(What’s) Mortal Remains
Relationship: Orochimaru/Hatake Sakumo
Genre: Crossover, Romance
Length: 4.8k
[Warnings: Crossover with the “World of Lupi” series by Eileen Wilks, a werewolf UF novel. Unfinished, No neat chapter ending]
Orochimaru sweeps his hair into a high tail impatiently. He holds his heels in one hand, the hem of his dress in the other, mindful of the scattered glass around his bare feet.
“Excuse me, Ma’— Agent,” One of the officers starts hesitantly.
He spares them a withering look, curtailing it to a curt eye-cut over his shoulder.
“Yes, it is fully necessary; no, I cannot wear the booties; no, I’m not sure this is my case, it merely fits the modus operandi. I therefore,” he brushes his bangs back behind his ear with a huff, “must check.”
He has been here for nearly ten minutes trying to contain the car crash cum crime scene, stop the body being removed, and generally solve the question of whether or not this is his case—and doing so in the face of insipid and slow-to-understand officers.
Unfortunately, when magical crimes and crime scenes don’t announce themselves with fireballs, impossible deaths, floating corpses, or any other outrageously obvious indicators or witnesses to them, they are nearly impossible to parse from the ordinary.
Unless, of course, one happens to be a Sensitive.
They are, Orochimaru reflects peevishly, in rather short supply.
He makes it through to the actual vehicle in question, the devastated isle in a sea of shattered windows.
Truly, he enjoys his job. He throws himself into the work with aplomb; it is the only state of being he’s familiar with. When he was a mere scientist, he devoted himself to his lab-work despite the distraction of being forced to teach the occasional advanced course at the University. When he stumbled into consulting for the newly-minted Unit 12, his own methods and tests nearly unique in the world and uniquely brilliant in the field of magical analysis, nothing had changed. When that same division discovered his rare Gift, and made him an offer he could not refuse, he accepted with no regrets and took his work ethic with him.
It is indeed more rewarding to actively use his Gift rather than keep it a card close to his chest, replicating with science what comes innate to him and finding the mimicry always a bit lacking.
He is incredibly satisfied with his profession position.
Even when it means he’s going to be late to a dinner gala because he’s tugging ineffectually on a jam-welded automobile door amidst flashing patrol car lights as the uniformed officers finally, if bewilderedly, secure his scene.
The crunch of glass sounds, but before he can lift his head, an arm reaches past him.
It’s a lovely arm, enclosed in expensive material, a pristine jacket sleeve that his eyes follow to a neat lapel, an artfully disheveled white collar; no tie, but—
Also no problems. He hardly needs one.
Even stepping gingerly, with his dress hiked up, heels clicking together in one hand, in the middle of a probable crime scene, Orochimaru feels a purr building deep in his throat.
Silver eyes take him in– his face, marred at this point by the lightest touch of sweat at the temples, the ruffled gown, his hastily put-back hair—and adopt a hot glow.
That arm flexes minutely, muscles shifting under fine silk. Sakumo casually pulls the door open, effortless despite the unholy screeching of the protesting metal, and as quickly as if the door had sustained no damage whatsoever.
His silver eyes don’t leave Orochimaru’s amber-gold for a moment.
“My hero.” Orochimaru says, but damn if it doesn’t come out half-breathless.
Sakumo’s lips quirk at the corners, dazzling.
“Nadia,” he greets. Knot, tied, it means, a literal designation among his people more than an endearment, for all that it sounds like one from Sakumo’s lips. Lovely, he had called Orochimaru, over and over again, the last time they’d fallen into bed together, silky words and tangled sheets.
Orochimaru allows himself a brief few seconds to enjoy the low burn evoked by the memory before banishing all such feelings.
Door open, he has a job to do. He looks expectantly to the lupus in formal dress and Sakumo gamely lifts him into the partially-crushed cab.
Immediately, Orochimaru turns his senses inward.
No trace of anything on the ground around the vehicle, he’s already ascertained. Inside, however…
It would have been too subtle to notice if he hadn’t been expressly looking for it. A whisper of cold shimmies under his skin as his fingers graze the steering wheel.
