Orochimaru didn't understand people. They were loud, obnoxious, annoying. They irritated him in little ways, rubbing him the wrong way, just little bits and little bits until he wanted to scream. About the only person who didn't rub him the wrong way was Tsunade, and she still rubbed him, just in different ways.

Tsunade was the glue that held the team together. She was the princess, the darling, the pet. Jiraiya played with her, making her laugh and smile and run, pulling her hair and giving her flowers and making her blush. Orochimaru sat with her, giving her his time, and, once and again, his words. Somehow, that made her smile, but in a different way. Her smiles, for him, were quiet things, serious and deep and powerful enough to make him lose his breath. Sometimes, when Orochimaru was feeling particulary thoughtful, he'd wonder if it was the thing they called love.

"Do you want to play a game?"

They were sitting in the middle of a field, right outside Konoha's walls. Jiraiya was a few dozen yards away, trying to catch a frog or something else equally childish in the eyes of Orochimaru, and Tsunade was twisting pieces of grass inbetween her fingertips, staining her hands green.

"A game?" she asked, giving him one of those slow smiles. He looked back at her, smiling without smiling.

"A game. You like to gamble, right?"

She shrugged, a seamless motion of rolling shoulders and falling hair. He closed his eyes so he could breathe, and scratched his left hand, trying to remember.

"A game," he repeated. "If you lose, I get something from you, and if you win, you get something."

"What game?" She sounded curious, and when he looked at her, she was staring at him, brown eyes almost gold in the sunlight.

He narrowed his eyes, pulling up a few pieces of grass. "I don't know," he said, nearly irritated. "Just a game. You pick, I don't care."

"What games do you like?" she tried, watching Jiraiya scramble after a glint of jumping green.

"I don't know," he snarled, angry now. She made a face at him, curling up her nose with mock distaste. "I don't play games," he said after a moment, temper tantrum already done.

"None?" She sounded surprised and his lips twitched. When he shook his head she smiled that slow smile again. "Then I'll teach you."

!-!-!

"Do you want to play a game?"

Jiraiya's lying in the grass, dead, and Tsunade's crouched next to his body, her fingertips resting on his cooling forehead. The sun makes her brown eyes look gold, and they're staring at Orochimaru. He almost wishes she'd smile at him, like she used to, years and years ago, when Jiraiya used to catch frogs and she'd laugh, and Orochimaru would watch them both.

"I've learned games, lots of them."

She stands stiffly, stepping around Jiraiya's body to stand between it and Orochimaru, and raises her hands. His lips twitch, almost into a smile, and he moves forward. He was always faster than her, could always beat her and Jiraiya in races, and he touches her before her eyes have a chance to widen. Her mouth opens, twisting into an unreal version of that slow smile, and her lips are stained red. He lowers his head until his lips are pressed against her neck, tongue tasting her skin, her blood.

"I win."

A/N: Because Tsunade always loses games, see? And she lost at the end. Well, that was my attempt at Oroch/Tsuna. It's for touched_venus.

Back to Chuunin and Jounin
Back to the main page