave of dizziness washing over him. “Oh, shit, yeah…”

His knees buckled and the railing creaked as Jiraiya leaned back harder against it, oblivious to everything but the golden warmth radiating through his body. The exquisiteness— fingershandskinnails— slid down, pulled gently upward again, then lingered, and Jiraiya was surprised to hear himself calmly say, “Didn’t expect you to be a genius at this, too. Bastard.”

Wet heat tickled against his ear, breathy laughter and the tip of a highly agile tongue, and the breath fluttered from the cave of his mouth.

The apartment keys dropped from lax fingers and rattled down the stairs unheeded.

Orochimaru shifted, lips smacking softly as he drew a pinch of skin between his teeth, and Jiraiya blindly pawed for a grip in hair or clothing, something for leverage as he rocked his hips up into hand stroking him.

Orochimaru swept the kataginu back, down and over Jiraiya’s shoulders; he raked his nails downward over his chest and his mouth followed after, all teeth and tongue. There was no hesitation, no lingering, no hurrying, and Jiraiya groaned helplessly, shaking his head.

“S- Stop… stop…ah! Fuck, just…s-s-stop a minute…”

Instead, the hands shoved down his pants gripped his hips and whirled him suddenly, forcing him to move his feet or fall. “Experiment…” Orochimaru purred before the slick length of his tongue coiled around Jiraiya’s throat, predator-keen teeth clamped down on the back of his neck, and momentum slammed him face-first into his own front door.

Jiraiya laughed silently and ducked his head quickly against his shoulder to prevent the blood from the impact-cut running in his eyes, then jabbed his elbow back hard, knocking Orochimaru back enough that he was able to breathe and twist against pressure pinning him against the door.

A game, then. A little sex-play, what the hell. They were both still hard, the friction between them delicious and frustrating.

“C’mon, then,” Jiraiya said, yanking a handful of silky black hair and pushing his knee up between Orochimaru’s thighs. “You wanna play rough? Huh? C’mon then!”

“You’re the one who threw yourself at me,” and ah, there it was, the hitch in that scathing voice, the tiny huff at the end. Finally. “I assumed you wanted me to fuck you.”

“How ‘bout I fuck you instead?” The doorknob dug into Jiraiya’s side and he wriggled away while still grinding his dick against Orochimaru’s leg.

“Mm… no.”

“You could, ah, blow me.”

Orochimaru growled into the arch of Jiraiya’s shoulder, and he thought better of that suggestion with the reminder that Orochimaru liked to bite. The muscles down his back tightened in rhythmic spasms and the last restraint snapped off; pleasure was pleasure no matter what the cause and he was so close, so close…

“You could…ah! Don’t stop! Don’t stop… Just don’t stop doing…hah..wha—what you’re doing right now… Gods…”

And again he felt Orochimaru’s tongue caress his throat and he rolled his head back, gasping as it curled tighter—throttling him, collaring him. Black static stars flickered fuzzily across the night sky, swirling into flashing checkered patterns like go stones laid out on a board…

…then everything exploded in white-hot liquid fireworks, searingly, eye-wateringly bright.

Jiraiya slumped back against the bottom of his door, struggling to catch his breath and half-heartedly trying to wipe the blood-, sweat-, and saliva-soaked hair from his face. “God…” he muttered, or tried to. He coughed, feeling a burn in his too-tight throat, and tried again. “God damn.”

“Mm…”

“Ah, shit, that was… Man, that was really… You didn’t even…I mean, you didn’t, did you? Oh, shit.”

“Mm."

“Oh fuck, were the neighbors watching?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Jiraiya slowly brought his head up to squint at Orochimaru, confused by the repetition of ambiguous non-answers.

The streetlights backlit the figure of his teammate as he stood over him.

Orochimaru twirled the apartment keys around a finger and sneered. “Was that all? Was that all you had in you—really, nothing at all? Fighting or fucking, you’re still a waste of time.”

“Oh no, you did not just say that,” Jiraiya said, completely unsurprised. He shifted against the door, braced his geta, and shoved himself up and into Orochimaru’s face. The railing groaned again as their combined weight crashed into it once more.

“Ha!” Orochimaru caught his breath. “Unless…?”

“Unless I’m gonna prove you wrong? That’s some pretty obvious bait, especially for you.”

“Subtlety doesn’t work on you.”

“So are we going inside to finish this?”

The keys jingled as they were dangled before Jiraiya’s nose tauntingly.

“After you.” Orochimaru said, then smirked. “…again.”

[Naruto] First Impression - Deidara-centric humor

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 03:49:10 GMT

Title: First Impression
Pairing: Implied Orochimaru -> Deidara
Words: ~170
Genre: humor, crackfic
Rating: G
Spoilers: Eh. None.
Other Notes: While I tend to think that Deidara joined Akatsuki after Orochimaru left, trying to write fic for bakkhos made me wonder what they'd be like if they interacted more. Hence, this.

“Creepy bastard...” Deidara muttered. “...un.”

