Reckless

Disclaimer: Don’t own Naruto.

OOC WARNING: I take a lot of liberties and make a lot of inferences based on the relatively little we know about Kabuto and Orochimaru. Please don’t flame me for giving them feelings. Evil people feel too, after all; even Dennis Nielsen loved his dog.


Kabuto returned late to Orochimaru’s compound, navigating the dark halls to avoid the
endless traps that lined the central corridor. Even weary and distracted, he had he come this route
so often that his body remembered the way without thinking.

Step left here...now right. Bow there.

He was halfway to the washroom when a massive silhouette detached itself from the
shadows and barred his way. Kabuto thought, at first, it was his lord, but the figure was taller
than Kabuto and broader by half. It could only be Jiroubou, monstrous, flame-haired Jiroubou.

“Orochimaru-sama sends his summons,” the giant grinned.

Kabuto grunted an acknowledgment. It was hardly news that Orochimaru was expecting
him. He always made report when he returned from an errand.

Kabuto moved to edge around Jiroubou but the giant wouldn’t budge to let him pass.

“Master is not pleased with you,” he told Kabuto, plainly thrilled with his news for he did
not much like the medic.

Kabuto, for his part, did not much care what Jiroubou thought of him.

Pushing roughly past his comrade, he headed again for the washroom. He’d seen no food
and less sleep in three long days of combat. He was tired. He was filthy. He reeked of sweat and
his garments were torn and covered in blood – some of it his own, most of it not. It would be
disgraceful to appear as he was before his lord.

Instead, he ran the shower, let the spray of water turn his sore muscles buttery and warm
as he leaned his forehead against the wall and shut his eyes.

He found himself contemplating Jiroubou’s warning as the water rilled down his back and
dripped – pink with blood – from the ends of silver hair. The news that he’d displeased his master
did not shock him. He rarely pleased the snake lord. The only thing that made this instance
unusual was that, for once, he knew where he had failed.

Kabuto had served Orochimaru for as long as he could remember, and from the start, he’d
understood that there were a handful of things his master would not tolerate from him, weakness
among them. Pity was weakness and he had known as much when he’d stopped to help that
woman on the road and her damn injured kid.

Kabuto sighed, disgusted with himself.

Even after all the years of training and the routinization of the whole experience of killing,
he hated senseless suffering. It did not prick his conscience in the least, all the death and
destruction he wrought in the name of Orochimaru’s dream. That, after all, was necessary. But
to let pain persist when he could stop it with so little effort...

The irony was not lost on Kabuto that he – he who had twisted his healing gift into
something martial – was plagued nonetheless by a periodic, almost-irresistible compulsion to end
misery.

Orochimaru had cautioned him many times to check his compassion. Kabuto’s casual
kindnesses were dangerous. Orochimaru had many servants and students, each of them motivated
by the same things – terror, hatred, lust for vengeance, and all of them, with the possible
exception of the insane Kimimaro, had aligned themselves with Orochimaru because his power
made their own ends possible.

The Fuuma clan was merely the latest example. They had entered Orochimaru’s circle
with the aim of restoring their clan to prominence and their late rebellion was just a manifestation
of their changing interests. Orochimaru had foreseen their disloyalty, and dispatched Kabuto to
deal with them.

Self-interested men were so easy to predict.

Kabuto’s intermittent altruism though – it troubled his lord in a way the Fuuma betrayal
did not. The boy on the road today, that Hyuuga child he’d saved on the day of the Chuunin
exams, neither had posed any danger to Orochimaru. If they had, Kabuto would’ve let them die,
might’ve helped them along.

It made the snake lord suspicious, nonetheless, the fact that something besides ambition
moved Kabuto. Pity was a impetus he did not understand, one he could not predict.

No, Kabuto had no doubt whatsoever as to the root of his lord’s rumored anger.
Orochimaru would know what he had done – he knew almost everything Kabuto did – and the
lord would punish him for it.