Unlike the cold of mere sub-temperatures, this is a magical signature. It registers to his Gift-given sense as a breath of frost with the barest touch of mint.
The same had lingered in the smallest of amounts at the facial orifices of the corpse resultant from the crash. It had not been present on the hands, skin or clothes of the deceased.
Finding it on the steering wheel indicated that the dead woman had been exuding the magical signature, but only in life, and quite aside from her personal Gift that lingered in her cells and would forever—at least to him.
This was definitely his case.
“It’s mine,” Orochimaru sighs, not looking forward to the next few hours. Forwarding all of the evidence to his lab alone would take ages.
On the positive side of things, he gets to skip the dinner function.
“Oh no,” Sakumo laughs. “I know that expression. If we leave now we can still make it.”
“I’m trying to solve a series of murders,” Orochimaru protests without turning, analyzing the interior for further traces.
“And after you confirm the presence of whatever magical signatures you’re looking for, the crime scene techs take over. You won’t be needed until they fingerprint and I.D. the woman.”
True, unfortunately. Orochimaru scowls in the face of his lover’s good humor.
As loathe as he is to let other, lesser trained lab minions gather and document his evidence—and thus inevitably mess something up somehow—he has little choice. Anko will have to oversee the transfer in his absence. He gives the seats one last brush of touches with his free hand, straightening afterwards.
“Perhaps they will find some connection between this victim and the previous three,” He relents, giving gracefully into defeat as he takes the offered hand to exit the vehicle.
Sakumo, being Sakumo, immediately sweeps him into a bridal carry.
“The glass,” He explains. It’s a tad cheeky, but more honest and caring; for all he’s smiling, no amount of protest would coerce him into setting Orochimaru down, barefoot, onto the shard-strewn tarmac.
It plainly never crosses his mind to be embarrassed as he parades Orochimaru around a crime scene.
Orochimaru considers flushing and dismisses the notion as ridiculous.
“I need to touch the left side door handle” He directs instead, reaching into Sakumo’s pocket to fish out the man’s phone.
He dials a number he knows by heart.
“Orochimaru,” His boss answers, unflappable as ever. Orochimaru doesn’t question how he identified the caller from a borrowed phone.
“I’ve found the next crime scene.” Orochimaru reports grimly.
Tobirama is silent for only a moment on the other end of the connection.
“I’ll have a team out immediately.”
He fills in the head of Unit 12 on the minutiae and is about to hang up when Tobirama says, offhand—
“Oh, and Orochimaru?” He sounds distant, as he always does when testing the currents of the future. “You need to be at the gala. You and Sakumo both.”
“Yes, sir.” He says, barely sour. Good that we planned on it, he refrains from saying. Tobirama, unlike most precogs—unlike any other precog, period—is never wrong.
He’s not omniscient, of course. He’s a superb ‘guesser’ in that he has “hunches” that always prove to be correct. Someone needs to be here, or there, or absent, to prevent some catastrophe, or ensure some success, or any number of feeling regarding where he ought to send someone or what decision ought to be made. Big things, Orochimaru has learned, are clearer; small things, more apt to change.
It’s testable and has been tested, for all that the results are quite literally a National Secret. There’s a reason Tobirama has the ear of the president, and it has nothing to do with his similarly clandestine familial relation to her.
Sakumo, of course, heard the entire exchange; both sides of the conversation and likely everything going on in the background of Tobirama’s office, including his heartbeat, and who knew what else. He grins as Orochimaru closes the screen.
Orochimaru slips the phone into Sakumo’s back pocket.
As expected, there are trace amounts of mint-frost on the door handle. Sakumo had walked along the side of the car, letting Orochimaru trail his fingertips against the length of it.
“It’s a Unit case,” Orochimaru informs a cop as they glide past. “Hold the scene until our CSI arrive.”
He feels no guilt at the way the woman swears harshly.
According to the most accurate precog ever born, they have somewhere they needed to be.
The possession case could wait.
–
The downside of living in Los Angeles is that he occasionally has to attend public functions there. The functions he attends are usually very prestigious gatherings reflecting his public status as an FBI agent for the equally as public Unit 12.
Magical crimes and the agents that solve them tend to be front page news.
