[Naruto] Consumption-- Kabuto/Orochimaru
Title: Consumption
Pairing: Kabuto/Orochimaru, minor Orochimaru/Sasuke
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Moderate gore, subtle spoilers for recent manga chapters.
Word count: 687
A/N: Pre-timeskip-post-Tsunade recovery arc.
This is my springkink fic, being posted early because this was my last day off before its due and I'm paranoid about my computer dying and eating it. The prompt was Flaying - ‘testing the limits of loyalty, if not love’
There was little talk of what had passed before.
They rarely spoke of Konoha or Akatsuki, choosing only to refer to moments crumbling apart like ancient snapshots in the most oblique words, sliding past one another snide side references obscure enough to mean everything or nothing.
The past was personal, and that which was personal cut too deep.
There was no reason to undermine the potential they had now.
They didn’t discuss the scorned Scorpion they’d both spurned and only in passing mentioned the elder Uchiha-like flame and shadow, so desirable and so untouchable, so utterly powerful and destructive.
There were precious few words spoken about the future.
Orochimaru counted down the days-the hours, the seconds- to his next rebirth.
There were no clocks in Sound.
Time was measured out in heartbeats and breaths, in the graceful tempo of life itself, and in wicked desire for more and more and more of it, as though life was a commodity to be hoarded.
Sasuke-kun will be here soon.
Kabuto felt his stomach roll over sickening at the strange, whining note dragging its underbelly through Orochimaru’s voice.
His master wanted and wanted and wanted and feeding the monster was a full-time chore which had become nigh-on impossible since the failed coup in Konoha.
There was blood spattered down the corridor from the slick-tiled shower to the bedroom and Kabuto was too empty- gutted of self and selfishness-for his hands to shake when he carefully rewrapped the dark rotted flesh of Orochimaru’s arms in soft, clean linen bandages.
Take me, he said.
Weeks previous, Kabuto had scraped the gangrenous meat jelly from Orochimaru’s arms and then flayed the healthy flesh from his own in a wretched and ultimately unsuccessful attempt at a transplant to buy more time.
Orochimaru had screamed until his throat was raw, long hair plastered in dark ribbons to sweat-drenched, fever-pale skin, and that noise was Kabuto’s entire world for an eternity; his fingers slipped in cold blood and shredded dead skin and he had to nudge his glasses higher with his shoulder to see more clearly where the tip of his scalpel disappeared into flesh.
He’d pulled the living skin and muscle from his own forearms then-left first, a break to heal, and then the right, a break to heal, and he’d thought he’d break from the agony so breath-stealingly intense that even his own schizophrenically disassociated mind couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t swallow it whole or rationalize it, but there were jeweled serpentine eyes watching him and without this pain, without this presence, he was nothing, nothing at all, and self-inflicted torture was infinitely more preferable to nonexistence.
He’d kept cutting through tendon and sinew, right down to the bone, and then bonded their flesh together, interweaving cells and chakra in a complicated pattern until he was beyond exhausted, and when he fainted his head was cradled in Orochimaru’s lap.
But Orochimaru’s affliction wasn’t a physical infection, but a spiritual curse, and nothing Kabuto could do changed the final outcome of Sarutobi’s sacrifice for more than an hour.
Take me, he said again, canting his head to look up at his master, the shimmer of candlelight skittering over the lenses of his glasses.
The yearning desire that uncurled in his lower belly and stretched its long claws into heart and soul was a starved beast; Kabuto understood his master’s monstrous hunger intimately, the emptiness within that sucked everything into itself and still was not satisfied.
Orochimaru caught his breath sharp between predator’s teeth, but his attention was turned inward, silent and seething, waiting, waiting, waiting…
Sasuke-kun will be here soon. Everything hinges on that boy!
They never talked about what the future would bring after Orochimaru ran Uchiha Sasuke’s beautiful, bloodline-limited body into the ground; they never talked about it, but there would be another...
There would have to be another after that.
And then another.
And another.
And another.
Kabuto rose gracefully to his feet, counting down the pause before he responded with his own heartbeat.
Rebirth was as eventual as death itself.