Dread weighted his movements as Kabuto finished washing and it plagued him still, when
dressed in fresh clothes, he returned to the deadly corridors of the snake lord’s compound.

At the entrance to Orochimaru’s private room, he didn’t knock. He didn’t have to. The
door stood open, and the renegade sannin stood before his massive desk shuffling through ancient
papers.

Kabuto waited a long time at the threshold in silence before Orochimaru acknowledged
him. Without looking up from the scroll he’d spread out on his desk, he asked “The Fuuma
rebellion?”

“It’s over,” Kabuto answered. Hard as he tried to check it, his voice sounded tired and
hoarse.

Orochimaru said no more, let the silence hang between them until Kabuto shifted uneasily.
When the snake lord turned at last to face the young man at the door, his face betrayed no feeling.

“What of that child from the road?” he asked, as if the question followed naturally.

Kabuto steeled himself for what was coming and defiantly met his lord’s eyes; if he was
going to get it anyway, no sense in deference. “The boy will live.”

“Hn. Thanks to you,” the sannin sneered.

Kabuto said nothing, his gaze locked on his lord’s. He would not flinch, not this time.

A look of annoyance flittered across the Orochimaru’s face, but he hid it at once and
beckoned to Kabuto.

“Shut the door,” he instructed.

Kabuto obeyed, but he moved cautiously. He knew better than to trust the older man’s
seeming docility. As he crossed to his master’s side, he prepared himself for sudden violence.

While Orochimaru made no move to attack, his voice, soft as always, was full of venom.

“Explain this to me,” he said. “Tell me how I can trust you, knowing as I do how prone
you are to ignore my orders in your moments of weakness?”

Kabuto ground his teeth. They’d had this conversation before, after that disastrous attack
on the Chuunin exams, about that hopeless Hyuuga girl. He was tired of explaining.

“I would never compromise your plans,” he pleaded. “I acted as I did because the boy no
threat to you.”

Orochimaru turned on Kabuto, yellow eyes eerily luminous in the low light.

“You offer me excuses for your disobedience.”

“What would you have me do?” Kabuto sighed. “Cry and beg forgiveness? You’re not
famous for mercy, and I’m not–”

Kabuto broke off, stunned.

Orochimaru had moved in his moment of distraction, an attack so fast and soundless, it
didn’t even register with Kabuto until it was over and he found himself suddenly chest to chest
with his lord. With the edge of the desk in the small of his back and something sharp, cold,
against his throat, he went limp.

And then, he heard the sannin laughing.

“What? You’re not going to fight?” the snake lord mocked, pressing the blade into
Kabuto’s flesh. “Are you so confident I won’t do it?”

Orochimaru’s breath was warm in Kabuto’s ear.

“You won’t...do anything.”

“Such confidence,” Orochimaru hissed, as he slid the kunai along the side of Kabuto’s
neck. “Too much confidence, I think, for one with so little faith in my mercy.”

Kabuto said nothing, just shut his eyes tightly as the sannin bent to kiss away the blood
he’d drawn, trailing his freakish tongue along the underside of the knife.

Knees weak, Kabuto leaned heavily on the table behind him.

Orochimaru felt him falter.

“Oh, don’t tell me your frightened?” he drawled, plainly disgusted.

Kabuto’s words were far more breathless than he liked, and full of hatred. “Your empty
threats don’t frighten me. I’m safe so long as I keep your precious Kimimaro alive.”

Orochimaru’s smile was fiendish, delighted. “Your voice. Such bitterness, Kabuto-kun. I
was not aware it hurt you still – after all this time – that I never chose you.” He leaned close so
their lips nearly met. “It’s awful, is it not? It aches in places your healing art won’t reach?”

Kabuto couldn’t speak at first. He tried and nothing came out. The sannin’s words cut
through his clothes, his skin. They rent his insides, but he swallowed his hurt and tried to sound
unphased.

“You know, I used to think your mind was too advanced for feelings, for weaknesses like
mine? Not now, though,” Kabuto said darkly. “You love. I know it. I still wonder though if
you can suffer.”