Given that his job is governmental in nature, the functions are usually filled to the brim with well-to-do citizens, council-members, police officers, mayoral staff, and, of course, the mayor herself.
Sakumo eventually puts him down, once the ground is clear of glass fragments and, a block further, he’s satisfied his desire to hold and make a spectacle of his lover.
Several men that Orochimaru noted and dismissed at the peripherals of the crime scene followed them away from it; they are dressed formally for the occasion of following Sakumo to the gala.
“Sir,” Says Genma, guard captain of this rotation. Orochimaru has become passingly familiar with nearly all of the lupi who form an escort for Sakumo.
The other three have carefully blank expressions, on the job and looking it. Sakumo nods to them and they—one of them having stayed with the vehicle at all times—lead their veritable king and his Chosen to a discreetly parked, gorgeous black Camaro.
“It matches your dress,” Sakumo murmurs appreciatively, pausing for a moment like they’re not late and surrounded by armed guards. Orochimaru presses back against him gamely, feeling a fit man in a well-cut suit. His.
Where Sakumo’s hands brush his shoulders, Orochimaru gets flashes of forestry, foliage, and the furry tingle that all lupi give off to his gift. Time and familiarity, however, have let him pick out Sakumo’s unique additions among the signature: the texture of moss, the smell of wood smoke.
Lupi don’t give off enough individual magic to pick up from objects unless they’re in wolf form. They don’t give off magic, they are magic.
It’s only because Sakumo touches him directly that he can distinguish such details. Orochimaru won’t feel those little additions on the car or even their bed– not unless Sakumo is in wolf form when he touches them; otherwise, he will feel only the furry tingle accompanied by the clean, woodsy smell that all lupi carry, to his gift. [i]
“We’re going to be late,” He demurs as strong hands lift him easily onto the boot of the car. The metal is normal-sensation cold from the late October night, bleeding through his dress to his thighs. His dagger’s leather sheath is comfortable warmth in contrast, obscured by the folds of material.
“We’re already late, lovely.” Sakumo corrects, releasing him gently and kneeling down. “We have time.”
Long white hair, pulled back in a lazy tail, falls over one of his shoulders. Sakumo quirks a smile up at him even as he produces the strappy heels Orochimaru had divested himself of earlier.
Orochimaru smiles fondly as his lover carefully replaces his shoes, rubbing gently along one foot and then another, tracing straps with nimble fingers, tremendous strength tempered by perfect control of his body. The touches are in no way sexual, with the guards standing casually with their backs to them and the car, save for the one who is starting the car, and yet.
Yet.
Orochimaru is appreciative of that iron control, the perfect grace. The formal attire is just a notch up from the expensive slacks and dress shirts his lover usually favors half the time– the other half featuring sweats and t-shirts, the better to explode out of as 250 pounds of wolf—but Sakumo could be wearing rags for all he cares about clothes in this moment.
The mate bond purrs contentedly under his skin, and for a moment Orochimaru is swept up in perfect awe, perfect contentment, and no small amount of desire. There’s an edge to it, a whisper of protectiveness that threatens violence should the situation require it—the instincts of a wolf in a man’s body.
Dark-grey eyes light up with silver once more, rimmed in a perfect black ring. Wolf eyes, and Orochimaru realizes that the finicky bond has shown him Sakumo’s emotions; simultaneously, he notes that his own must have gone to Sakumo, and trails his fingertips along the man’s jaw in wonder.
“I think perhaps it’s making up for being annoying this week,” Orochimaru proposes.
Sakumo scoffs softly, amused despite himself. They would be in different cities this evening if the bond hadn’t snapped taught unexpectedly, mandating a five-mile radius without warning. He’d nearly spilled several highly corrosive substances in the lab when the dizziness came over him, saved only by the lucky timing of Kabuto’s entrance and his assistant’s quick reflexes.
Fortunately, Sakumo had been running at the time, on four feet instead of two, and immediately turned in the direction of Orochimaru’s lab. With every yard his bounds took him, more of the disorientation faded from both of them.
They’d had lunch.
Now, they would have dinner.
