[Naruto] Between Living and Dying is You - Orochimaru/Jiraiya
Title: Between Living and Dying is You
Pairing: Orochimaru/Jiraiya
Words: 750
Genre: Pastfic, introspection, smut.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None.
Other Notes: Contemplating Orochimaru's obsession with death, and all the time he spend killing and handling corpses, made me wonder if he refused to kill Jiraiya when he left Konoha because there was a small part of his subconscious that couldn't handle the idea of someone so alive lying dead and cold like all the bodies he experimented on...which lead, in my mind, to porn. Except I apparently can't write blatant porn, so I wrote vague, barely-hinted-at porn instead.
Far underground the dead lay in dreamless sleep on cold metal tables. Comrades in arms and enemies rested peaceably side by side, their quarrels and differences forgotten now; death was the great equalizer. Some stared blankly into infinity as though unimpressed, while the disembodied eyes of others kept unblinking vigilance from within jars of chemicals lining the walls.
They had only one visitor, and Orochimaru came to not pay his respects with incense and flowers but rather to violate their bodies with scalpels and syringes. No threat of torture could provoke them into spilling the secrets of their jutsu and bloodline limits now, but there was no need for those kinds of methods anymore. The flesh could not hide its secrets from him, not now; neither skin nor silence was any barrier to his driving desire to know, to understand, to learn everything.
Old blood, black as oil, stained the stone floor of his laboratories, and the stench of death hung in the still, cool air regardless of the various preservatives and techniques he employed in an attempt to stave off decay long enough to complete his studies. Stalactites of wax hung off the corners of shelves and work-tables where candles had melted down unnoticed while he worked, as Orochimaru lost himself within his dissections and experiments.
Hours passed but he paid no mind. Time here was not wasted but invested, and Orochimaru learned more through his perverse hobby more than Sarutobi ever taught him; the dead revealed to him things that even the famed Professor did not know and gave him answers to questions his sensei would not dare ask.
Morality was nothing more than an excuse used by cowards to justify their fear and a tool used by the squeamish masses to ease their own discomfort. Orochimaru felt nothing but disdain for the mewling, puking weaklings who did not understand that the one and only thing that mattered was survival- everything else was secondary, meaningless in the face of unconquered death.
Every step brought him closer to winning this fight… Closer to possessing at last eternal life.
Far above ground, the living lay tangled in thin rumpled blankets on a battered futon. Friends and rivals both in equal measure, they reclined languidly in easy silence, limbs intertwined, their quarrels and differences forgotten for the moment; sex was a potent pacifier. The light from the moon and street-lamps filtered in between the slats of the bamboo shade and painted the scene with the sharp contrast of a chiaroscuro woodcut- all shapes composed entirely of pools of darkness and glimmering highlights.
Jiraiya was surprised by these evening visits, but he did not comment further than a single raised brow and a lightly jeered greeting and Orochimaru rarely spoke at all once he passed the threshold; to say anything further of this unsteady truce would draw too much attention to it. The flesh expressed its desires clearly enough in its own language without the need of spoken word, and silence was no hindrance to understanding the aggravating need that moved them to irrational action.
Sweat-soaked sheets spilled off the edge of the mattress into the floor, and the stifling heat of the small room went unnoted, disregarded, as they writhed against one another in an attempt to soothe the itch that burned just under the skin. A grinning mouth and agile tongue traced down Jiraiya’s taut belly to the cradle of his hips, teeth nipping at vulnerable, sensitive flesh; calloused hands raked through jet-black hair and tugged Orochimaru’s head back to lift his flushed face from shadow.
Hours passed, though neither noticed. Time here was endless time, reality strung out and suspended in a delicate thread until at last the moonlight gave way to the pastel brightness of the dawn. Orochimaru slipped back into his clothes and out the door quickly and quietly, without sparing a single backward glance, while Jiraiya listened with his eyes closed, feigning sleep.
Trust was like a strange, shy beast that was best observed not by looking directly at it, but rather, by watching it obliquely from the corners of one’s eyes. Jiraiya spent his childhood determined to catch it out so that he could take a photograph, and now in adulthood resigned himself to the truth that he didn’t need to prove it to believe in it. Orochimaru ignored it completely.