“Is that a threat?” Orochimaru’s voice had turned chilly.

Kabuto smiled. He should’ve retreated, let it go, but hurt and frustration had made him
reckless.

“I could kill your Kimimaro,” he said.

Orochimaru’s hand tightened around a fistful of Kabuto’s shirtfront. “Try it and I will
destroy you.”

“It would be worth my life to have my hands around that warm, white throat.”

Orochimaru’s hard expression faltered and it gave Kabuto no end of satisfaction in the
bare instant that passed before the floor came rushing up at him.

Orochimaru flung Kabuto aside as if he weighed nothing and before the boy could mount
some defense, he was sliding – moved by invisible hands – across the tiles. He had no time to
steel himself before he slammed hard into the wall of the sannin’s bedroom.

His glasses skittered across the floor out of reach.

Orochimaru was at his side at once, hauling him up by the back of his shirt while he was
still too dazed to stand on his own.

Breath rushed from Kabuto’s lungs as he was pushed face first into the wall.

“Still no struggle, Kabuto-kun,” the snake lord breathed in his ear.

“No, my lord.”

Orochimaru sneered. Kunai still in hand, he cut away Kabuto’s clothes; he did it
methodically, without speaking, without caring when his blade clipped Kabuto’s skin.

Kabuto did not resist. He couldn’t have overcome his lord had he tried, and while pain
was not something he enjoyed in itself, it was the price of his lord’s attention, of his touch, and he
paid it willingly.

When he stood fully naked, bleeding from many tiny cuts, and with his arms bound behind
him with the ruin of his tunic, Kabuto heard Orochimaru’s voice once more in his ear.

“My Kimimaro,” the snake lord whispered as he shrugged out of his long, white robes and
slid the tie from Kabuto’s hair. “He was better than you. You’ll never have his place.”

With that, Orochimaru yanked Kabuto off the wall, steered him to the bed and shoved him
forward onto his knees at the edge of the mattress. Half blind, with his hands tied behind him,
Kabuto overbalanced and fell prostrate.

Impatient with his clumsiness, Orochimaru caught his hips in both hands, pulled him up
and back so he was doubled over at the waist, at the edge of the bed. His legs pinned beneath
him, Kabuto had no way to fight when the lord pushed his cheeks apart and entered him in a
single cruel thrust.

Kabuto felt his body tear, but he ground his teeth against the scream that rose in his
throat, against the spectacular agony of being taken dry. His screaming would only have pleased
the sannin and Kabuto would deny the man that, the pleasure of knowing how miserable it felt, if
he denied him nothing else.

He could endure pain, he thought, longer than his lord could delay pleasure.

But then Orochimaru began to move inside him, slowly at first until the wetness that
oozed from Kabuto’s tortured hole eased the friction of his entry. Then, he came faster, thrusting
in earnest until hard as Kabuto tried to control his reaction, his body convulsed in shock and
searing pain with every stroke.

Kabuto buried his face in the blankets and wailed, fighting against his against his bonds
and against the weight of the arm pressing him into the mattress, a wild, animal struggle.

Orochimaru was merciless.

He rammed Kabuto’s torn passage, gloried in the little spasms of anguish that racked his
body and in the smothered sobs, barely audible over the sound of his own breathing.

In those few endless minutes it took the lord to bring himself off, it seemed to Kabuto that
his senses flickered in and out, as if sight and sound had been dulled entirely by the intensity of his
pain. It was only from the force of the sannin’s breathing, heavy on the back of his neck, that he
knew the lord was close.

Kabuto gasped, pulled suddenly onto his knees from behind. Orochimaru held him against
his chest, never breaking his rhythm, driving his length into the boy’s sore body as he set his teeth
against Kabuto’s shoulder. He bit down hard as he neared the edge.

