#awintersrose

A Solitary Echo

(Fic/Art collaboration with @beluageist for the 2022 Naruto Big Bang event.)

Ship: Hatake Sakumo/Orochimaru

Rating: General Audiences

Summary:

As Sakumo studies Orochimaru in earnest, it’s his eyes that catch Sakumo’s notice first. They hold a manic, almost despairing look; one the Hatake recognizes all too well. One like so many comrades he’s stood next to on the battlefield, facing certain death while desperate to live.

It's also an expression that he sees in the mirror every morning while thinking acidic, hateful thoughts. Thoughts that corrode his will. Thoughts that make him forget his son, his village, and everything he has left to live for.

You draw these three so beautifully and I love your work <3

Hehe yes of course

@awintersrose

I think the downtime they tend to default to is really just doing their own thing beside each other?

Kind of like Rasa maybe reading one of his non-work book (which is still a non-fiction book that’s vaguely related to work). Karura is snuggled up beside him, reading horror fiction--- or doing crochet, or a romance novel, or fixing someone’s torn shirt. But definitely snuggled right up on Rasa.

It’s quiet. They’re warm. There’s snacks and a hot drink on the table.

Sannin OT3 for @awintersrose! Thank you for letting me draw them for you! I call this “Team Matching Kimonos and Long Hair”. I’m so happy with how it turned out! I tried a new way to outline and shade, and I think it looks pretty cool! Ref from kibbitzer. Click for better quality image! 

I have you shoved against the wall but now I can’t stop looking at your mouth

Up until a moment ago, Yamato had known what he was doing. He’d had a sound, infallible plan to get Kakashi back once and for all, and he wasn’t going to lose. He was going to get Kakashi back, and show him exactly what happened when someone needled him once too often. He was going to make the other man pay, and he was going to... to something. He was definitely going to do something.

But for the life of him, Yamato couldn’t remember what it was. His plan and all rational thought deserted him as he realised just how close Kakashi was, their bodies almost pressed together in the tight space Yamato had inadvertently created. His hands tingled where they came into contact with worn black fabric, Kakashi’s bones surprisingly slender and delicate beneath his grasp, and the breath seized within his chest as he felt the warm rush of Kakashi’s surprised exhale caress his lips, dispersed by the mask he always wore.

Whatever the plan was, Yamato had long forgotten it. He couldn’t help staring, fixated on the cloth concealing Kakashi’s lips, as he wondered - not for the first time - just what Kakashi really looked like. The material seemed so thin, so inviting in the way it clung to the contours of Kakashi’s parted lips, that Yamato couldn’t help the way his body trembled in sudden excitement. A rush of thoughts and feelings - things he’d always pushed away and refused to acknowledge were there - cascaded through him, and, in that moment, he forgot himself. He forgot about everything but his longing, and that wonderful, infuriating strip of cloth clinging to Kakashi’s lips that he longed to tug away.

“Tenzou?”

Yamato’s heart hammered wildly, his chest stiff and aching with the myriad of emotions choking him. He felt Kakashi tremble beneath his grasp, and sense deserted him. He could feel the warmth of Kakashi’s every exhale, see the close texture of the mask, and make out the soft, inviting lines of the lips concealed beneath it. An all-consuming compulsion gripped him, and he surrendered to it.

“Senpai...” he murmured in reverent awe, gaze fixed until the very last moment on the cloth concealing Kakashi’s face. His eyes fell shut as his lips came into contact with the mask, sliding into place and slotting over Kakashi’s mouth in a gentle, searing kiss.

The wrists in his grasp trembled, Kakashi’s tremor turning into a moan, and the world came rushing back to him as Yamato realised exactly what he’d done. He pulled away, startled, staring, and aghast.

And then he realised that Kakashi was still trembling, his one visible eye closed and jaw tilted towards Yamato in askance. He realised what he’d done, and felt the tension leave his body, a sense of stillness and serenity settling within him as he leaned in, and did it again.

Word Count: 501

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Everyone had told me it was a bad idea to go on a hike alone—not that any of them were willing to accompany me—but they couldn’t have been more wrong; it was a beautiful late spring day, the sun was shining in a partly cloudy sky, and the mountain path I was climbing was filled with other people enjoying the day, anyways, so it wasn’t as if I was truly alone, in the event that something happened to me.

There was, however, a cave where most chose not to go, because it required a bit of climbing to get to—I had climbed that path a million times, it felt like, so I was confident that I could make it up and back unscathed—which was filled with beautiful, iridescent stalactites, with a small, oblong pond in the centre, created from the condensation which gathered and then dropped down the cold stone ceiling, turning a small cave into a gorgeous hideaway—how anyone could resist its allure was a mystery to me; when the path twisted left I made my way right, through a crack in the mountain itself, hoisting myself up by grabbing onto the familiar dips and nooks, until I made it up and over the high ledge and into the cavern in the centre of the peak of the mountain.

I dropped my pack to the floor, taking a deep gulp from my water bottle before lying on the ground to let the cold stone cool down my heated, sweaty skin—it might not be summer yet, but the climb was hard and the hours in the sun had me flushed and feeling a bit sunburnt despite my obsessive application of sunscreen; once I felt rested, I got up to enjoy the beauty of the cavern, when I noticed, at the lip of the shallow pond—more a wide puddle, than anything—a small bed of flowers growing out of the cracks near the water, a single hellebore—a poisonous, five petaled flower known colloquially as a ‘winter rose’ for their somewhat similar appearance to roses and their tendency to grow in cold conditions, despite not being related to the rose family at all—blooming in the centre, which couldn’t have been there before, shouldn’t be growing now, in this cave, of all places—'it isn’t cold enough,’ I thought, approaching the flower, bending down to get a closer look, ‘and there isn’t enough light, just what is it doing—’ but then there was a slimy, clawed hand around my ankle, yanking me into the not-so-shallow-as-I-remembered pond, dragging me deeper, water filling my lungs from the instinctual breath I had taken to scream, the image of a winter rose—hellebore, hellebore, the poisonous hellebore a warning I should have heeded for all the danger I knew they heralded—blooming out of the head of a scaled, red eyed, sharp toothed creature the last thing I saw before the world went dark and I was no more.

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I feel like I should be calling these “How Sibi Died; a Story Told in Three Paragraph-like Sentences,” lol! I hope you liked it, awintersrose!

That creature is roughly based off of lure fish, who have a teasing bit of bait hanging over them to attract other fish for them to eat.