Title: "I Forgot to Remember to Forget"
Author: Ebony Kain
Pairing: Tsunade x Orochimaru; suggestion of Orochimaru x Jiraiya
Disclaimer: All named characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I make no money off this. I just had a tendency to write random stuff on the backs of receipts at work
Warnings: no beta; sex and angst; spoilers from.. what ep 87? 88? something
Summary: Tsunade stream-of-consciousness. A little mention of het sex, musings on possible yaoi, a truckload of angst and possible spoilers.
Originally written September 2006
"Good or bad," they say, "you'll always remember your first time." She wonders if he remembers her first time, because she doesn't delude herself with the idea that it was also his. But she wonders if he remembers it. And if he even knew—or knows—that it was hers. If he cared? Or cares.
And would it make any difference.
No—it doesn't matter because it makes not a whit of difference because he doesn't know or even if he does, he sure as hell doesn't care.
It is not in the nature of serpents to care about the wounds they inflict.
But Tsunade wonders… all the same, she can't help but wonder.
Would it have changed how he asked for her help? Would it have changed her answer? If he remembered it, if he cared, would she have still tried to kill him? Would he have tried to kill her, after?
Would it have been easier, or harder, if he's hurt her when he did it? If their coupling had been violent, instead of so damn gentle? And who would have guessed, then or now, that he was even capable of gentleness?
She hadn't. Nor had she anticipated his warmth. Or that he'd hold her after. Because, seriously, who would ever put "cuddling" and "Orochimaru" in the same sentence? Or foreplay?
Great gods, the foreplay. He'd dragged it out until she could barely remember their names and the sheets beneath her hips were soaked. She hadn't even been able to scold him for his smugness because it was her wetness that made his face glisten from the nose down. So if she could feel smug about holding the genius Orochimaru between her thighs, then he could feel smug about making her moan.
And squeak. But that was only because she was caught off-guard by that tongue of his. And the laughter had been worth it: To see dour Orochimaru laugh—and not unkindly.
Did Jiraiya ever see it? That laughter… because there was something between those two, no matter if they'd never admit to it. The chemistry was too strong, and their pride too great that those damned men could never do a single thing without butting horns like some Nara stags in rut.
Did Jiraiya know? Would Orochimaru have told him, using the event like a kunai to the gut, twisting a little more with each detail? Jiraiya never mentioned it, but neither did Orochimaru, after leaving the following morning. But those two… the verbal barbs they slung at each other had been getting ever more vicious since they met each other, to the day they parted ways. Would she have noticed the change? She hadn't been looking for it.
Tsunade tries to remember, Orochimaru wasn't always how he is now. He was ruthless, and cold… but back then she wouldn't have called him cruel. But when was the change? Where did it happen? When did objectivity become callousness? Where does distant become hate?
He came to her for help. For a short time, he saw hope in her.
But so did Jiraiya, and it was the people of Konoha that saw hope in her—Who looked to her to rebuild what Orochimaru had destroyed. To take the place of the man who taught the three of them to fight, to work as a team.
To take the place of a man who loved his village so much he died for it. The village all three of his students had abandoned. And wasn't that a bitter pill to swallow.
They were known as the three greatest shinobi Konoha ever produced… and they betrayed him. One even killed him.
And it sits like bile in her mouth that she considered helping Orochimaru. Even for a little. Her brother died. So did her lover. And so did her teacher. They all died defending something precious to them. To help that snake, even to bring back two of them, would have made everything they'd ever done, said, and hoped to do meaningless.
She mourned their deaths. All six of them. Because the Orochimaru who laughed because he made her squeak when his tongue pushed deep inside her, and the Jiraiya who thought he could convince a traitor who was once comrade and friend to return, and the Tsunade who had believed in both of them and the power of goodness winning, were all as dead as those with names etched on the cenotaph.
And maybe one day she'll see Jiraiya's name on it. Or her own will be carved there. But Orochimaru's never will. And the Legendary Sannin will never be as three in one, and Tsunade will never know what it might have been like to hold them both to her and never let go.
He came to her for help. Had it not been for that Kabuto of his, she would have at least held him in her arms as he died.
And maybe… if she tries and if Orochimaru never told Jiraiya, maybe she can let go her own pride long enough to hold Jiraiya close, so that it might not feel so desolate when it's time for him to go. And he won't feel so lonely when she follows in the footsteps of those three precious men who showed her what it is to love an entire village.