Sakumo stands fluidly, offering a soft hand. Orochimaru takes it and allows himself to slip off the trunk, heels connecting with little taps to the waiting tarmac. Strong arms slide around his waist, pulling him close; he goes willingly, pleased at the casual intimacy.
“Your carriage awaits,” He says, sotto voce. Orochimaru barely stifles an ugly snort.
“A Corvette Camaro SS is not in the same league as a horse-drawn carriage, you savage,” He reprimands, tamping down the threatening smile. Sakumo’s ensuing laughter buoys him for the entire trip.
Despite the detours and near-miss escape, the universe finally sees fit to get them to the blasted dinner. It’s being held at a large hotel, miraculously a few short blocks from the crime scene. Parking would be a nightmare if his chosen wasn’t the Rho of a veritable army of lupus.
As it was, they leave the car to the driver instead of valet parking and allow the other three guards to accompany them to the door.
The throng of press is less than it might be; for such a large event, most of the more prominent members are allowed inside with name-badges. Still, Orochimaru tugs his arms close to himself and wishes the formal attire had had somewhere, anywhere, for his sidearm.
Sakumo is at his side, dealing with his own discomforts, Orochimaru is sure. Lupi don’t deal well with crowds of humans, although they take great pains to ensure most humans aren’t aware of the struggle. Sakumo is more relaxed than most, poise and power tucked into his shoulders, confidence tilting his chin up.
Likewise, Orochimaru looks none the ruffled to a casual observer. If he would rather be in a sterile lab testing human flesh for his latest experiment, well—they don’t have to know.
They’re mirrors, Orochimaru notes as they enter the building, pass the lobby, and follow the throng of people into the ballroom. His hair, long and black; Sakumo’s, white as snow. Orochimaru’s gown is black as well, to Sakumo’s ivory suit. Both beautiful, both confident, both with a certain measure of power, both political and martial—not that the denizens of this function are aware of the true extent of either—and both—
In trouble.
“We must flee.” Orochimaru hisses, not breaking polite smile.
“What?” Sakumo is alarmed, hand tightening on Orochimaru’s elbow. He doesn’t move his head, though his eyes dart from side to side trying to spot the threat.
Not-quite-lost in the crowd, the lupus guards hear every word, Orochimaru is sure.
“Quickly!” He admonishes, but of course it’s too late.
The mayor of Los Angeles beelines in on them and there’s no longer any avenue of escape.
“Orochimaru!” Tsunade greets as though they’re old friends. Not, “Federal Agent” or “World-renown Professor” or “Honored Guest.”
Sadly, that’s exactly what they are.
“Tsunade,” He allows, openly assessing her gunmetal pantsuit. She looks… resplendent, he supposes, as always. Certainly, voluptuous fits the bill, for all that he would be immediately punted back into the nest of reporters camped outside the hotel, witnesses or no witnesses, if he dared use a word with such lecherous undertones.
The mayor’s eyes slide over to his date. Orochimaru braces himself, but he’s fascinated to see confusion and surprised recognition draw Tsunade’s eyes wide. He’d prepared for some version of the shovel talk.
More fascinatingly, when Orochimaru turns to look, Sakumo’s expression is pained. He’s not been injured, obviously, yet the distress in his face is clear as day.
“Sakumo!” Tsunade accuses. Her hands would be on her hips if they weren’t all dancing the old-hat line of ‘appear to be mingling to the onlookers’.
“Rhej,” Sakumo greets, tilting his chin in what might as well be a bow.
Orochimaru is, for perhaps the fourth time in his adult life, acquainted with the curious sensation of being struck speechless. Everything he thought he knew about the universe abruptly stands on its head, twisting and turning to present him with a new picture that doesn’t make sense.
Being himself, the moment Orochimaru understood that he was irrevocably tied to someone in a physical and mental sense, and couldn’t get out of it even if he wished, he started learning all he could about the culture and status and history of that person and his clan.
Lupi were rather notoriously closed-lipped to most humans, for good reason—it was still completely and bafflingly legal to shoot to kill one in wolf form, and they were truly only a handful of decades past federal legislation that declared them subhuman.
Facts about them are scrubbed clean for the media into a fairytale understanding of attractive, muscular men who, of course, shapeshift into wolves on occasion. The specifics are barely-understood outside of the clans. The clans themselves are barely understood. The information is purposefully not given to outsiders.
