Softly Say Goodnight

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AN: Um? No real comments on this chapter, save that I restarted it like, a million times before I got something I was happy with. I still don't like this chapter very much, grr.

To all the people that've reviewed, I'm very honored that you've taken the time to sit around and read this story, and even more flattered that you've reviewed. Makes my day, yes it does. And so many of the people who've read this story are people who's writing I also admire, which just makes me grin like a total idiot, yes. Anyways. Enough with the sappy stuff. On with the fic!

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Orochimaru had graduated the academy at six. He was a Chuunin before the year was out, and a Jounin with a child's jaded eyes at eleven.

These were times of war. Children could not be spared, or else they wouldn't live to be spared. They had to be taught to fight, and to die, and if they couldn't handle it, they were sent out on a mission from which there would be no returning. Never mind that a frantic mother could beat her hands bloody against the door of an uncaring official. Never mind that her husband could take a similar mission with the full knowledge of where it would get him. Never mind that the people who wanted to die as martyrs, for a cause, died as dogs in a ditch instead.

Expendable, they called them. Like they weren't living, breathing people but pieces on a board. Anonymous little white pebbles plucked from a battered container and set in a formation on a go-ban.

White always goes first. (Innocence goes first and it fades to black because the world can't keep the precedence set by perfection.)

And sacrifices are sometimes necessary to keep the dream alive.

The true nature of Tsunade's injuries; how and why she'd received them, leaks out during the debriefing with Sandaime and Jiraiya and the council. How Orochimaru could have protected her and hadn't. Could have prevented her from being injured and didn't. He tells them, and his voice is a veritable well of calm, emotionless and frank, and across the table Sandaime is frowning, and next to him, Jiraiya is trembling with barely suppressed rage. The council members exchange arch, esoteric glances and Orochimaru flicks his tongue at one of them just to watch her squirm.

Shortly after he finishes his little speech, Sandaime nods and scribbles a something, or perhaps several somethings on a sheet of paper and without looking up, he says 'dismissed'. Orochimaru thinks it's because at the moment, Sarutobi-sensei doesn't want to meet his eyes.

He too had been shocked by the man whose face he'd torn off. Sarutobi-sensei, who's been through war and fire, famine and near-death experiences, who's waded up to his armpits through guts and gore, he's the Sandaime Hokage and yet the look on his face when he'd seen what Orochimaru was capable of had said it all. He fears me, Orochimaru notes with clinical amusement. He fears for me.

He chokes back a hysterical sob and stands to leave. Jiraiya is already waiting by the door, impatiently tapping one geta-bound foot against the floor without rhythm or form. Orochimaru studies him and reads him and knows that he's thinking about Tsunade lying cold and pale in a hospital bed somewhere, or maybe in a casket.

Orochimaru knows which he'd prefer, but he doesn't think Jiraiya wants to hear it. Jiraiya doesn't want to hear a lot of what he has to say lately.

Orochimaru follows the white-haired boy out of the room, and before he's taken a full clear step over the threshold of the door, Jiraiya has a fist in his shirt and in his mesh undershirt, and he's jerking him off balance and with cruelty. Orochimaru lets himself be dragged to the nearest wall and slammed against it, because from the look in Jiraiya's eyes, he knows fighting would get him nowhere.

Jiraiya shoves him against the wall once, and then again, as if to make a point. And then he snarls, "You bastard. You stupid, snaky bastard. We swore. We fucking swore we'd protect Tsunade no matter what and you almost let her get killed!"

Delayed reaction, Orochimaru thinks. If Jiraiya had wanted to get angry with him, he could have done it on the battle field, when they were both still suffering from the rigors of the battle and from their injuries. But now both their heads are clear and yet the world around them is still so murky…

So Orochimaru smiles, because Jiraiya doesn't understand. "She's alive, is she not?"

"She's in a fucking coma, Orochimaru! They're pumping her so full of blood so fast that her blood vessels or whatever could fucking rupture and…and…!"

"She's Tsunade," Orochimaru reminds him, and he's annoyed that it's actually necessary to do so. Jiraiya loses control when he's angered, but he rarely gets this riled.

