First Restraint

~Okay, I've gotten the next bit to a good close so I'll post it although it's not as long as the previous chapter. This part has some smut in it! *blush* But not much as yet. I think it's the next couple of chapters I'm really gonna enjoy writing. Poor, poor Sasuke >:D ~

RedMoon x x x

---Chapter 2---

Sasuke was reclining on the bed picking at one of the sleeves of his kimono when Orochimaru entered the room some time later. Sasuke acknowledged him with barest glance in his direction and immediately turned his attention back to destroying his robe. He just knew, already and instinctively, that he wasn’t going to enjoy being trained by Orochimaru. He seemed to exude an aura of pure evil and just being in the same room as him gave Sasuke the creeps. But the point was that he hadn’t come here to enjoy himself, he was here for the sake of his mission. Any small annoyance was bearable.

Orochimaru moved almost noiselessly across the stone floor and set himself down gently on the end of the bed. The two sat in silence until Sasuke suspected that Orochimaru was waiting for him to give his full attention. He dropped the sleeve and raised his eyes to Orochimaru’s, this time holding his gaze. His appearance had changed again, and he was looking more like the Orochimaru he remembered from past encounters. His skin was so deathly white, but having seen the nature of his habitation it hardly seemed surprising. It looked hard and cold, like porcelain. His narrow snake-eyes were worse though, too piercing, too knowing as they took Sasuke in. Assessing. Calculating.

“I knew you would come, Sasuke-kun”.

“Well, no-one else is willing to teach me what I need to know” Sasuke snorted.

“Your friends in Konoha think they know what is best for you. But they do not, they cannot feel your pain, and see just how important your revenge is to you.” The tone of his words softened a little. “They could never understand.”

Sasuke looked away, uncomfortably. Orochimaru inched a little closer along the mattress toward him.

“I have known your brother, seen what he is capable of.” Orochimaru did not miss the slight twitch Sasuke gave at the mention of his infamous sibling. Holding his sympathetic composure he continued.

“The strength and the skills you will need to defeat him will not appear overnight, and the benefit of my knowledge…” his allowed his words to trail off as he lightly placed one cold, pale hand against Sasuke’s bare thigh where it was uncovered by the kimono, “…does not come cheap”

Sasuke caught the insinuation. He slapped the uninvited touch away.

“Forget it” he growled hoarsely, glaring at the sannin with incensed eyes through the dark curtain of his hair. Orochimaru’s expression never changed.

“That is unfortunate” he said slowly, easing himself up off the bed. “I had rather thought we could reach some sort of mutual agreement. Such a small favour to pay, for the extent of the power that it is in my capacity to grant you.”

Sasuke remained silent.

“For now, I’ll leave you to think about it. It’s just a little unfair to expect something for nothing now, isn’t it?” he said, with a hint of mirth just touching his voice as he walked towards the door. “Goodnight, Sasuke-kun”.


* * * *


Alone again, Sasuke whipped around on the bed and punched his pillow hard. Always more and more obstacles getting in the way of his plans! It seemed as though he could still feel the old pervert’s touch on his leg. Revolted, he tried to rub the crawling sensation away.

“Cater to your sick needs, yeah, right” Sasuke thought to himself “Fuck you.You’ll teach me all I need to know to kill my brother, then I’ll finish you off too, old man.”

Disgusting. What exactly was Orochimaru hinting that he wanted out of him anyway? They were both male for a start. Men were supposed to want… stuff… of that nature out of women. At going on fourteen years of age, Sasuke knew about as much about sex as he had learnt in class, or overheard from the chatter of the other boys. Naruto in particular seemed obsessed with the concept, trying to sneak books and magazines from the adult sections of shops using any number of ridiculous jutsu, but most of the shop keepers were wary of his tricks. Even so he had accumulated a small hoard, which he just left lying around his flat, the result of not having anyone to reprimand him and confiscate the filth. Sasuke would always tell him offhandedly that if he wanted to be anything more than a joke of a ninja he would have start thinking with the head on his shoulders and not the one in his pants.