That said, the moment Orochimaru let them know he was a Chosen—and Chosen to Voravi’s Rho, at that—their lips couldn’t move fast enough to tell him everything he wanted to know. For all that the concept of a Chosen, even if it was rare, was meticulously not mentioned outside of Clanhome, the similarly concealed land the clan owned and where over half of the clan resided, every lupus knew what the word meant.
Of the information he now had access to, Orochimaru is familiar with three basic facts about every clan. There is the Rho, who holds the Lady-goddess-given Mantle, a magical construct that binds the clan together and allows all sorts of things to happen, which can be furthered explained as the tangible weight of authority the Rho has as effective king of the clan-nation of lupus. No one disobeys the Rho. They physically cannot do it, nor want to do it, and it is not imposed on them so much as it is hardwired into their existence like worker-bees. The Lady put the lupus onto this planet as her actors because she cannot affect the material world directly, per the treaty that keeps Old Ones—deities—from destroying the known dimension.
This is the same deity who specifically decided that Orochimaru should not be able to go further than fifty miles from Sakumo for the rest of either of their natural lives, bound on a level so deep he can’t even touch it, given to each other so completely that he couldn’t sense anything from his lover the first time they met, and can only now separate their melded magic to distinguish Sakumo’s unique signature with the dent of practice.
The Mantle for each clan was created as the lupi were created, and those same Mantles remain within those clans. Without the Mantles, the clans wouldn’t exist.
Second of the hierarchical terms the lupi use is lu nuncio, the Rho’s heir but not necessarily his son—though definitely of some blood relationship—who carries a small piece of the clan’s Mantle. When the Rho dies, the rest of the mystical crown and connection point for all the rest of the wolves joins the piece the lu nuncio has, thus creating the new Rho, who will take a piece of the Mantle and give it to the new lu nuncio, and ensuring the continued survival of the clan. The lu nuncio acts as a prince, if the Rho is the king. He cannot be disobeyed unless the Rho counteracts the order, and speaks with the weight of the Rho behind him. His duties within the clan are slightly different than the Rho’s, though Orochimaru is still determining the extent of them.
Lastly, there is the Rhej. The Rhej is always a woman, or at least someone who has either a uterus or claims a female gender identity at least part of the time—he is heartened that the Lady apparently makes no such common and damning distinctions in what constitutes a woman on a spiritual level—and is a ‘memory keeper’. She is usually, but apparently not always, an older woman who shuts herself up in the woods and is protected by the entire clan. Although, as far as he can determine, a Rhej has the same authority as the Rho. More, even, because not even the Rho denies the Rhej.
The Rhej is the Lady’s voice to each clan; literally, the goddess sometimes chooses to speak through their mouths and give orders to the lupi as a whole.
When she does, the message is usually short and succinct. All the clan squabbles cease as every lupus on the planet, without exception, unite in their goal to see Her will done, as they were created to do. Historically, it’s a bit of a big deal—but again, only Rhejs have memory of each of these times.
More’s the point, the Rhejs carry the memories of the original lupi, the first, put onto the planet fully formed and knowing intrinsically whom they served.
The wolves who Orochimaru questioned about the Rhej—does she stay at her cabin in Clanhome? Is she allowed to leave? If she is so important, don’t you all protect her and keep her here?—stared at him.
And they had been aghast.
The Rhej goes where she wants. Every Rhej comes and goes as she pleases, wherever she pleases, and no lupus will get in her way. Quite the contrary—they can be conscripted to do her will.
It makes a twisted sort of sense that Tsunade somehow had that insane amount of power.
The only thing he can’t parse is the why or how and when of the situation.
Naturally, Sakumo senses his weakness and throws him under a bus.
“Allow me to introduce my Chosen, Orochimaru Yashagorō.” He says, smiling hopefully. It’s a bit strained. It should be.
The terms they’re throwing around without elaboration toe the secrecy line. However, if anyone can use them with impunity, it’s the two indomitable wills of the clan. He calculates the odds of anyone overhearing them to be astronomically small, which Sakumo at least knows from keener senses than Orochimaru possesses.