His fingers tightened around the clay, tucking under to form the fold of wings; each feather was delicately tongued into shape.

Orochimaru smiled and tipped his wide-brimmed straw hat toward the younger nin, the bells chiming softly.

“So you’re the newest,” he said. “The...artist. What a pleasure.”

There was a feral hunger in his eyes that made Deidara’s skin crawl.

Clay soaked up chakra like water, altering its plasticity; chakra tempered clay like kiln-fire.

Give you something to stare at...

Deidara grinned and stepped closer, his long pennant of blond hair bouncing jauntily. “That’s right,” he said. “The artist, un. You like art?”

Orochimaru arched a brow, looking interested. “I appreciate beauty.”

“Great! Check this out!”

The resultant explosion took out most of the mountainside.

Sasori relayed this incident to the rest of Akatsuki at their next meeting.

Orochimaru sulked.

Itachi just nodded.

Hidan clapped the new kid on the back.

Kisame laughed so hard he choked and cried.

Pein decided that the latest addition didn’t need to be hazed.

Deidara smirked.

My art wins.

[Naruto] Poison from Standing Water -- Orochimaru-centric pastfic

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:51:20 GMT

Title: Poison from Standing Water
Pairing: Vaguely Orochimaru/Jiraiya
Words: ~300
Genre: pastfic, introspection
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Up to and including chapter 372.
Other Notes: I wanted to do something Sannin-centric that included "the kids", so here we go.
Crossposted.

Orochimaru didn’t like those kids.

It wasn’t totally personal; Orochimaru hated almost all kids. Whiny, puling, disobedient little beasts, difficult test subjects (selfish, no pain tolerance, flighty and insubordinate) but certainly the best he had access to, at least for now.

(He’d never been that weak and pathetic when he was younger— never.)

The skin around the girl’s fever-bright eyes was bruise-dark from exhaustion and low-grade hypothermia.

Orochimaru watched the rain pour down into the valleys of the stiff waxed paper petals of her origami rose and idly thought how much more beautiful it would be painted blood-red.

Orochimaru didn’t like the way that Jiraiya looked at them, either.

It wasn’t personal, he told himself, watching the way his teammate’s gaze softened when he looked at the kids; he hated seeing any shinobi— even one as useless as Jiraiya— lose their edge and go soft and maudlin over something as common and worthless as a pack of half-starved brats.

(Still, he thought, crossing his arms over his chest, he shouldn’t have expected any less foolishness from the so-called ‘Insanity of Konoha’.)

The bold one stared fearlessly at the older trio of nin; he would fight for his life— and the lives of his companions— if he had to.

The other boy stood silent and slightly apart from the others; rain slithered through his dark mop of hair and ran like tears down his half-hidden face.

“Where are your parents?”

They were killed in the war.”

It wasn’t personal. Without homes, without families, and their land torn apart by strife and political instability… It would be a mercy to kill them.

Jiraiya slowed his pace and half-turned, waiting a moment longer for the dark-haired boy to catch up with them.

Orochimaru seethed.

Impatience, that was all. There was no reason to feed them, wait for them, care for them.

It wasn’t personal.

Stop! Meme time!

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:13:48 GMT

What do you think are the quote-unquote "trademarks" of the fiction and essays that I write? What type of themes or characterization notes or quirks keep on manifesting in my writing? Essentially, what do you think is a stereotypically "my" way of writing?

[Naruto] Chiaroscuro -- Deidara/Itachi

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 23:10:49 GMT

Title: Chiaroscuro
Pairing: Deidara -> Itachi, and a faint touch of Deidara -> Sasori
Words: ~700
Genre: Character introspection, smut
Rating: R
Spoilers: Through chapter 359.
Dedication: For bakkhos! YAY!
Other Notes: Hahaha, fuck you, writer's block. I WIN! I WIN! MY ART WINS! AHAHAHAH!
(Ah...also: Check this out. And this one, too.
Crossposted.

Sasori-danna didn’t understand and never would.

If he had, then that day…
…that first day…

But no.

His dead eyes were incapable of seeing— seeing and appreciating— true art.

He’d turned away from heat and life; he’d drained fierce, hot crimson blood away down drains (sheer waste!) and brooded in the darkness of death: dried flesh and dead wood, poison and preservatives.

Deidara dreamt of fire, purifying fire; he woke with his heart racing, images of the Scorpion’s puppets screaming silently as they blackened and crumbled to ash, their mouths agape and eyes rolled heavenward as though they prayed even as hell devoured them.

Sasori descended into the bowels of the earth, to places that stank of discarded organs rotting and barrels of rank herbs pickling whole suits of human skin, and-

-and Deidara ascended, mounting the sky on predator’s wings. He lifted his face to the cool wind and stared into the fiery ring of the setting sun.

Burn it down.

The sun’s burning red eye was indifferent to his challenge, regarding him callously from its heavenly throne; it saw through him, too, unimpressed with his ninjustu, his art, his existence…

The clay gyrfalcon dipped, its stiff feathers caught the rising thermal from the explosions below, and Deidara spread his own arms out as he glided in unending circles above the smoking ruin he’d created.