Nearby, someone is molding chakra. Orochimaru doesn't think Jiraiya notices, so he doesn't comment until a masked ANBU member leaps upon the taller boy and wrests him away from Orochimaru. Jiraiya growls and fights, until it actually registers what's been done. And then he lets himself be pinned to the floor as the ANBU presses a kunai to his throat.

"What's going on here?" she asks with authority, and her voice is slightly hollow through her rat-faced mask.

Orochimaru smiles innocently and spreads his hands as if he has no idea. Jiraiya snarls. "Fucking asshole!"

The ANBU twitches her knee a little closer to Jiraiya's groin. "Watch it," she says smoothly. "Explain why you two are getting into a fight right outside Sandaime-sama's council room, before I report the both of you." Collectively, he and Jiraiya outrank her. But then he reminds himself that ANBU are outside rank all together. They eat and breathe and shit at the Hokage's orders and they don't have to listen to anyone else.

"I'm sorry," Orochimaru says as sincerely as he can manage, and he reaches a hand for Jiraiya to take. "It's…just been a long day, that's all. Please let him up. Come, Jiraiya." Slowly, the ANBU disentangles herself from Jiraiya and stands. Her body language has been taken to an art form; she neither reveals nor denies anything. Orochimaru wishes he could see her face. And then he remembers the last time he truly looked at anyone, and his hands itch and he remembers the sensation of blood vessels breaking apart from skin like grass roots from a hunk of earth. The tiny little popping noises, and…

"Come on," he reiterates, taking Jiraiya's hand to haul him to his feet. He bows once to the ANBU, respectful in action if not in actuality, and he drags Jiraiya outside. There are clouds roiling overhead and there's the tang of thunder in the air, crisp and metallic.

They walk for a while in silence, and neither of them really knows where they're going, and maybe neither of them really cares. Jiraiya's got his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders hunched and Orochimaru is looking at the ground. Walk, walk, walk, silence…

And then Jiraiya grabs his arm and jerks him into an alleyway and up a wall, and before Orochimaru knows it, they're on top of a roof. He looks down over the side and sees the streets below, and people creeping about somberly like they expect the world to end at any given time.

"It's…it's…you could at least show some fucking remorse!" Jiraiya says finally, at length. He sounds so desperate, and so very young. It takes a moment for Orochimaru to blink back to reality and recall what he's talking about.

"Why?" Orochimaru asks, not to be sadistic but with a sort of implacable curiosity. "She's alive. She'll recover."

"…I…" Jiraiya turns away abruptly, and he tugs a hand through his messy mop of stark white hair. His shoulder, still tender from being dislocated, he flexes and rotates. "We promised. D'you remember? Christ, we were just kids…seven or so…it was just after we got back from that mission and Tsunade almost…almost died, because she was protecting us. We were fighting that missing nin…remember?"

He does. He also remembers that Tsunade had taken those fatal hits for Jiraiya, as he looked on in blank shock, not so much unwilling to react as simply incapable of itHe'd stared up at her with fright and fear and she'd growled at him that she wasn't saving him; she just wanted to look good in front of Orochimaru. At some point, she'd passed out, and Jiraiya had gone ballistic. Orochimaru had had to tackle him to prevent him from a suicidal charge towards the missing-nin that had cornered them, at least until Sarutobi-sensei arrived.

Afterwards, when Tsunade was recovering, Jiraiya had hovered outside her door like a fretful mother, and when Orochimaru had ventured close enough, he'd grabbed him and whispered, low and furious, "We gotta promise to protect her from now on."

Orochimaru had been young, and he'd had so much hope for his team. He'd lie awake in bed sometimes and think of what would come of them. They'd grow up together, fierce and protective. They'd love each other, soft and tender. They'd fight and maybe die for each other, but it would be a good fight, and a good death, if it was for each other. So at the time, he'd nodded and agreed in his quiet voice, and that had been that.

Orochimaru blinks at Jiraiya and shakes his head. "No. I don't remember."

Jiraiya snaps. It's a strangely visual event. His shoulders tense and his fists clench at his sides and he shifts subconsciously from foot to foot until he's centered his balance. "…Then promise again. Right now." He snatches a kunai from his pouch, too quick to follow, and makes a sharp, vivid slash across one palm. When he finally turns to face Orochimaru, he's holding his bleeding hand out and away from him.

Orochimaru wants to tell him that he dreams of his death. Jiraiya tosses him a kunai. Orochimaru wants to tell him that he dreams of him screaming, but he doesn't. Instead, he catches the weapon.