Kabuto whimpered as Orochimaru drew blood, but the lord barely heard him. He didn’t
care. Kabuto’s muscles clenched around him as his body fought the pain, and in the instant his
channel grew wonderfully tighter, Orochimaru came.

Kabuto felt his lord’s orgasm in the tremors that shook his whole body. Nothing else.
The sannin made no sound, held his breath to stifle any outward expression of raw and real
feeling.

And then it was over.

Orochimaru stood before he’d even recovered his breath.

Tangling long fingers in Kabuto’s hair, he hauled the boy off the bed.

From such an awkward position, it would have been hard enough to stand had Kabuto’s
legs not gone numb.

As it was, he collapsed on the floor.

Orochimaru said nothing, waiting, watching dispassionately Kabuto’s pitiful attempts to
pick himself up. At last, he grew impatient, and dragging the boy up by an arm, he pushed
Kabuto ahead of him toward the washroom that adjoined his quarters, shoved him to his knees
beneath the shower spigot, and turned it on.

The frigid stream made Kabuto gasp, but as he glared up at his master through ropes of
sodden hair, the snake lord just smiled.

Kabuto didn’t try to stand again. He sat on his knees in the miserable cold until
Orochimaru pulled him up, soft and shivering, and pushed him chest-first against wall of the
washroom.

The water turned warm at once and Orochimaru stepped into the stream behind Kabuto to
wash away the mess between his cheeks. The older man’s unnaturally cold body was hot-feeling
after the freezing shower, and his touch, for the first time all night, was gentle as he worked two
soaped digits around and finally into Kabuto’s heat.

Orochimaru felt Kabuto relax, and he grazed the boy’s prostate just to feel him flinch.

“Maybe you want it again?” he whispered.

Kabuto shook his head. The cleansing fingers inside him, the lord’s closeness, even the
warmth of the water were sending heat straight to his groin, but Orochimaru’s sadism followed
three days of fasting and sleeplessness. His regenerative gifts were taxed to the limit and his body
was recovering slowly from the abuse. He was sore.

When Orochimaru slid a third finger into him, Kabuto squirmed against the wall, but he
didn’t protest. No amount of begging would make a difference, he knew, if the lord had decided
to take him again. He was bracing himself for the jarring first thrust when Orochimaru snickered
in his ear, withdrew his fingers, and resumed benignly soaping his skin.

Kabuto let go a breath of relief and shut his eyes.

Orochimaru gave Kabuto a long time in the warm shower – long enough to feel secure –
before he grabbed a fistful of silvery hair and shoved him again to the washroom floor.

Kabuto’s black eyes narrowed as he looked up at his master. Orochimaru stood with one
hand on the faucet. Smiling that hard, oily smile, he turned the water frigid again.

Kabuto flinched, glared.

“As if you love me less because I hurt you,” Orochimaru mocked.

Kabuto was a practiced liar. His life, his friendships, his whole personality – all lies. But
as much as he wanted to spit some curse and deny he loved his lord, he’d never been much good
at lying to Orochimaru. Of course, he’d only tried once and the memory of his master’s
retribution was enough to keep him from ever trying again.

Now, he just looked away, staring in silent irritation at the room’s far wall. Icy water
numbed him, raised goose bumps all over his skin, and killed his arousal a second time, before
finally, mercifully, Orochimaru shut off the shower.

“Get up,” the snake lord commanded.

Kabuto obeyed at length, awkward, with his hands still tied behind him.

By the time he’d climbed to his feet, Orochimaru had dried off and dressed in a fine, long,
black robe. How he managed to look so regal post-tryst, Kabuto couldn’t being to imagine. Yet
he was. All white marble skin, so pale and cold. His long, shadowy hair fell loose around his
shoulders.

Kabuto stepped forward, so close he had to tip his head back to meet his master’s eyes.

“Untie me. My arms hurt.”

Orochimaru raised one arched black eyebrow.

“Untie me,” Kabuto repeated, deleting the honorifics Orochimaru commanded.