But in the end…

…in the end, Deidara came back to earth, breathless and trembling (and let anyone looking think it from the wildness of his flight, from the excitement of de-creation) and slunk to his Master’s workshop down darkened hallways still dusty with particles of dried snakeskin.

Resentment flashed through his belly, bitter and toxic as wormwood: there was still more of him here, lingering, than there was yet of his young and flighty replacement; there was more of him— the one whom had wanted to claim more than he deserved... He, too, had not understood art when it stood living and breathing before him, beautiful and lethal.

Deidara wanted too much as well; he burned with desire (take me, consume me, look at me and see me, see the way I look at you, oh gods, you, you, you… you perfect thing, how like a god you are, seething with power, and I’ll destroy you; we’ll fall from the heavens together, lose our wings as we hurtle down in fire…) and he raged against someone he’d never even met simply for being able to be acknowledged by Itachi (even as a failure).

Unnoticed underground, ruddy twilight slithered down into night as Deidara sat restlessly at his partner’s side, watching, watching, watching the spectacle of death through mismatched eyes until at last Sasori grew impatient with his fidgeting and drove him out again with ill-tempered lashes of Hiruko’s tail

“Danna…”

The mouths in his palms muttered in voiceless complaint, tongues dragging lasciviously across bloodless lips, and Deidara shivered with unfulfillable hunger.

Just a taste.

He moaned into one of his own hands, tongues jammed together to muffle the neediness of the sound, and arched back against the stone wall to jerk his hips into the slick strokes of the other, the wet slaps and lewd sucking sounds echoing through the corridors.

Art…

Images beat wildly with his skittering pulse against the backs of his eyelids: whirling rings of scarlet and ebony, shadow and flame, inside and out and in again in a dizzy dervish’s dance…

(Yeah, mmm, yeah…in and out like that, like that, fuck yeah, mmmm...)

His pace was just short of frantic, irregular and feral.

Art is…

(Fold me up in your darkness and I’ll hold the sun for you; yeah, together we’ll burn it all, just show me…
…show me…)

He wanted to fold back the heavy Akatsuki cloak and rake his hands up under entangling fishnet and lick every inch of that flawless skin (every… single… inch), lick and bite until those beautiful eyes closed…

(Show me… yeah, show me whatcha got, show me how you want it, show me how to make you…)

…and they shared the same vision, running like a current between their bodies.

Art is a bang!

Deidara bit down on his ragged scream.

I would just like to point out...

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 01:09:03 GMT

...that comedian Ron White looks pretty much EXACTLY like I think Jiraiya would were he real*.

I mean, seriously: Y/Y?

*Uh, minus the red streaks and massive quantity of hair.

[Naruto] Consumption-- Kabuto/Orochimaru

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 22:30:31 GMT

Title: Consumption
Pairing: Kabuto/Orochimaru, minor Orochimaru/Sasuke
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Moderate gore, subtle spoilers for recent manga chapters.
Word count: 687
A/N: Pre-timeskip—post-Tsunade recovery arc.
This is my springkink fic, being posted early because this was my last day off before its due and I'm paranoid about my computer dying and eating it. The prompt was Flaying – ‘testing the limits of loyalty, if not love’

There was little talk of what had passed before.

They rarely spoke of Konoha or Akatsuki, choosing only to refer to moments crumbling apart like ancient snapshots in the most oblique words, sliding past one another snide side references obscure enough to mean everything or nothing.

The past was personal, and that which was personal cut too deep.

There was no reason to undermine the potential they had now.

They didn’t discuss the scorned Scorpion they’d both spurned and only in passing mentioned the elder Uchiha—like flame and shadow, so desirable and so untouchable, so utterly powerful and destructive.

There were precious few words spoken about the future.

Orochimaru counted down the days—the hours, the seconds— to his next rebirth.

There were no clocks in Sound.

Time was measured out in heartbeats and breaths, in the graceful tempo of life itself, and in wicked desire for more and more and more of it, as though life was a commodity to be hoarded.

Sasuke-kun will be here soon.

Kabuto felt his stomach roll over sickening at the strange, whining note dragging its underbelly through Orochimaru’s voice.

His master wanted and wanted and wanted and feeding the monster was a full-time chore which had become nigh-on impossible since the failed coup in Konoha.

There was blood spattered down the corridor from the slick-tiled shower to the bedroom and Kabuto was too empty— gutted of self and selfishness—for his hands to shake when he carefully rewrapped the dark rotted flesh of Orochimaru’s arms in soft, clean linen bandages.

Take me, he said.

Weeks previous, Kabuto had scraped the gangrenous meat jelly from Orochimaru’s arms and then flayed the healthy flesh from his own in a wretched and ultimately unsuccessful attempt at a transplant to buy more time.

Orochimaru had screamed until his throat was raw, long hair plastered in dark ribbons to sweat-drenched, fever-pale skin, and that noise was Kabuto’s entire world for an eternity; his fingers slipped in cold blood and shredded dead skin and he had to nudge his glasses higher with his shoulder to see more clearly where the tip of his scalpel disappeared into flesh.

