"And where do you think you're going?" asked Kabuto.
"I'm going out. You're not my mother." Sasuke tromped down the stone stairs in his muddy boots, marching huffily towards the exit.
"Wait just a minute, Sasuke-kun, I have strict orders from Orochimaru to not let you--"
"Fuck Orochimaru, I'm bored!" The Uchiha turned on his heel to face Kabuto. "All we do around here anyway is just train; it gets really boring after a while!"
"Cabin fever, eh, Sasuke-kun?" The white-haired man leered. "Well that's too bad, now isn't it? But the problem with that is that you're still not allowed to leave! You'll get used to it soon anyway. Give it time." Kabuto waved his hand absently at Sasuke, who grimaced.
Biting his lip, Sasuke turned and made a dash for the exit, or at least the direction he thought the exit was in. and Kabuto, having expected as much from him, boosted his running speed with chakra and easily caught up to him. With a scrnch sound, the sedative Kabuto had injected into Sasuke via stabbing him in the side with a needle took effect and Sasuke crumpled to the floor. Kabuto dusted off his hands in a very self-satisfied way and hefted the unconscious Sasuke onto his shoulder.
---
With a sigh, Sakon reached out to take the sleeping Uchiha. He had been charged with babysitting duty by an exhausted Kabuto, and was to stay with him, in the prodigy's room, until he came to. How he hated dealing with the bitchy prick; he would never say anything, and if he did, it was always something that one of them did wrong. However, if it was what Orochimaru-sama wanted, he'd do it, and well.
Somehow he managed to locate the Uchiha's quarters, and get inside without too much damage to the doorframe to dump the sleeping man unceremoniously on his unmade bed. Sakon sat down to wait on the desk opposite where his charge was sleeping off the drugs.
Now that he thought about it, Sasuke didn't really look all that threatening. All he had been doing was just growling and glaring all the time; it had left him with dark circles under his eyes and a constantly pained expression that would usually denote either dissatisfaction or constipation. But now that he was asleep he looked positively peaceful, happy, even. Who knew; maybe he had a secret stash of chocolate or something.
Mm, chocolate, thought Ukon sleepily.
---
Tayuya detested squirrels, so she had killed this one right away. However, she was collecting teeth, so she sat down with it, ripped off its head, and proceeded to try and pull its teeth.
Later, she supposed, she would have to wash her shirt. But that could wait. I mean, just look at the chompers on that thing! Maybe I can make a knife out of them.
---
Was Sasuke the sort of person who liked milk, or the sort who hated it with all their might? He could easily imagine him flying into a rage over milk, but then again he could see him just as easily loving it and acting angry anyway just to keep up impressions. Maybe he could convince Kabuto to make him drink it; milk was apparently very good for you. Just look at Kimimaro! …Well, maybe that wasn't the best comparison (terminal disease and all that) but you get the idea. Then they would know for sure whether the Uchiha preferred milk... or no milk…
Sakon sighed.
This was getting him nowhere.
---
Somewhere deep in the base, Kabuto was cleaning up after Orochimaru. He had made a total mess of the test subject and hadn't bothered to clean off any of the tools, so with a long-suffering sigh, he gathered ip the scalpels and the bone saw and lugged them over to the sink.
---
Glancing at the bed, he could tell that his charge was still fast asleep, and likely would be for several hours, so with another sigh of resignation, Sakon surrendered to the random thoughts floating tantalizingly through his mind. (And Ukon's, for that matter.)
Did the Uchiha dream in color, or in black-and-white? He himself never remembered too much about his dreams anyway, so he wasn't sure, but he still wondered. Sakon figured he couldn't exactly ask him this sort of thing; it would be beyond ridiculous. Maybe he would even get ridiculed by Tayuya for having a 'boyfriend' because that just happened to be the sort of thing one would ask one's significant other. ...Not that he would know, anyway.
---
Jirobo twitched uncontrollably. He was going into hypoglycemic shock again! Damn.
He fished around jerkily in his kunai pouch for the wrapped syringe with the insulin in it, and noted it was the last one. He'd have to pinch a refill from the labs, he mused as he stabbed himself with the needle and pushed all of the clear fluid out.
---
He remembered, for no particular reason, how he was deathly afraid of jellyfish. There was absolutely no explanation for this, and yet just the thought of it made him shiver a bit. They were just so… squishy… and from his experience, things that were squishy usually weren't very dangerous, so it was particularly frightening to him. Ukon, however, knew nothing about this, for which he was eternally grateful. He'd never hear the end of it if he did. Ukon liked to talk, and a lot, so whatever you told him you could be sure everyone else would soon know. He would like talking, if he weren't the dominant brother; whenever he got a chance he would talk his freaking head off. If he were him.
Speaking of which, he had no idea what Ukon usually did while he was asleep. Was he just pretending? Did he dream? Did he research things? Did he sing '99 bottles of beer on the wall' in his head until he went absolutely bonkers at himself for singing such an annoying and insistent song? It wasn't as if he could wake him right up and ask him. Ukon didn't like being woken up, for whatever reason. Maybe whatever it was he did was so interesting that he despised leaving it for even one second. From his experience, when just awakened, Ukon tended to be a bit brash and yell a lot, so it was to his own advantage that he only really woke his brother up when it was time to go into battle or he needed two people for a jutsu.
---
Kidomaru growled unhappily. There was a knot in one of his webs. "Stupid thing," he growled, hacking at it desperately with all six arms.
---
He had never quite understood the relationship between Ukon and Tayuya. When his brother was awake, Tayuya tended to be almost nice, presenting a front most of them never saw. She still swore like a drunken sailor, but at least she wasn't quite as insulting as she usually was. Was it possible that she had a crush on Ukon? Sakon couldn't possibly imagine why; he looked exactly the same as Ukon and yet tended to scare people off more than his older brother did. Maybe Ukon had never learned the uses of being scary.
Sasuke was dreaming.
"Sasuke-kun!"
"Oi, teme! Wait up!"
"Hurry up, dobe," the 11-year-old Sasuke smirked, leaping from tree to tree, not even acknowledging Sakura's presence.
Kakashi rolled his eyes.
Watching from a distance, the real Sasuke saw Team 7 speed by as if watching a movie, observing them carefully.
He blinked, and they were gone, replaced by Itachi's back, clothed in his ANBU uniform, and he was tall, so tall.
For a moment he allowed himself to miss his older brother- not the man who had killed his family, but the brother, the one who would put him to bed and take him on walks and brought home sweets for him when he returned from a mission, who shared his dango with him and poked him in the forehead and promised to tell him later.
Later, he thought, always later.
And soon there would be no later.
---
Sakon was twiddling his thumbs and was too busy watching his feet to notice the tear that slid down the side of Sasuke's face.
But it was there.