Every day, in different ways, they affirmed both to each other that life was about more than mere survival.
Pairing: Orochimaru/Jiraiya
Words: 750
Genre: Pastfic, introspection, smut.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None.
Other Notes: Contemplating Orochimaru's obsession with death, and all the time he spend killing and handling corpses, made me wonder if he refused to kill Jiraiya when he left Konoha because there was a small part of his subconscious that couldn't handle the idea of someone so alive lying dead and cold like all the bodies he experimented on...which lead, in my mind, to porn. Except I apparently can't write blatant porn, so I wrote vague, barely-hinted-at porn instead.
Far underground the dead lay in dreamless sleep on cold metal tables. Comrades in arms and enemies rested peaceably side by side, their quarrels and differences forgotten now; death was the great equalizer. Some stared blankly into infinity as though unimpressed, while the disembodied eyes of others kept unblinking vigilance from within jars of chemicals lining the walls.
They had only one visitor, and Orochimaru came to not pay his respects with incense and flowers but rather to violate their bodies with scalpels and syringes. No threat of torture could provoke them into spilling the secrets of their jutsu and bloodline limits now, but there was no need for those kinds of methods anymore. The flesh could not hide its secrets from him, not now; neither skin nor silence was any barrier to his driving desire to know, to understand, to learn everything.
Old blood, black as oil, stained the stone floor of his laboratories, and the stench of death hung in the still, cool air regardless of the various preservatives and techniques he employed in an attempt to stave off decay long enough to complete his studies. Stalactites of wax hung off the corners of shelves and work-tables where candles had melted down unnoticed while he worked, as Orochimaru lost himself within his dissections and experiments.
Hours passed but he paid no mind. Time here was not wasted but invested, and Orochimaru learned more through his perverse hobby more than Sarutobi ever taught him; the dead revealed to him things that even the famed Professor did not know and gave him answers to questions his sensei would not dare ask.
Morality was nothing more than an excuse used by cowards to justify their fear and a tool used by the squeamish masses to ease their own discomfort. Orochimaru felt nothing but disdain for the mewling, puking weaklings who did not understand that the one and only thing that mattered was survival- everything else was secondary, meaningless in the face of unconquered death.
Every step brought him closer to winning this fight… Closer to possessing at last eternal life.
Far above ground, the living lay tangled in thin rumpled blankets on a battered futon. Friends and rivals both in equal measure, they reclined languidly in easy silence, limbs intertwined, their quarrels and differences forgotten for the moment; sex was a potent pacifier. The light from the moon and street-lamps filtered in between the slats of the bamboo shade and painted the scene with the sharp contrast of a chiaroscuro woodcut- all shapes composed entirely of pools of darkness and glimmering highlights.
Jiraiya was surprised by these evening visits, but he did not comment further than a single raised brow and a lightly jeered greeting and Orochimaru rarely spoke at all once he passed the threshold; to say anything further of this unsteady truce would draw too much attention to it. The flesh expressed its desires clearly enough in its own language without the need of spoken word, and silence was no hindrance to understanding the aggravating need that moved them to irrational action.
Sweat-soaked sheets spilled off the edge of the mattress into the floor, and the stifling heat of the small room went unnoted, disregarded, as they writhed against one another in an attempt to soothe the itch that burned just under the skin. A grinning mouth and agile tongue traced down Jiraiya’s taut belly to the cradle of his hips, teeth nipping at vulnerable, sensitive flesh; calloused hands raked through jet-black hair and tugged Orochimaru’s head back to lift his flushed face from shadow.
Hours passed, though neither noticed. Time here was endless time, reality strung out and suspended in a delicate thread until at last the moonlight gave way to the pastel brightness of the dawn. Orochimaru slipped back into his clothes and out the door quickly and quietly, without sparing a single backward glance, while Jiraiya listened with his eyes closed, feigning sleep.
Trust was like a strange, shy beast that was best observed not by looking directly at it, but rather, by watching it obliquely from the corners of one’s eyes. Jiraiya spent his childhood determined to catch it out so that he could take a photograph, and now in adulthood resigned himself to the truth that he didn’t need to prove it to believe in it. Orochimaru ignored it completely.
Every day, in different ways, they affirmed both to each other that life was about more than mere survival.