"It's your turn," Jiraiya says tightly, and there's anger waiting in the wings of his tone.

Orochimaru merely blinks and holds the weapon gingerly by its looped hilt. He doesn't want to think about the blood or what it symbolizes, because if he did that, he'd have to start examining the rest of his life under closer scrutiny. He already knows he wouldn't like what he'd find. "…Jiraiya…"

"Do it." The taller boy pauses and he breathes. "You're gonna bleed and then you're gonna promise me that next time, you'll protect her. Do it." At the end, his words sound kin to a plea. It's there, under the surface. Please, please, please…!

Jiraiya loves his team. They're his family because he has none, they're his confidants and they're his precious people. He protects them, both Orochimaru and Tsunade, with everything he has. Orochimaru knows he'd die for them, at any time. Tsunade would do the same. Orochimaru…he used to think that way. That it would be so valiant of him to die saving one or both of them. He imagines that they'd get up every single day and thank him and he never quite realized he'd never be around to savor their gratitude. And he's had enough people die for him to know that eventually, you forget who you're thanking and why.

Orochimaru looks at the kunai, shakes flecks of Jiraiya's blood from it, and then lets it hover over his left hand, and he presses down. He watches in fascination as it punctures his skin, and as blood wells up and around the little wound. He watches, and he smiles. "Are you happy?" he asks, hating look on Jiraiya's face. He looks…contented. Settled. Peaceful, as if something has been forged between the two of them, deeper than a river and stronger than a bridge, and yet Orochimaru feels nothing but hollow. If he dies to protect Tsunade…if he dies…

Everything I am…will disappear…

Jiraiya moves lightly across the rooftop until they're standing within bare inches of each other. He reaches out and takes Orochimaru's hand, and he mashes their palms together in an effort to let the blood mingle. Orochimaru's eyes widen and he tries to jerk away but Jiraiya is focused and determined and he's Jiraiya, for crying out loud.

"We're…we're brothers now. All right? Forever and ever and fucking ever and you're stuck with me. This means I won't let you die, this means I won't let you go, this means I'm never gonna fucking...ab…abandon you. And neither of us is ever gonna abandon Tsunade. We've gotta…stick together. Right? It's the only way…the only way we'll get out of this war alive." His grip loosens. He steps away. It's almost an ultimatum.

Orochimaru studies his hand, and at the new inky patterns on his palm. "It's raining," he says interestedly at the exact time Jiraiya says, "Got something in my goddamned eye," and they look at each other a moment.

Eventually, Jiraiya starts to laugh.

Aweek later, Tsunade isdischarged from the hospital and permitted to go home. She calls Orochimaru, because Jiraiya doesn't have a phone and invites the two of them over for supper and movies and general hanging-outness. After confirming that she won't be the one to cook the supper, and that they can pick whatever movies they want, Orochimaru agrees for the both of them, and he stops at Jiraiya's out- of-the-way shack and drags him out of bed (why he had to do such a thing at four in the afternoon is a mystery to him) and he carts him off to Tsunade's house with Jiraiya mumbling something about edible undies as he rubs sleep from his eyes.

Tsunade's mother is a formidable figure in her mid-forties. She has long, strictly braided hair with nary a wisp out of place, and if she's ever gone anywhere without an apron, Orochimaru has yet to see it. She eyes the two of them as they show up on her doorstep and stares them down. Jiraiya swallows and bobs his head and mutters a 'ma'am' and Orochimaru merely looks at her.

She's never liked him. The first time they met, Orochimaru was seven. She looked right at him and told him she didn't like him, and she didn't really care what he had to say about that, either. She said that people with eyes like his were worthless and didn't deserve to be shinobi. Of course, she's never held a kunai a day in her life, so Orochimaru thinks she shouldn't have a say in the matter. But at the time, he'd been so eager for anyone's approval that he'd taken her harsh judgment particularly hard. She didn't even know him, yet she would judge him by what she could see? He'd gone home to his mother and asked why people did cruel things, and she'd merely smiled at him in that mysterious way of hers and patted her growing stomach and told him that she'd make his favorite meal that night.

The woman steps back and out of their way with a slight frown. Jiraiya manages not to look at her ample bosom as he kicks his geta off and makes a beeline for Tsunade's bedroom. All is well.