He’d pulled the living skin and muscle from his own forearms then—left first, a break to heal, and then the right, a break to heal, and he’d thought he’d break from the agony so breath-stealingly intense that even his own schizophrenically disassociated mind couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t swallow it whole or rationalize it, but there were jeweled serpentine eyes watching him and without this pain, without this presence, he was nothing, nothing at all, and self-inflicted torture was infinitely more preferable to nonexistence.

He’d kept cutting through tendon and sinew, right down to the bone, and then bonded their flesh together, interweaving cells and chakra in a complicated pattern until he was beyond exhausted, and when he fainted his head was cradled in Orochimaru’s lap.

But Orochimaru’s affliction wasn’t a physical infection, but a spiritual curse, and nothing Kabuto could do changed the final outcome of Sarutobi’s sacrifice for more than an hour.

Take me, he said again, canting his head to look up at his master, the shimmer of candlelight skittering over the lenses of his glasses.

The yearning desire that uncurled in his lower belly and stretched its long claws into heart and soul was a starved beast; Kabuto understood his master’s monstrous hunger intimately, the emptiness within that sucked everything into itself and still was not satisfied.

Orochimaru caught his breath sharp between predator’s teeth, but his attention was turned inward, silent and seething, waiting, waiting, waiting…

Sasuke-kun will be here soon. Everything hinges on that boy!

They never talked about what the future would bring after Orochimaru ran Uchiha Sasuke’s beautiful, bloodline-limited body into the ground; they never talked about it, but there would be another...

There would have to be another after that.
And then another.
And another.
And another.

Kabuto rose gracefully to his feet, counting down the pause before he responded with his own heartbeat.

Rebirth was as eventual as death itself.

Yes, sir. I will make the necessary preparations.

[Naruto] Kundalini-- Anko-smut

Thu, 17 May 2007 03:19:17 GMT

Title: Kundalini
Pairing: Um, Anko/Snakes? Solo Anko? Referencing pre-series dubious consent lolicon OroAnko?
Words: ~400
Other: This is pretty weak, and I know it. :) No, I haven't forgotten about the requests I haven't gotten to, either.

Snakeskin was soft, so very soft, silken to the touch, silken when wrapped around strong thighs, a satin band that slid higher and higher…

The serpent nuzzled against Anko’s hip and flexed the heavy muscle of its body along her leg in a rhythmic motion that made her gasp. Its tongue flickered out to taste her scent even as it stared up at her, meeting her gaze until she shut her eyes against its dead-blank incuriosity.

Anko shifted slightly, flexing her knees, and she wet her own lips; a moment later the second snake's blunt muzzle rasped against her mouth in a parody of a kiss, its midsection tightening coils around her ribs, lifting and squeezing her breasts with slow, painful pressure.

Her own hand wasn't the same-- her fingers were slimmer and more tapered, more feminine-- and her own touches weren't right either, too rough and too eager, but she still had to bite her own lip against the name that wanted to form on her lips.

He'd never hurt her, never pushed too hard or fast; he hadn't had to.

He'd known exactly how to make her his without any force at all.

Anko shuddered and arched against the wall, her legs starting to tremble unsteadily from the pleasure and strain of her awkward position; it wasn't comfortable anymore, but it was alright that way-- it was alright with her wrist aching and her cunt aching from too much friction, from fingernails and coarse calluses, with her nipples throbbing under the snake's strangling clutch.

"O--!"

She choked on her own voice, bit her lip again and slammed her head back against the wall.

It was alright this way, because this way she didn't remember the way her sensei had smiled at her in the dark when they were alone.

If she rubbed hard enough, maybe the stains he'd left behind would finally come out.

Maybe someday she'd be able to come without snakeoil dripping down her shining, slick body, without venom singing sweet in her veins.

The snakes twined around each other, around her, and kissed her again and again with lipless mouths full of poison. They spoke in sibilant whispers of love and lust; they breathed their own lies into her just had he had before; they cried out in low husky rasps ceaseslessly, moaning her name, her name, her name, his name...

Her hips bucked up instinctively against the thick belly of the serpent wending its way up between her thighs, and everything else-- all thought and reason-- was washed away in white, wet heat.

[Naruto] Ten Steps In and Back -- Sannin team-centric

Sun, 06 May 2007 21:06:50 GMT

Title: Ten Steps In and Back
Pairing: Jiraiya/Tsunade, Orochimaru/Tsunade, and subtle implied Jiraiya/Orochimaru
Words: ~300
Written for gigabomb

First things first—

Much to her teammate’s surprise and her own chagrin, Tsunade quickly realized that she had no ear for music and a terrible sense of timing.

Jiraiya struggled to stifle his snort of laughter unsuccessfully, and when she whirled on him, eyes narrowed threateningly, he took a step back and offered to try to help her.

Tsunade hesitated, then backed down and smirked, accepting.

First things first—

Jiraiya surprised them all.

