Midnight Philosophy
The walls were slick and cold. His hand brushed against them, trailing along their frigid surface. With a casual flick Kabuto eased his glasses further up his nose. Force of habit. The sound of Orochimaru's breathing was heavy, and a violent wheeze racked the nearby room. Too dark. The room was too dark, and too…too dry.
Kabuto's teeth clamped and shook as another muffled moan of pain rose from the dark. "Orochimaru-sama. You called me." Everything was empty, and hollow. The hallway, the air, the walls. His heart.
His heart would beat when it was allowed to beat, and shut down when it was told to shut down. Kabuto had liked that cat. The days of feeding it and letting it purr into his lap had slowly made him protective of the ailing creature. But Orochimaru had needed it for Kabuto's experiments. Blood dripped from his fingers; guts trailed across the operating table. But he didn't look at the cat as a cat anymore. He had sliced it apart and vanquished the cup of milk from his mind. He'd have to throw it out later, because it was old.
Hot and pure and brutal, his heart beat for one person. Kabuto didn't follow ideas. Everybody had ideas, wisps, ideals which Kabuto would exploit and twirl around his finger. Ideals were stupid. They'd always be broken. People with strong values and simple hearts were so easy to manipulate and play off each other. Ideals were for people who only saw one side of things and ignored other options.
No, the world was grey, shades and shades of grey. Kabuto thought in grey, because when you thought in grey you could see into people's heads and hearts. You could take their soul and twist it, using it for your own devices. Who cared? Their ideas weren't any better or worse than your own.
Were you being manipulated when you knew you were mindlessly following? If you knew you were allowing yourself to be brainwashed, was it the same as not knowing? Kabuto didn't believe that, because he knew Orochimaru was selfish, knew he didn't care about his followers. But he followed anyway, because he didn't have a self or honor to betray. All he had left was the dull hope that somewhere in there, Orochimaru cared about him when he sent his tongue trailing down Kabuto's open neck.
Just for that dull hope, Kabuto would kill anybody Orochimaru told him to, betray anybody Orochimaru needed him to, because Kabuto thought in the harsh cries of his chest. He thought in the ache that filled him, the ache to be needed and the ache to be useful. The ache that made him wish he knew who he was so he wouldn't need to satisfy it so badly.
A hiss and a shuffle of blankets. "Come in." His master let out a tiny moan, and it rattled in Kabuto's ears. The room was too dark.
"Would you like me to turn on some lights, my lord?" Kabuto stepped inside the room, and as he grew closer to the bed a shaking figure materialized from the faceless shadows.
"No, Kabuto-kun, no." Those eyes trailed over his body, slanted and bright. "Is Sasuke-kun still coming?" The words were teetering on the edge, shaky. Kabuto could sense cracks in their foundation.
The question needed to be avoided, although Orochimaru would know the answer anyway. Sasuke was hard to persuade. Kneeling on the hard floor, Kabuto leaned his forehead into the soft edge of the bed. "Please Orochimaru-sama, as I've said before, please take my body." The words came out fiercer than he intended. The slow, soft murmur of his voice broke, and out leaked desperation. Desperation to prove that he was just as good.
He had been here all along, insanely loyal to the end. Sasuke was an interloper into Kabuto's world, somebody who shook up the natural order of things. Kabuto hated this creature that was Sasuke, because even though Kabuto thought he was unworthy, Orochimaru wanted him more. But if Orochimaru stole Sasuke's body, Kabuto would grow to love those sharingan eyes, those down-turned lips. Because that was the way things worked.
When people learned Kabuto had betrayed them, they thought him emotionless. A bastard, and a cruel one. Ironically, Kabuto accepted that with a gentle smile. Yes, he was an emotionless bastard. He could earn the trust of so many people, and even if he vaguely felt for them, he could stab them in the back in a second. He was an emotionless bastard because he let the only emotions he had control him.
He pressed his forehead deeper into the sheets as quivering fingers snaked through his hair and teased his glasses. "You know my answer to that, Kabuto. Tell me about myself. You can see into anybody, so what do you see in me?" The question was teasing, and Kabuto knew that Orochimaru was testing his response.
With a muffled sigh Kabuto reached his hand up to grasp Orochimaru's inquisitive arm, struggling to voice what he was thinking. Orochimaru was the only person he allowed into his mind. Not all of his mind, but a little bit. "I don't look inside you…because I like to pretend you are perfect." For Kabuto, a little bit was nearly everything.
Orochimaru began to chuckle, a gross sound that got caught in his throat. "You are funny, Kabuto. I'll grant you that, hmm? Tell me about people." The voice was excited, enthusiastic. He wanted to be entertained in these midnight hours.
It was going to be one of those nights. Orochimaru liked to amuse himself this way, asking Kabuto questions he found incredibly sick, and incredibly funny. He knew Kabuto's answers would be dark, and to his liking.
"There isn't much too them," Kabuto began, smiling ever so slightly as fingers eased underneath his chin and forced him to look upwards. They stroked his skin and pressed against his lips. "There are people who are one-dimensional. You look at them, and as soon as they begin to talk you know that's all that's there. They are easy to analyze, and easy to control."
"Is that so? Come here, my darling, and sit here on the bed. You can get up, you know." Orochimaru smiled, mouth curling into a smile as he stroked his follower's trembling lips.
The medic-nin slipped onto the bed, gazing into Orochimaru's face with eyes that nobody else could see. Nearly all of the veils were swept aside. Behind the many layers, behind the many veils, Kabuto revealed a scared kid. Orochimaru liked that, and Kabuto knew it.
"The second type of people are…two-dimensional. They like to hide some things but as soon as you get close to them they spill them out." He leaned down, slowly easing himself against the other man's chest. Orochimaru's heart was fluttering just a bit, and at that Kabuto's insides stirred with worry. He pressed his hand against that treasured heart, the only heart he knew he could never bleed. He would die a thousand times to protect that one black, cruel heart. "There are people who are hard to see into…it takes awhile to work your way into their brains. But it can be done. Anybody can be done, except…" Kabuto trailed off, fingers playing with the sheets.
Orochimaru's wrapped hands pushed some hair away from Kabuto's eyes and trailed down his cheek. "Except who?" A maniacal smile and another choked chuckle.
"The people you can't see into are people like me, Orochimaru-sama. Because they don't know who they are. So when you get rid of all the layers, all you find is an empty shell." Kabuto shut his eyes, listening to the soft beating of his master's chest.
The walls echoed with eerie laughter.