The problem with Dan was that he made it easy for Jiraiya to hate him adamantly but very difficult for him to be verbal about it.
It would have been simpler, he thought sullenly, for Tsunade to have fallen for someone extremely unlikable. Rude, obnoxious, constantly cancelling plans at the last minute and spending Friday nights kicking injured puppies for fun. Someone like that would have been preferable to the insufferable perfect human that was Dan Katō, who probably had never had an unkind thought in his life and looked like a demigod with hair that practically threw off sparkles wherever he went.
Hell, Orochimaru would have been preferable. Jiraiya's best friend by default may have been a genius with androgynously delicate features but he was also about as well-adjusted as an Inuzuka was subtle.
But she hadn't chosen Orochimaru or some two-bit jerk. She had chosen Dan, and because of the well-deserved admiration circulating around the man, Jiraiya couldn't be obvious about his resentment lest it make him come off as pathetic and jealous. Which he was, but he liked to think he was adept at making his womanizing look like his ideal playboy lifestyle choice as opposed to a coping method. (An enjoyable coping method, but a coping method nonetheless.)
All Jiraiya knew was that there was no seeing the back of him anytime soon. He and Tsunade had bonded over something the moment they'd met that Jiraiya could never hope to replicate, so the Sannin did his best to suck it up and try to be happy for his teammate. His rational mind knew that Dan was good for her, and he didn't wish the man any ill will, though this was less telling of his character and more of the fact that wanting anything less than unwavering happiness for someone as beloved as Dan felt like a sacrilege.
Still, he needed some sort of outlet for his frustration with the whole thing, and that happened to be a begrudging Orochimaru when Jiraiya was looking at the inside of an empty saké bottle.
"Whaddya think she sees in 'im, anyways?"
"Oh for heaven's sake, not this again…"
"'M serious!" Jiraiya protested, the used tokkuri still in hand, reclining opposite Orochimaru on the latter's couch, which his friend had unceremoniously dropped him on when Jiraiya had come staggering up to his front door with muddled recollection of what had brought him there. Currently, Orochimaru was sitting upright, engaged in reading some scroll or another that Jiraiya couldn't bring himself to care about even when sober. "C'mon, I mean… What does he got that I don't?"
Orochimaru didn't even grace this with a response, which Jiraiya found not only irritating but eerie. He'd never liked Orochimaru's house. It was neat and filled to the brim with reading materials but otherwise normal, except for the constant quiet. It was a kind of quiet that felt ominous, like the lull before something burst through the floorboards and ate whomever was unfortunate enough to be on the other side.
"Come on, help a guy out here, 'Rochi!" he slurred, relentless and believing on some level of his consciousness that the prodigy's wisdom extended to dating when he had never so much as looked at a woman the wrong way in his twenty-something years.
The other Sannin's eyes noticeably sharpened. He abhorred the nickname. Setting his scroll down on his knees, he replied coolly, "For one thing, he's out taking her to dinner and you're here drunk off your ass complaining to me about it."
Jiraiya frowned. "S'not what I…"
"Oh, you meant in general?" A dramatic sigh. "Well, that's quite the puzzle, Jiraiya. I don't know if I can provide an adequate answer…" As he went on, his tone remained musing, as if he were thinking aloud. "I suppose I could hazard a guess that what he has that you lack is empathy for our hime's sibling trauma, medical know-how, lofty goals including ascension to Kage…"
"Alright alright, I get it," Jiraiya said with a groan, all the wine he'd consumed starting to turn against him, but Orochimaru showed no remorse, intent on finishing.
"And I'd wager that he's not hurt by good looks, charm, and a reputation not sullied by crude onsen escapades."
Jiraiya glared daggers at his friend with eyes hazy from drink. "You done yet?"
Orochimaru considered. "You're also far too tall and have a wart on your nose that could rival one of your summon's." He ducked his head in a smooth, casual movement as Jiraiya's empty bottle soared past it and shattered into ceramic shards against the wall behind him. "I refuse to clean that up and you're not leaving until it's done."
In response, Jiraiya felt his stomach lurch, leaned over, and vomited on the carpet.
Several hours later, he found himself sprawled out on a bed that was not his own, cracking an eye open and groaning instantly as the blinding sunlight pouring in through the window granted him awareness of the headache pounding in his temples.
It took him a minute or two to wake up enough to register that he was in Orochimaru's bed. Thankfully, he seemed to have slept alone. There was only so much embarrassment he could take, and even his muddled memory of last night was making him want to just go back to sleep for a day or two to forget about it. He could only imagine the details.
Wild mane of white hair in disarray, he padded out to the kitchen, where he found Orochimaru sitting primly at the table, sipping his tea and reading what Jiraiya somehow identified as the scroll from the night before. Hearing the other's footsteps, he glanced up, looking expectant.
Jiraiya scratched at his stomach and offered a sheepish half-smile. "Sorry."
Orochimaru seemed uncertain for a moment about whether or not this was a sufficient apology, but a graceful shrug of his shoulders told Jiraiya that it would do. He turned back to his reading. "Fetch yourself some water for the hangover I'm sure you're nursing, I'll not be your slave after you were ill on my floor last night."
He complied without argument, trudging over to the sink and filling a small cup from the cabinet overhead. Taking a generous gulp first, he said with a sigh, "Guess I kind of made a fool of myself, huh?"
"A fool of yourself, a mess of my den. We're square, I believe."
In spite of himself, Jiraiya grinned crookedly. "Good to know that I'm entitled to doing that whenever you hurl insults at me in the future."
Orochimaru said calmly before taking another sip of his tea, "Do it again and I will personally see to it that you are emasculated in front of your rival for Tsu-hime's affections."
Not doubting it for a second, he dropped the subject. Then he sighed. "Dan's not much of a rival. Or at least I'm not much competition."
"Oh, do shut up."
"You said it yourself!" Jiraiya objected.
"I said what I did because you were being a self-pitying imbecile, and if you start up again then so will I." Orochimaru's tone was sharp and impatient as he finally looked up to meet Jiraiya's gaze. "You have far much more potential as a suitor when you're not constantly wallowing."
There was a pause as the hungover Sannin took this in. "I don't wallow," he said lamely, his headache not improving with this conversation.
"Jiraiya, you are to self-pity what swine is to mud. You wallow."
The thoroughly depressing statement of what Jiraiya knew to be fact made him slump down in the seat across the table, not having the strength to continue leaning against the counter. Bitter, he grumbled, "Some friend you are."
"Thank you" was the non-sarcastic reply. "It's good to be shown some appreciation for taking you in when you were such a wreck, listening to your drunken whining, cleaning up the mess you made in my home, and not only not throwing you out on the pavement but allowing you to sleep in my bed."
Jiraiya was quiet, feeling an uncomfortable twinge of guilt. He knew for a fact that Orochimaru wouldn't tolerate such an imposition from anyone else, but he had from his teammate. The young genius might have had a sharp tongue—literally and figuratively—and wasn't really one for sugar-coating the facts, but he had his ways of showing he cared.
He also seemed to take Jiraiya's silence as a second apology all by itself, because he didn't say another word on the matter as he rose from his seat. "Finish that water and lie down for a little longer, or you won't be in any fit state to train today. You'll be going either way, if only for my amusement if you're not any better."
Heaving another groan, Jiraiya felt his head spin even more at the thought as he replied, "There's no way I'm turning up like this. Tsunade'll kill me."
"Precisely my point."
Jiraiya couldn't help but smile as Orochimaru swept out of the room. His best friend was vain, obsessed with knowledge, cynical, and free of qualms with giving verbal lashings at every opportunity. And Jiraiya didn't know what he would do without him.