Tsunade just doesn’t give a damn, probably.
“My darling sister,” Orochimaru begins, hoping to stave off the inevitable.
To their left, Sakumo chokes.
Foster sister, he considers elaborating for his lover’s benefit, but decides to let him suffer in light of how Tsunade’s honey eyes immediately dart over to pin Orochimaru to the spot.
Well, given that he’s already enraged the bull, so to speak—another choice of words that if spoken aloud would make her drop kick him into the sun—he opens his mouth and defends,
“Sakumo and I met nearly a month ago. You’d know your Rho is one of the now-seven Lupus on the planet with a lady-Chosen if you had come by Clanhome even once in that timeframe.”
It is most definitely the wrong thing to say, for all that he’s trying to defend himself.
I didn’t tell you because you weren’t where you were supposed to be, doing what you were supposed to do.
He braces himself for pain. Probably she will just torture him later, or perhaps for the next several-odd years, but the chance she will forgo formalities in favor of more immediate physical violence is ever-present and real. Their high school graduation ceremony involved Jiraiya being ambulated to the nearest medical facility, thinking he was safe behind the podium and in front of several thousand spectators to say whatever he wished in his speech.
Tsunade’s mouth falls open.
Orochimaru will later deny that his sphincter contracted to its smallest possible size in fear. As it is, his face likely shows his horror to the keen observer. It has frozen; his cheek muscle twitches. He isn’t Jiraiya, digging his own grave with cheerful obliviousness, but his mouth nearly always says what he’s thinking without filtration and it takes ever so much work to curtail his responses to something more acceptable.
Possibly that had something to do with his interpersonal relationship failures at the university and police department. Most people were frustratingly, unnecessarily vague when bluntness would do, and moreover chose to hold elaborate social rituals inundated with complex hidden meanings and, to further complicate matters, said things they didn’t mean.
Tobirama was refreshingly different; working with him was like dunking one’s head in cold water. Only after he was given his lab and his badge did he realize he was wasting away trying to be one thing or the other and do the complicated mammalian dance of fitting into a strict society with unwritten rules, while everyone else was born knowing the steps. The shock of his new environs, the sharp contrast to his old, opened his eyes to all that he could be.
His genius would be wasted with his death, so Orochimaru quickly tries to draw up a verbal battle plan to extricate himself from the situation. If only he could speak around the metaphorical foot currently prying apart his jaws.
He is saved.
Someone interrupts.
He, Tsunade and Sakumo all turn to the newcomer with various expressions– surprise and relief– but the polite interest each of them don fades with recognition of the identity of the man.
Orochimaru would legitimately prefer facing Tsunade’s reaction, even if she decided to hit him. Personally he had never found the words to tell her that her fondness of one-sided violence whenever they displeased him sat like sour milk in his stomach, wrong under his skin in a way he had trouble identifying. It wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining if he hit her every time she said something that offended him.
Obviously it was something related to the supposed gender binary and ridiculous nuances thereof, so no matter how Orochimaru tried to understand he just wouldn’t. Ergo, he had abandoned the line of inquiry sometime around their high school graduation and not picked it back up since.
Danzo Shimura made wrongness sit under his skin for an entirely different reason.
A very small part of it was the way the veteran wore his injuries prominently– not that he should be ashamed of them, of course, but the way he intentionally drew the eye to them gave him a psychological leverage he used without shame or hesitation. It was a deliberate move that made most sympathetic to his ideals and unlikely to verbally disagree with him.
Orochimaru found the tactic most distasteful, particularly because the man used his disabilities to get what he wanted in an underhanded way. He wore them like a weapon and used them to win arguments before they began; even someone with a legitimate argument to the CIA head’s warmongering policies looked like they were fighting an old, crippled man for no reason.
It’s the duplicity, Orochimaru decides, looking at the innocent smile across him. He is in no way harmless or well-meaning and he pretends to be.
The rest of Orochimaru’s distaste is the man himself, his policies and his prejudice and how he uses every opportunity to undermine Unit 7 and President Uzumaki herself.
That Tobirama is like a father to him, and hates the man like burning, only adds to the fire.
–