Sarutobi-sensei had expected his loudest, most impatient student to fumble clumsily, miss the beat, and forget the steps.

Tsunade expected him to be worse than her.

Instead, Jiraiya grasped the rhythm of the dance in mere moments, and was quickly able to add in his own improvisions, whirling Tsunade around with a wide, wild grin.

A faint blush flared pink across her cheeks as she stared up at him; she felt warm and dizzy and maybe…maybe that was because…

The concept of dancing wasn’t the only thing Jiraiya grasped.

“Pervert,” Tsunade said, cracking her knuckles for another blow.

Sarutobi intervened quickly.

Last things first—

Orochimaru’s aptitude in this subject— like all others— surprised absolutely no one.

Jiraiya couldn’t stand to watch and neither could he manage to tear his eyes away, troubled and mesmerized both by the complementary sensuality and innocence of his teammates pressed so close together.

Orochimaru’s hand rested in the valley of Tsunade’s lower back- so very, very pale against the lush tan of her flesh under fishnet, so pale and so indifferent-seeming, as if the play of taut muscles tensing under his fingers was of no interest to him.

They rolled down, down, down, perfectly controlled, into a slow, leisurely dip, and ribbons of dark hair slipped free, dripped down, and blocked from jealous view the moment their eyes met.

Naruto Drabbles (part one)-- Jiraiya/Orochimaru, Hebi Team

Tue, 01 May 2007 20:14:28 GMT

Spoilers up to chapter 352 are a given.
Crossposted.

Title: Turn the Mirrors to Face the Walls
Pairing: Jiraiya/Orochimaru
Words: ~500
Written for am3thyst

Orochimaru looked at him with the same patient, disaffected expression he’d worn when he’d watched men— victims of war-games and politics and all-around damned bad luck— breath their last at his feet.

Jiraiya’d hated and envied that inhuman calm— zen calm, psychotic calm— and blank stare his entire life, from the first moment he’d confronted it; he’d turned, reeling, from the battlefield to find some sense and reason in his still-living team and found less warmth than he’d hoped.

Orochimaru was cold, cold comfort.

The gross, gruesome spectacle of death, the blood and desperation, was reflected in eyes as empty of any human emotion as a corpse’s.

There is nothing new here to be seen, that gaze said. Nothing to be learned. Nothing to be gained. This is useless to me, and I have no time for useless things.

Tsunade had spoken just once, almost off-handedly, of emotional shields. Of vulnerability and defense. Of disassociation and disattachment.

Then she’d laughed strangely, not quite bitterly, and nearly fallen off her barstool, too drunk to keep herself upright any longer.

Jiraiya’d wanted to believe that she was right. He wanted to trust Tsunade understood Orochimaru even when he was like that, even when he went to that distant place within himself where no one else could follow. Women knew things, sometimes— female intuition and all that…so maybe she could see in a little through the peephole, even if Orochimaru locked her out, too.

He'd wanted to believe that the dark places weren't so dark that everyone who tried to look was rendered blind. There was still some light there, dim and flickering though it might be.

But light was blinding, too.

He’s going to kill me, Jiraiya thought, the idea too new, too raw, to actually mean anything, especially when…

He dodged the striking fangs of a pair of serpents, then brought his kunai up in a quick slash that gutted one and left him wide open to the other.

Or would have, if he’d still been there to be attacked.

The snake spat out the wooden replacement and honed in on Jiraiya’s hiding spot just in time to catch the brunt of his fire jutsu with its face.

The heat of the explosion blew Orochimaru’s long hair back from his face, and he grinned easily, the way he always had when he was enjoying himself more than he should be.

The way he always had when he wasn't taking something dangerous seriously.

The flat polished amber of his eyes caught the firelight and gleamed.

For a moment, he looked insanely alive.

For a moment… just a moment… Jiraiya felt a sickening swell of jealousy.

Then Orochimaru raised his hands.

Hold them out to me and I…

Irrational hope flared bright and hot in Jiraiya’s chest.

Orochimaru flicked his fingers through a series of seals, and drew scene to a cold, dark close.

Title: The Line Forms Here
Pairing: Karin/Suigetsu-ish, vaguely Kisame/Karin
Words: ~140
Written for maxxim_huzzah

Kisame looked annoyed for the briefest of moments…and then grinned easily and swung Samehada down from his shoulder to point it at the foul-mouthed girl who’d intervened— barely in time—to save the worthless Zabuza-wannabe from becoming chum.

Instead of saving her teammate, though, she seemed to take it upon herself to finish him off.

“Ahh-hah-hah,” Kisame interrupted her tirade and beat-down, half-chastising, half-laughing. “This was our fight. Didn’t anyone teach you better manners?”

Karin turned from Suigetsu to stare hostilely at the other Mist nin, and jabbed her glasses back up into place with her middle finger.

“Shut up,” she said briefly. “He’s had this coming for days. I’m not going to let you have all the pleasure.”

Kisame supposed that really, he should probably let the lady have her turn.

It was only polite.