That was not to say that Sasuke hadn’t experienced desire at all, he just didn’t want anything unnecessary clouding his mindset and getting in the way of his goals. Naruto did nothing but go on and on about his feelings for Sakura. Of course Sasuke felt for her too, but only as a member of his team and a friend, and he had to admit that although she was annoying and an airhead she was still important to him and it was his duty as her team-mate to protect her. If anything, the more Naruto pined for her, the more it convinced Sasuke that giving into such emotions would only get in the way of clear judgement. Fortunately there was no-one in his own class that he felt any attraction to; he had become annoyed very quickly by their gossiping and squabbling over him and branded them all ‘completely immature’. Life had been hard for him, he’d had to grow up fast and such childishness grated on his sensibilities. When had had let his mind wander on occasion and he had thought about a particular girl or woman with what he presumed was desire, it had always been someone older than himself, who looked like they could hold their own in danger. The last thing Sasuke wanted was baggage. His own needs came first.

What it came down to was that Sasuke had never been interested in trying to strike up anything other than a working relationship with a girl, and hence, he had no experience of such personal matters. Always a lone, distant and somewhat intimidating figure in his peer group, no-one even dared to rib him about his disinterest, so he was free to make his studies his sole concern. Other boys he knew in Konoha from the academic schools bragged about the extent of their activities, but with the ninja academy pupils in general it was far more rare. Protecting the village was paramount, marriage and raising a family secondary to that.

He pulled back the sheets on the bed and climbed under them, curling himself into a ball and trying to warm the chill metal of the manacles so cold against his skin. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions and the rather intimate touch on his leg hadn’t meant what he had interpreted it as. Holding onto that thought, he drifted into a troubled sleep.

The very fact that Kabuto was lying alongside Orochimaru running a slow wet trail up the length of his master’s arousal with his tongue, and then taking it slowly and sensually into his mouth, told him all he needed to know about the outcome of the sannin’s proposal to the young Uchiha. As Kabuto pleasured him, Orchimaru ran his fingers absently through the long silver strands of his hair, freed from the usual ponytail.

“It was to be expected” he mused out loud to no-one in particular. “If he had complied straight away I suppose I might even have been disappointed. That proud and arrogant Uchiha spirit has not been crushed yet, regardless of everything he has been through. Such remarkable strength of character”.

Kabuto continued his ministrations diligently, trying not to let Orochimaru’s preoccupation get to him.

“He rails against all that is wrong with his world. So alive with emotion. I can see his anger, his pain, his sadness, his determination, all burning within. Such an extraordinary counterpart to the impenetrable ice of his brother’s soul.”

Thinking about Itachi again. Well, at least that went to show that Orochimaru did not get every boy he had set his heart on. And despite the circumstances, Sasuke may still choose to reject him.

Kabuto drew back for a moment to speak. “He does not know yet what an honour it is to serve under you, Orochimaru-sama”.

Orochimaru smiled at this and pulled Kabuto closer to him, but his mind soon wandered again. He let his eyes slip shut as he remembered one of the last occasions he had seen his precious new apprentice, when he had disguised himself and watched the semi-finals of the Konoha Chuunin exam, eager to see how the boy was reacting to his recent gift of the cursed seal. How he had laughed and goaded Kakashi as he had tried desperately to hold back its influence on Sasuke with a counter seal that was to be completely ineffective, exactly as the sannin had said at the time. As Kakashi tensely faced Orochimaru, putting himself bodily between the threat and his unconscious student lying vulnerably behind him, the Sound leader had gazed languidly at the prone body before him. Stripped to just his shorts and crumpled where he had fallen faint from the effects of the jutsu; the candlelight on his bare shoulders, the curve of his back, the dim blue-black sheen of his hair and that ever so slightly agonized expression, retained by his sleeping features from the sudden pain and shock…

Fingers firmly entwined in his servant’s hair, Orochimaru gave a low groan as he felt his frustration leave him. For now.