The snake lord smiled, apparently feeling indulgent, but he left Kabuto bound, covered his
head with a towel and scrubbed at his damp hair to dry it. Kabuto was too stunned to consider
petulance. It seemed like such an affectionate gesture! If it weren’t for the ache in his knees, and
the other, more intimate soreness, he might’ve been tempted to see it that way.

Orochimaru finished his hair, left it tousled, and patted his shoulders dry.

Kabuto felt slightly ridiculous, but trussed as he was, there was little he could do but
endure the indignity of being tended like a child.

Something caught in Kabuto’s mind at that thought and lingered.

He seemed to recall, a long time ago, being a child, being cared for by...someone, but it
was a troubling, dissonant snatch of memory. He didn’t remember his mother, after all. From
early childhood on, Orochimaru had been the center of his life. The lord had been parent, master,
teacher, but he’d taught Kabuto self-sufficience early, rid him of any childish dependence. It
couldn’t have been Orochimaru responsible for the wisps of warm feeling, of nostalgia, that
tenderness roused in him.

Kabuto sighed inwardly and let it go; it was useless trying to remember. Feelings, images
of his life before plotting and lying and killing became his life...they faded away the instant they
entered his mind. If anyone had ever loved him, he didn’t recall. What seemed like vestiges of
filial attachment was nothing more extraordinary than the fact that he’d cared for that child today
and his mother.

Long years as a spy had rendered Kabuto intensely aware of his gestures, every twitch of
muscle, every dark look and near-smile. He could be anything he wished for almost anyone he
chose, but Orochimaru detected somehow the change in his mood. He must have, because he
stopped at once and tipped Kabuto’s chin up to scrutinize his face.

As Kabuto met his master’s eyes, he let his expression go slack, radiating harmlessness. It
was the face he had worn for Kakashi’s genin team, the face he wore for all of Konoha: nice, a
little simple, entirely forgettable.

Orochimaru’s smile was slow, grimly pleased.

“My deadly Kabuto,” he mused. “How neatly you lie with your eyes.”

Kabuto mirrored the lord’s hard smile, held his master’s gaze as Orochimaru combed long
fingers through his hair. For an instant, as they stared at one another, Kabuto thought he saw, in
the lord’s strange expression, something warm, almost human. It couldn’t be for him, he knew. The
lord was lost, perhaps, in his memories of dying Kimimaro.

Kabuto was still wondering at what he’d seen when Orochimaru yanked suddenly on the
ends of the towel around his neck, pulling him close. It was not to embrace him as Kabuto half
hoped. The lord did it only so he could look over Kabuto’s shoulder to free his arms. He’d no
sooner tossed the ruined scrap of fabric to the floor than he strode away across the tiles and out
the washroom door.

Kabuto stood naked in the middle of the room, suddenly cold, and watched his master go.
What were you expecting, he chided himself.

Swearing under his breath, Kabuto followed Orochimaru.

Once again in the lord’s darkened bedroom, he avoided the unmade bed for fear he might
fling himself atop the mattress and sleep for days if he tempted himself. Crossing instead to the
corner, he had just bent to gather his torn clothes, when Orochimaru appeared at his side, took
the rags from his hands and flung them to the floor.

He spoke over his shoulder as he crossed to the bed. “Sleep here.”

Kabuto stood frozen for a moment. There was nothing warm or inviting about the snake
lord’s tone. There was little if any inflection at all, but the lord had never before asked Kabuto to
stay.

“You – want me to sleep here?” Kabuto stammered. He ran a tentative hand along the
footboard, loathe to assume that staying meant sharing the lord’s bed.

“Where else would you sleep?” Orochimaru sounded impatient.

Kabuto mumbled an apology and crawled under the blankets beside his master.

When they had lain together in silence for a time, he sneaked one hand over to run his
fingers along the silk of his master’s sleeve.

Orochimaru gave him a look, half irritation and half surprise, and turned to face the wall.

Kabuto withdrew his hand, curled up as close to the lord as he could without touching,
and fell asleep.