Title: Taste of Blood
Pairing: Suigetsu/Sasuke
Words: ~360
Written for hiza_chan

Sasuke trusted Suigetsu least of his newly formed team.

Suigetsu was a predator, and predators had little sense of loyalty.

When he chose to, Suigetsu moved with a piranha’s striking speed.

He’d pressed against up against Sasuke in a motion that’d been a blurred flicker of glistening light to his unSharingan-activated eyes.

Sasuke’d wondered when they’d last bothered to feed him.

He knew he couldn’t keep Suigetsu from killing the throwaway nin that they encountered— sooner or later, he’d be true to his own nature.

“You’re such a Leaf, man,” Suigetsu had laughed, at ease with Sasuke’s orders even if he didn’t like them.

And you’re a predator.

When he lagged behind the group, half-forgotten by Karin and Juugo when he was silent and ignored when he was not, Sasuke felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle in instinctual awareness.

He glanced over his shoulder once, silent and coldly annoyed, and Suigestu dragged his gaze up his body with deliberate slowness and smirked, then shrugged and increased his pace.

Suigetsu followed because he knew that there’d be blood in the water sooner or later.

Sasuke knew it wouldn’t matter to him whose blood it was.

For my part, I’m going to stick close to Sasuke.

Mist’s bloody “education” had served as a primitive form of eugenics, weeding out those too innocent, too compassionate, too empathetic…too human.

Sharks tore the weak to pieces, turning even on their own.

Suigetsu grinned casually at Sasuke over the evening’s fire and he took the first watch without much of a fight.

Fearless leader…

Sasuke didn’t sleep.

He lay on his back, stared at the stars, listened to the wind in the trees, and waited.

He caught Suigetsu’s wrist with crushing force when he reached for him.

“Just a taste,” he murmured, his usually abrasive voice hushed and his eyes wide and bright in the mellow light of the full moon. “Just a little taste, Sasuke; you know what I want. Just a little, ne? I’m so thirsty…”

Suigetsu met Sasuke’s stare steadily.

Another unhurried heartbeat.

The pause was all the permission needed.

Suigetsu groaned with pleasure as he drank.

Predators were always blood-thirsty.

Title: The Precipice of Heav'n Receiv'd us Falling
Pairing: Juugo/Kimimaro, Kabuto/Suigetsu, Orochimaru/Karin, Uchihacest.
Words: ~550
Written for erisabesu.

Kimimaro had been so achingly beautiful, it had taken Juugo’s breath away.

He seemed so fragile, a figurine carved in pale mother-of-pearl.

So easy to break…

The back of Juugo’s throat tasted coppery, like hot blood, and the excitement that jagged through his body and stained his skin was the rapturous joy of the monster he couldn’t control.

When he came back to his senses, ten minutes later, flat on his back with the other boy’s sharpened ulna pressing into his throat, he’d cried in mingled horror and gratitude.

The other prisoners didn’t dare laugh at the spectacle the two of them must have been— the hulking beast tamed only at the hand of the tiny, delicate beauty.

Juugo never dared to touch Kimimaro when he was in his right mind. It didn’t seem right.

It would be blasphemy.

Kimimaro had been the only one to actually thank him for his blood, as though the seal were a blessing rather than a curse.

“You have made it possible for me to better serve Orochimaru-sama,” he’d said, and Juugo’s stomach twisted at the intensity of his tone.

There was a fine, fine line between Heaven and Hell.

All of them were so far fallen from grace.

Juugo listened to Sasuke’s steady breathing as he slept, and watched shooting stars scratch fire down the speckled dome of the sky.

Kabuto hadn’t seemed threatening to Suigetsu.

He looked like a push-over, too young and too weak to be taken seriously.

Too damn pretty to be a real shinobi.

It had to be a joke, Suigestu’d first thought, rolling his eyes. Escape from this place is going to be a fucking cake-walk.

He smiled sweetly back when the young Mist nin bared his teeth at him.

Suigetsu never stood a chance.

Months later, he knew he was one of the lucky ones.

He’d lived.

“Go on,” Orochimaru’d said, watching her with amusement. “Eat it.”

Karin hadn’t even looked at the piece of fruit he offered. The contrast of its brilliant red skin and his pale hand had been both temptation and distraction.

She’d kept her head lifted proudly. She wasn’t going to beg, or grovel. She wasn’t going to show the same pathetic desperation as the other prisoners groaning in the shadows of the dungeons, not to this man.

Not to the lord of the deep dark.

“You don’t deserve to be down here, do you?” he’d said, the words dragging in a sensual purr from his lips. “You are talented. I could raise you up above all this filth.”

“Wha…” Karin had cleared her throat. She hadn’t spoken to anyone in days. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing at all,” he’d murmured, and his eyes slitted with pleasure as he gazed down at her. “You. I just want you.”

That first bite of apple, rich and juicy, had been so very, very sweet.

Sasuke thought about his brother.

“I will always be with you, as the wall you have to overcome.”

Itachi’d smiled at his little brother that afternoon.

