Naruto - Two Leaves, touch my scars
Kabuto and Sasuke, the difficulties of settling into a new place.
For 30_evil_deeds, and ties back to 24. foundation. This became a little series when I wasn't paying attention.
Two Leaves - touch my scars
Something Kabuto had noticed during his work as a spy was that even the most unsocial humans tended to gravitate toward the familiar in unknown or hostile situations. Orochimaru had already warned him not to fuck things up if Sasuke drifted towards him in the years he was at the Sound.
Kabuto had only nodded, and kept to himself the thought that there wouldn't be much choice in the matter since Orochimaru didn't allow his vessel be treated by any of the lesser medicnins.
Sasuke had stopped stalking people now, perhaps thinking that he had a grasp of how the Hidden Sound worked; he'd spent the last part of the month just picking fights. Kabuto had grown annoyed at having to dedicate at least an hour a day to patching people up, especially when it was meaningless. He could guess which ones would have gotten caught up by Sasuke's methods of provoking people, but roughly half would have thrown the fight, so the boy wouldn't know how strong they really were.
It was more annoying to have to track Sasuke down in order to treat him, because he would never come to the clinic regardless of whether he won or lost.
"You know, you're making a poor first impression, Sasuke-kun," he said, sitting on a step as he healed a gouge running from Sasuke's left side around to his back, while the boy stood tensely at the foot of the stairs. Kabuto made a note of how deeply the cut had run, to report it later; it was fine if people wanted to fight Sasuke seriously, since his importance wasn't supposed to be known beyond Kabuto himself, Orochimaru, and whoever else Orochimaru had trusted with the information, but the blond who'd come into his clinic earlier in the afternoon bitching about the new psychotic Leafnin had sliced too close to the kidney. Better to get rid of the risk now.
In front of him, Sasuke snorted and folded his arms. Kabuto felt a flash of anger that Sasuke didn't even bother to stay much on his guard around him, as if assuming that being important to Orochimaru meant he was important to Kabuto; but he pushed it down and kept his voice pleasant if mildly chiding when he continued.
"This is your new home," he reminded Sasuke, and felt the muscles in the boy's back jump. "You might as well try to get along with them."
Another derisive noise from Sasuke. "Like you?"
Kabuto paused to consider the meaning of that--had Sasuke managed to track him at a point when he hadn't noticed?--and then smiled.
He stood up and patted Sasuke's shoulder once; the boy flinched and jerked around to glare at him. Ignoring it, Kabuto said congenially, "When you have a useful skill, instead of just more power, then you can get away with what I do."
He tugged down the torn edge of Sasuke's shirt before the boy could knock his hand away, and headed back up the stairs.
Kabuto caught the kunai Sasuke threw at his head without looking behind him, and tucked it into his belt as he called back a request that Sasuke please not pull the muscles in his side for another five minutes.
Those despised traces of home in your face.
For 30_evil_deeds, and ties back to 24. foundation. This became a little series when I wasn't paying attention.
Two Leaves - touch my scars
Something Kabuto had noticed during his work as a spy was that even the most unsocial humans tended to gravitate toward the familiar in unknown or hostile situations. Orochimaru had already warned him not to fuck things up if Sasuke drifted towards him in the years he was at the Sound.
Kabuto had only nodded, and kept to himself the thought that there wouldn't be much choice in the matter since Orochimaru didn't allow his vessel be treated by any of the lesser medicnins.
Sasuke had stopped stalking people now, perhaps thinking that he had a grasp of how the Hidden Sound worked; he'd spent the last part of the month just picking fights. Kabuto had grown annoyed at having to dedicate at least an hour a day to patching people up, especially when it was meaningless. He could guess which ones would have gotten caught up by Sasuke's methods of provoking people, but roughly half would have thrown the fight, so the boy wouldn't know how strong they really were.
It was more annoying to have to track Sasuke down in order to treat him, because he would never come to the clinic regardless of whether he won or lost.
"You know, you're making a poor first impression, Sasuke-kun," he said, sitting on a step as he healed a gouge running from Sasuke's left side around to his back, while the boy stood tensely at the foot of the stairs. Kabuto made a note of how deeply the cut had run, to report it later; it was fine if people wanted to fight Sasuke seriously, since his importance wasn't supposed to be known beyond Kabuto himself, Orochimaru, and whoever else Orochimaru had trusted with the information, but the blond who'd come into his clinic earlier in the afternoon bitching about the new psychotic Leafnin had sliced too close to the kidney. Better to get rid of the risk now.
In front of him, Sasuke snorted and folded his arms. Kabuto felt a flash of anger that Sasuke didn't even bother to stay much on his guard around him, as if assuming that being important to Orochimaru meant he was important to Kabuto; but he pushed it down and kept his voice pleasant if mildly chiding when he continued.
"This is your new home," he reminded Sasuke, and felt the muscles in the boy's back jump. "You might as well try to get along with them."
Another derisive noise from Sasuke. "Like you?"
Kabuto paused to consider the meaning of that--had Sasuke managed to track him at a point when he hadn't noticed?--and then smiled.
He stood up and patted Sasuke's shoulder once; the boy flinched and jerked around to glare at him. Ignoring it, Kabuto said congenially, "When you have a useful skill, instead of just more power, then you can get away with what I do."
He tugged down the torn edge of Sasuke's shirt before the boy could knock his hand away, and headed back up the stairs.
Kabuto caught the kunai Sasuke threw at his head without looking behind him, and tucked it into his belt as he called back a request that Sasuke please not pull the muscles in his side for another five minutes.
Those despised traces of home in your face.