Tsunade's room is fairly large, very severe and subtly -and okay, not so subtly- feminine. The walls are pale cream, the bed has a large red comforter thrown across it, and there's a lacey, heart-shaped pillow propped on the mattress. Across from her bed is her dresser, on which sits a rickety old television so disused that when Orochimaru blows the VCR off tentatively, he gets a nose full of dust and spends the next ten minutes with a chronic sneezing fit. Jiraiya cackles at that and tells him that somewhere, a gaggling group of teenaged girls are discussing him voraciously. Orochimaru suppresses an urge to blush and picks out a movie instead.

None of them really pay attention to it. It's an old classic that they've seen before. And none of them have ever cared for movies, anyways. They're shinobi. They don't have time for relaxation, and when they do, they know it's more important to spend it with each other than lost in a fantasy world.

Two of the three members of their team end up in an undignified heap on the bed. Jiraiya and Tsunade are squabbling over the last chocolate truffle in one of Tsunade's 'get well soon' conglomerations, from hopeful admirers and friends alike, and finally Tsunade gives up and shoves the paper-wrapped chocolate down her shirt and dares Jiraiya to go after it.

Orochimaru murmurs dryly, "Tsunade, that isn't going to deter him at all, you realize?"

Jiraiya glowers at the both of them. "She's got nothin' to grope, chocolate's gonna melt... sorry, nope, just not worth the mental scarring."

Tsunade shrieks and hits him with a pillow and knocks him off the bed, and Orochimaru merely watches the two of them squabble and fight like siblings. "I'd rather have no boobs than no brain!" she retorts acidulously, and she continues her assault of the white-haired boy even once he's on the floor beside her bed, hands raised to ward off her attack. Feathers swirl around them and Orochimaru winces and puts a hand over his nose and mouth so he won't have to suffer another sneezing fit.

Jiraiya escapes, kicks the pillow out of Tsunade's hands and leaps back into a defensive position. He grins at Orochimaru as he does so, and the other boy is quite sure that can't bode well. "Hey, you could always go after it. I've always wondered if you had a thing for boys, Orochimaru…"

This time, Orochimaru joins in. He pounces on Jiraiya and holds him down while Tsunade ambles over to her desk and pulls out a basket of cosmetics. Jiraiya, seeing this, shrieks like a little girl and tries to get away, but he's not really trying, not really, because they're here and they're together and they're pretending that everything's all right, and none of them want this moment to end.

"Naa, Orochimaru? What do you think? Purple eye shadow, or…?"

"Gah! No! You evil hag, if you touch me with that shit I'm gonna hurt you-!"

"Whatever you think, Tsunade."

"Bright red, then," she said decisively. "It'll go nicely with his …stripe…thingies. Jiraiya, what the hell are those, anyways?" She daubs one finger in the little cosmetic container and waggles it menacingly.

Jiraiya struggles just for show, and to make it seem like his masculinity hasn't taken a major dive, and then he folds his arms and frowns up at Orochimaru. "It's a clan thing," he says quietly. "Doesn't matter. Whatever. Can we get back to watching the movie now?"

Tsunade freezes, her fingers coated with red makeup that doesn't, doesn't look like blood. She's looking down at the both of them, at Orochimaru straddling Jiraiya and at Jiraiya trying hard not to let his smile crack completely. And then she starts to cough. Jiraiya immediately dislodges Orochimaru and leaps to his feet and grips her by her shoulders. He doesn't quite give her a shake, but he comes close. "Tsunade!"

"I'm fine!" she shouts at him angrily. "I'm - fucking - fine! Leggo of me, you stupid oaf!" She kicks him and he lets go, more from surprise than from pain and gives her a wounded look.

She drags the back of one hand across her mouth as if in disgust, and then wipes her hand against her red skirt. It hides the fact that she's coughing up blood, but Jiraiya is too busy mustering a grin to notice, and Orochimaru knows better than to point it out to him. Eventually, Jiraiya laughs and rubs at the back of his neck with a hand and his eyes scrunch up with his smile. "Maa, maa! Sorry, Tsunade-hime. It's not like I was trying to grope you or anything." He picks up her discarded pillow and fluffs it a few times before setting it gingerly back on her bed.