“Bonds!? Bonds!? What use have I for worthless bonds!?

No matter how many times Sasuke screamed for Itachi to stop, stop, STOP, BROTHER STOP!...

…when he woke up his family was still dead and their blood was still on Itachi’s hands.

[Naruto] Looking Toward the Ocean-- Suigetsu/Sasuke-ish

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 21:56:08 GMT

Title: Looking Toward the Ocean
Pairing: Suigetsu -> Sasuke-ish.
Words: ~460
Genre: Character introspection
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Up to and including chapter 352
Other Notes: I love Team Hebi. Love. I just don't know if I can write them the way they deserve.
If you want something random yet interesting, try some Rumi poetry, especially the second one with it's moon-water-yearning imagery.
Crossposted.

Sasuke didn’t understand.

Not really, and he never would, not completely.

His eyes saw many things, but in mind and heart and soul he was blinded.

Sasuke possessed one of the world’s worst cases of tunnel-vision; that’s all there was to it.

Suigetsu dragged his heels a little more, tagging along behind the others as he slurped the last droplets from his bottle.

Karin twitched at the gasping burble of air and water rattling in the straw, and his small smirk broadened into a veritable shark’s grin, toothy and smarmy.

Karin was as shallow and transparent as a small still pond at dusk, her motives so obvious it was almost painful. She could lie— she would continue to lie— over and over and over again, fooling no one, and she would continue follow at Sasuke’s heels like the half-tamed bitch-puppy she was.

After Sound…

No, there was no “after Sound”, not yet. Not this soon. Maybe not ever.

After Orochimaru, she couldn’t help but to be loyal to someone who commanded that much power, that much self-assurance.

She’d bite anyone who was not her master.

Suigetsu supposed that was, ironically, her idea of service.

Juugo’d only learned what freedom was when he was locked in a cell, unable to move more than ten feet in any direction.

He hated the openness of the wide, wide world. The horizon stretched out forever under the bottomless dome of the deep sky.

Muscles twitched under sweaty skin in shuddering little spasms, and he stepped closer to Sasuke…

Closer, Suigetsu noticed, but there were still a cool couple of inches of space deliberately, respectfully left there.

…and he glanced at the Uchiha with gleaming, overbright eyes, a dumbly vulnerable expression on his face.

Love? Fanaticism? Or just simple-minded animal trust?

Well, that was easy enough to excuse.

And Juugo’s unconcealed need— and gratitude— was…

Was what?

Easier to deal with?

Suigetsu snorted silent laughter at himself under his breath.

Honest.

That was more like it.

Sasuke had set them all free— however they defined it— and of their own will, they chose him. They needed him. There was no sense in denying that.

Suigetsu remembered pressing up against Sasuke’s body, the pressure and friction a welcome change after months of liquidification, delicious and dizzying to senses long deprived of stimulation.

Water, water, everywhere…

The human body was around seventy percent H₂O and thirty percent other stuff, and Suigetsu wondered what the impossible would be like, what it would be like to let the natural attraction of water for other water take over.

What it would feel like to melt into someone else.

Sasuke’s heart might not have skipped a beat in that moment, but Suigetsu’s had.

Freedom wasn’t as nearly as interesting, as intoxicating, as Uchiha Sasuke.

[Bleach] Five Seconds to Full Eclipse -- GinAizen

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:54:05 GMT

Title: Five Seconds to Full Eclipse
Pairing: GinAizen
Words: ~350
Genre: Character introspection, drama, smut
Rating: R-ish
Spoilers: For pretty much the entire Soul Society Arc.
Other Notes: Written for springkink. My prompt was Alpha males - "Let's blow this town", and I went a bit heavier on the former than the latter.
Crossposted.

Aizen was utterly without fear.

That was why Gin believed his captain when he spoke of the new, unexpected future he envisioned and which would soon be revealed to all the worlds by his own unerring hand.

He’d nodded agreeably and smiled; his complacent outward actions were no different in form than if he’d thought the elder shinigami spouting off sheer nonsense.

There was no stain of distrust in Aizen’s mind regarding his lieutenant’s willingness to follow him obediently to hell and back if it lay between him and his destination.

If there had been…

If there had been even a heartbeat’s hesitation, a moment’s misgivings…

Gin pressed his smirking lips and the hard edge of his teeth against the warm throb of the pulse-point in Sousuke’s throat in dry, playful kisses.

Aizen’s eyes were as clear as a faultless summer morning’s sky, unclouded by any trace of doubt.

Ichimaru watched him discreetly from under the heavy fringe of thick silver lashes every available moment, his unrepentant opaque smile masking his lingering interest and intent.

He usually permitted Gin to remove his glasses when they were alone.

Aizen needed no sign of devotion other than unflagging, unfailing obedience, but he did not stop Gin from going above and beyond the call of duty.

He let Ichimaru kneel between his long thighs with no more comment than a soft laugh as sweet and indulgent as dark honey; he combed his fingers through his fine hair and arched his hips up obligingly, matching Gin’s too-sharp, too-hungry smile with one of his own, his gentler and more generous.