Yes, sir. I will make the necessary preparations.
Pairing: Kabuto/Orochimaru, minor Orochimaru/Sasuke
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Moderate gore, subtle spoilers for recent manga chapters.
Word count: 687
A/N: Pre-timeskip-post-Tsunade recovery arc.
This is my springkink fic, being posted early because this was my last day off before its due and I'm paranoid about my computer dying and eating it. The prompt was Flaying - ‘testing the limits of loyalty, if not love’
There was little talk of what had passed before.
They rarely spoke of Konoha or Akatsuki, choosing only to refer to moments crumbling apart like ancient snapshots in the most oblique words, sliding past one another snide side references obscure enough to mean everything or nothing.
The past was personal, and that which was personal cut too deep.
There was no reason to undermine the potential they had now.
They didn’t discuss the scorned Scorpion they’d both spurned and only in passing mentioned the elder Uchiha-like flame and shadow, so desirable and so untouchable, so utterly powerful and destructive.
There were precious few words spoken about the future.
Orochimaru counted down the days-the hours, the seconds- to his next rebirth.
There were no clocks in Sound.
Time was measured out in heartbeats and breaths, in the graceful tempo of life itself, and in wicked desire for more and more and more of it, as though life was a commodity to be hoarded.
Sasuke-kun will be here soon.
Kabuto felt his stomach roll over sickening at the strange, whining note dragging its underbelly through Orochimaru’s voice.
His master wanted and wanted and wanted and feeding the monster was a full-time chore which had become nigh-on impossible since the failed coup in Konoha.
There was blood spattered down the corridor from the slick-tiled shower to the bedroom and Kabuto was too empty- gutted of self and selfishness-for his hands to shake when he carefully rewrapped the dark rotted flesh of Orochimaru’s arms in soft, clean linen bandages.
Take me, he said.
Weeks previous, Kabuto had scraped the gangrenous meat jelly from Orochimaru’s arms and then flayed the healthy flesh from his own in a wretched and ultimately unsuccessful attempt at a transplant to buy more time.
Orochimaru had screamed until his throat was raw, long hair plastered in dark ribbons to sweat-drenched, fever-pale skin, and that noise was Kabuto’s entire world for an eternity; his fingers slipped in cold blood and shredded dead skin and he had to nudge his glasses higher with his shoulder to see more clearly where the tip of his scalpel disappeared into flesh.
He’d pulled the living skin and muscle from his own forearms then-left first, a break to heal, and then the right, a break to heal, and he’d thought he’d break from the agony so breath-stealingly intense that even his own schizophrenically disassociated mind couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t swallow it whole or rationalize it, but there were jeweled serpentine eyes watching him and without this pain, without this presence, he was nothing, nothing at all, and self-inflicted torture was infinitely more preferable to nonexistence.
He’d kept cutting through tendon and sinew, right down to the bone, and then bonded their flesh together, interweaving cells and chakra in a complicated pattern until he was beyond exhausted, and when he fainted his head was cradled in Orochimaru’s lap.
But Orochimaru’s affliction wasn’t a physical infection, but a spiritual curse, and nothing Kabuto could do changed the final outcome of Sarutobi’s sacrifice for more than an hour.
Take me, he said again, canting his head to look up at his master, the shimmer of candlelight skittering over the lenses of his glasses.
The yearning desire that uncurled in his lower belly and stretched its long claws into heart and soul was a starved beast; Kabuto understood his master’s monstrous hunger intimately, the emptiness within that sucked everything into itself and still was not satisfied.
Orochimaru caught his breath sharp between predator’s teeth, but his attention was turned inward, silent and seething, waiting, waiting, waiting…
Sasuke-kun will be here soon. Everything hinges on that boy!
They never talked about what the future would bring after Orochimaru ran Uchiha Sasuke’s beautiful, bloodline-limited body into the ground; they never talked about it, but there would be another...
There would have to be another after that.
And then another.
And another.
And another.
Kabuto rose gracefully to his feet, counting down the pause before he responded with his own heartbeat.
Rebirth was as eventual as death itself.
Yes, sir. I will make the necessary preparations.