She looks at him, and slowly she relaxes her posture, and her fingers uncurl from their fisted position, and she smiles sourly like there's a bad taste in her mouth. Orochimaru wonders if it's the blood or something else. "Sorry, Jiraiya, I didn't…"

"Oy, Tsunade. Is that a bra under your bed?" Jiraiya's kneeling beside it, one arm resting along the mattress, and his long white hair is preventing anyone else from getting a good look to wherever it is that his attention has been drawn. Tsunade blinks once.

"I - is there a what?" she yelps indignantly and drops down beside him and shoves him out of the way. Jiraiya topples backwards onto his rear and he grins at Tsunade, winks at Orochimaru and draws himself up until he's sitting cross-legged.

"You thinking about trying to stuff one or something?" he continues laconically, surveying his fingernails as he does so. "How're you ever gonna be the marriageable sort if you can't be an honest woman, Tsunade-hime?"

She scrambles back out from under the bed clutching a lacey red…thing that Orochimaru is fairly certain wouldn't keep any part of a human anatomy decently covered. Her face is every bit as crimson as the fabric. "Shut up, Jiraiya," she says warningly. "Unless you want me to remove your reason for living."

Orochimaru, smiling, asks, "What, his stomach?"

Jiraiya shoots him a grateful glance. They both know that wasn't what Tsunade was talking about. And then Orochimaru stands, dusts himself off and plucks a stray feather from his bangs. "Jiraiya, go get us something to eat."

"What? Why me?"

"Because Tsunade's mother doesn't like me," Orochimaru tells him patiently. "And you will eat anything that's been dead a decent amount of time before it comes to your plate. She's fond of you, I think."

Jiraiya grumbles, but climbs to his feet and shakes himself like an overgrown dog and slips out of the room. The hollow click of the door closing behind him makes Tsunade flinch.

"How bad?" he asks quietly.

She presses a hand to her stomach. "Not bad."

"Don't lie to me, Tsunade."

"I'm not! I'm fine, all right? As soon as my chakra's back to normal, I'll fix it myself. Don't need to trouble the medics; they've got enough on their plates." She pauses, and fidgets, and eventually sits on her bed and twirls a feather between her long, lithe fingers. They're a healer's hands, he thinks as he studies them. Meant to create rather than to destroy. He studies his own in contrast. Hard and scarred, and there's blood under his fingernails from only god knows how long ago. No matter how many times he washes his hands, he can never quite get rid of it.

"Orochimaru…" Tsunade says quietly, looking up at him. "Just don't tell Jiraiya, all right? I don't want him worrying about me, too. I'm fine, really. I'll take it easy for a while, I promise."

He accepts that, and nods. "We have a mission soon. Jiraiya and I. I've discussed it with Sarutobi-sensei; you're going to stay here and help with the villagers."

"What?" Her eyes narrow. "Where?"

"We'll be living in a village near a military outpost for a few months. It's not a big deal; we're just there to gather information." He doesn't tell her that it's an A-rank mission. He doesn't tell her that the reason they're going is because the last Konoha-nin to be stationed where they're going was found split open and spread-eagled with his intestines strewn all over the ground. It was speculated he'd still been alive when the birds had started to tear him apart…

She looks at him skeptically and exhales once, in a long shaky breath. "I'll come with you. It couldn't hurt-!"

Orochimaru shakes his head firmly. "They're afraid of us, Tsunade. They'll be on the look out for a group of three that matches our descriptions."

"I don't ca-" she begins, just as Jiraiya returns, bearing a gigantic bowl of popcorn and a tray of tea. He's biting his lip to concentrate on balancing both things at once, and he pauses the instant he steps into the room, blinking back and forth between the two of them.

"Am I interrupting something, here?"

Hastily, Tsunade clears a place on her dresser for him to set the food and beverages down, and she smiles. "No, nothing. C'mon, let's watch the rest of this stupid film, and then we can go train."

So they curl up on the bed, Jiraiya and Tsunade, with the former sprawled out and the latter draped across his stomach. Orochimaru sits on the floor a short distance away from them, and would have been contented to stay there had Tsunade not grabbed him by a fist full of hair and dragged him towards the bed. "C'mon," she says gruffly. "You're part of this team, too."

Orochimaru smiles at that, and he keeps breathing.