Even Angels Fall
Pairing: Jiraiya/Dan Kato, Jiraiya/Dan/Orochimaru, Dannin OT4 if you squint
Rating: Gen
Prompt: Cafune - the act of running your fingers through the hair of someone you love (from this list)
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He hasn’t moved for several hours, pinned in place by a hundred and forty-some-odd pounds of distressed lover finally given over to sleep, but Dan’s weight is nothing, and holding him close is a rare joy in times like these. Especially when Jiraiya’s own orders could call him or the others away any day now. This is simply time to be savored - even if it came into being because of pain.
Those with the greatest gifts often pay the highest prices. No one knows exactly the extent to which Dan feels as though he’s losing himself with every new body he takes, with every body he destroys from within.
No one else knows the truth - the toll that it’s exacting upon him with the way he shares the psyche of each of his victims, and thus their experiences, their pain. The way each target’s mindscape is consumed with sheer terror; the way they beg as they rot from the inside out. The way each death feels as though it might last forever and Dan might never break free or return to his own body in the end.
No one else knows the extent of this but Jiraiya, and he’s sworn that Dan will always have a safe place to land when his deployments are through. He supposes he should feel guilty that it feels so good once they are together like this, but… they are in love.
And love is all that the sage can feel when he gazes down upon his sleeping lover, as Dan breathes in the slow cadence of one lost in deep, dreamless slumber, his slender limbs draped heavy and boneless across Jiraiya’s form.
Locks of pale, ice-white hair fall over his chest, and Jiraiya traces them with a finger for the hundredth time, the thousandth time, really he’s lost count. Dan’s hair is nothing like his own, or that of the other two. Orochimaru’s hair is as black as fine Uzushio ink, shining like heavy satin. Tsunade’s, golden like a ripe rice field, tangled and tied because she hates the fuss. His own, ever untamed and wild - Oro always likens it to animal fur of all things.
Dan’s hair is oddly soft, like spidersilk made into a more substantial element, fine and glimmering almost crystalline in the light. That softness should not be congruent with something so reminiscent of icicles on a winter morning in Yugakure. But his cheek is just as soft, rosy with sleep, and crowned with silver-blue lashes still tacky with the salt of tears. Those lashes are fine, almost fae in their beauty. And oh, Dan is beautiful. Once, it was easy to pass him off as a goody-two-shoes because, Jiraiya realizes, he’s nearly celestial.
Perhaps their ghost is not a ghost after all, but an earthbound angel instead, with the mere ability to break free of his illusory mortal shell. Of course this world would weaponize such a thing, and now it is something that harms yet empowers Dan all the same.
More reason to keep him well-rooted to this terrestrial plane, where Jiraiya can mend the broken pieces and see them soldered together with golden joys.
Jiraiya brushes Dan’s hair back, drawing gentle fingertips through the delicate strands. Perhaps one day he really will weave crystals through it and sketch this angel - though his mind’s eye moves right toward the most lurid of poses. Maybe he’ll volunteer himself as a devil to corrupt said angel? Yet knowing Dan as well as he does, the angel sprawled on top of Jiraiya hardly needs tempting in order to be wicked all on his own.
But that is a fantasy for another day.
The door slides open, quiet as a whisper, and a familiar voice interrupts the silence. “Is he sleeping?”
Orochimaru slips into the room, his fluid steps inaudible as Jiraiya looks up. “Yeah. It was a pretty bad go of things this time, but we’ll get him through it.”
Tired golden eyes reflect a somber acknowledgment of dark truths that Orochimaru is well acquainted with. Another moment finds the serpent coiled beneath the covers beside them, a lean arm protectively entwined about their sleeping charge, as he finds a place for his head upon Jiraiya’s shoulder.
“We always do.”