Gin learned quickly to tell when his captain’s mood was such that he could take advantage of it.

He almost always nudged just a little bit even when he knew that he wouldn’t get his way.

Aizen’s breathing stuttered only at the moment of climax.

Gin thought that hushed gasp— the breathy, half-swallowed moan of a future deity— was one of the sweetest sounds he’d ever heard.

Even a man powerful enough to ascend into heaven and take the throne of god was not without fault.

[Naruto] Eden -- Subtle KabuSasu-ish

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 18:14:24 GMT

Title: Eden
Pairing: Very subtle KabuSasu
Words: ~230
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Past VotE, if that even needs a warning anymore.
Other Notes: des_butterfly prompted me this pairing and "an apple a day" a while back, and for some reason my mind completely skipped the rather blatant "apple = forbidden fruit/serpent/fall from grace" until JUST NOW, so I might have to write something one this prompt again.

Kabuto smiled when Sasuke stumbled into Sound, his dark eyes narrowing in the brief moment before he adjusted his glasses and the motion of his hand across his face bought him time to wipe the malicious humor— and interest— from his expression.

Sasuke stared at him in mute disdain and distrust even as the room spun sideways and darkness crept over everything.

He came to slowly, eyes closed and still half-dreaming, to the feel of cool fingertips tracing the lines of his chest up to his shoulders and then patiently molding chakra into the throbbing ache of ripped muscles to drive the pain away.

“…the second level for so long so soon after developing it…” the medic muttered, and though Sasuke had been exhausted, barely even conscious, he’d hated the tone of voice with which Kabuto spoke then, when he’d thought Sasuke too far out of it to hear him.

He woke up alone, and the sterile white sheet slid from his bare hips as he sat up and swung his legs off the bed.

There was a single, vibrantly red apple on the bedside table.

He didn’t touch it.

The next morning there was another, different but just as ripe.

Sasuke went weeks without seeing Kabuto without Orochimaru present as well, and often went days without seeing him at all.

There were always fresh apples at his bedside, every morning.

Sasuke took to using them for sword practice, tossing them in the air to be sliced to bits before they hit the ground.

The destruction of one did not stop another from appearing the next day.

[Naruto] Aion -- Sasuke-centric-ish

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 04:31:10 GMT

Title: Aion
Pairing: Implied NaruSasu and implied JiraiOro
Words: ~400
Genre: Drama, speculation, mindfuck
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For recent manga chapters- re: 344 and 345.
Other Notes: I don't know if anyone besides me can even follow this. ^__^;;; Formatting this is...impossible.
Conversations between possessed!Sasuke and everyone's favorite non-imaginary playmate, disembodied basketcase!Orochimaru, have got to be psychotic, that's all I'm saying.
Crossposted.

The word, the description of the situation, the singular encapsulation of

( ages past… of time out of mind )

the last three years which rises up into Sasuke’s mind isn’t his own.

His own tongue trips somewhere between the syllables of parasitism and symbiosis.

( -you/we/i-
-you/us/me- )

The individual pronouns overlap and run together; they bleed through his subconscious mind like so much wet paint, their colors indistinguishable by the time they soak through to the canvas of waking thought.

( mutualism )

He catches himself saying the wrong name too late and turns away to avoid meeting Sakura’s startled gaze.

What if she saw

( everything… everything we gained… everything we are )

something

( something? hah! )

Something… What if she saw something…

( like itachi saw? before
-you/we/I-
killed him?)

Saw something…

( me )

Something wr—

( us )

Something wrong!

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

Kakashi watches him discreetly over the slope of his shoulder, and Sasuke feels

( righteous )

insulted

( really now? )

…almost.

( he’s nothing compared to
-you/us/me-… )

I know.

( mmm-hmmm… )

…feels his tongue slip out to smooth the scathing little smirk across his lips in a slow, slick drag.

Stop. Stop. Just goddamn stop it!

Sasuke’s far too aware of the heavy weight of solemn stone gaze of the Sandaime Hokage.

( this place… )

Naruto’s hair shines silver in the moonlight.

( on a whim )

His laugh has a lower, huskier quality to it after too much sake, too much Sasuke…

( just a whim )

… and reverberations of it from years long since past twist bladed déjà vu into the Uchiha’s guts.

( that’s all it ever
-was/is- )

This isn’t yours.

Calloused fingers grip too hard, too eagerly.

( it’s
-yours/ours/mine- )

An unvoiced snarl twists his mouth.

This isn’t YOURS.

Sasuke buries his moan in the crook of Naruto’s neck and swallows sweat and blood.

( always mine )

Sasuke opens his eyes and doesn’t know how he ended up here, kneeling in the soft grass, his head bowed over granite stones carved with unfamiliar names.

There’s wetness and cold; rain whispers to him in a hissing monotone that speaks of loss and forgetfulness.

The canvas soaks through, front and back. The paint washes out, leaving only faint pastel streaks, echoes of echoes dying down into pure white

( silence)