Chapter 10: Take me

You're so cold, but you feel alive
Lay your hand on me one last time

Show me how it ends, it's alright
Show me how defenseless you really are

Breaking Benjamin - So cold

"Sasuke-kun. I'm in no mood for you right now. Why don't you go polish your mind reading abilities or your Chidori." Orochimaru, evidently testier than usual, suggested and relaxed into the huge pillow his entire back was sinking into.

His slit-pupiled eyes flashed in annoyance as I showed no sign of willingness to comply with his wish.

"I'm coming straight from the training pit."

I closed the door behind myself, noting that he was wearing that familiar mahogany shirt, and like I'd seen in my mind's eye, that he was indeed covered in sweat. The ache must have worsened critically.

Perfectly composed and unfazed by his sharp gaze, I approached his bed and, after a moment of hesitation, sat down on the edge, facing away from him for the time being.

"What do you think you're doing?" came the icy question from behind.

"Thinking."

"Do it elsewhere, I want to rest."

"No, it has to be here."

A snort, and a sardonic smirk judging from his voice.

"If you're hoping for something like the last time you skulked into my room, then-"

"No. Now, would you just be silent for a minute?"

I needed a little time to figure it out. To figure us out. If we could talk about such a thing as us at all.

Damn. My own thoughts sounded ridiculous. I flinched inwardly and admonished myself for having gotten entangled in this mess. My needs had clouded my reason and before I knew it, I was entrapped. And the worst part was, I wasn't searching for a way to escape this confinement, no, I intended to make myself at home. In the lair of the snake.

How very absurd.

My eyes found their way back to his face, and he fixed me with a glare.

Grouchy old man.

I felt laughter bubble up in me, but I squashed it, allowing but a faint smile to reach my features.

"What is with that inane smile? The Sasuke I know doesn't smile for no reason." Orochimaru rasped, scrutinizing me with unsubtle suspicion now.

"I'm not certain I'm the Sasuke you know." I answered half-seriously, and that seemed to inspire even more suspicion, as his body tensed.

I sighed in resignation, waving placatingly at him. "Cut it out, I'm not an impostor, I just meant that I haven't been myself lately."

He reclined onto the pillow, but his frown remained.

"And why is that?"

I inhaled deeply, then let the air out slowly through my mouth.

I wished I could phrase it. But the correct, accurate words eluded me.

As my eyes traveled to the blood splatters staining his chin, a sudden impulse compelled me to stand up and steered my hand to the roll of bandage set to, as always, the bedside table.

I ripped off a small rag. Settling back on the mattress, I extended my arm toward his face.

"You will stop that now, Sasuke-kun, or I'll tear your throat open." he bared his teeth at me, and deepened his frown.

"Shush."

"I will not tolerate your nursing me as though I were incapacitated."

With a violent jerk of his arm he batted my hand away.

I was a hair's breadth from punching him.

"Tsk! Just shut up for a second, idiot. You aren't incapacitated, yet you neglect yourself completely. Don't move or I'll blast your head off with a fireball."

Though he kept glaring daggers at me, he ceased squirming away and impeding my efforts, and murmured something that sounded very much like 'as if that worked against me'. I dragged the piece of cloth across his forehead first, drying off the beads of sweat there, moving down his temples to his cheeks, his neck, lifting his hair a bit to reach the nape of his neck as well. Lastly, I swiped off the blood from his chin.

It was worth it for that widely incredulous—though somewhat wary, as if I were insane—look alone.

"Now, I hope you're satisfied. Leave." he ordered quickly, eyes flickering at the door for emphasis.

I tossed the damp fabric onto the table.

"No. Scoot over."

He blinked once, disbelieving. "What?"

"Scoot over and make room for me." I repeated as I began pulling my sandals off.

"I've told you I'm in no mood to-"

"Me neither. Just do as I said." and after a beat of silence "Please."

That word seemed to shock him into mute compliance.

Crawling on top of the thin white blanket, I nestled against the sizeable pillow, beside him, shoulders almost touching but not quite, both of us facing towards the door.

And we stayed that way for who knows how many minutes, neither of us willing to break the silence that stretched on after my admittedly awkward suggestion.

It was a kind of test. Whether I could stay in the same area with him without wanting to throttle him for his arrogance and ill-temper. And...in all seriousness, whether I was able to forgo killing him, a potential threat to my life, my future and, most importantly, my revenge.

You and Orochimaru-sama...are quite similar. Kabuto had noted, and he was right. I was as much a threat to him, as he was to me. If I danced back now and denied him my body, he would die. Or rather, he'd attempt to take it by force.

And I had absolutely no intention of yielding my body.

That train of thought led to only one possible solution. A fight to the death.

But...

And there was that damned but again. However, at long last it dawned on me that if I decided to slay him, I'd bereave myself of the one and only person who understood the blackness in my heart, and didn't feel a compulsive need to cleanse and fill it with something else.

Each look Sakura had ever given me demanded the recognition of her feelings, she wanted me to care; all Naruto was talking about since learning of my departure from Konoha was friendship, kinship, loyalty even. That I couldn't give these to them, they refused to accept.

Orochimaru, he'd never sought anything from me. Not in this sense. And I couldn't say he was unconcerned about me either. I had observed his many, many thoughts about me, thoughts that were beyond reason for someone whose sole intention was to make use of my body, extinguishing my existence in the process.

His soul was equally scarred, equally devoid of concern for what constituted morality and immorality; he was regarding and categorizing everything according to the same basic dichotomy as I was: benefit and hindrance.

It was undeniable, our likemindedness. Didn't that signify that we were meant to be companions?

I stared at the door for so long I could barely suppress a flinch as it suddenly opened.

"I am back." Kabuto entered carrying his customary tray. As though it didn't particularly surprise him to find me there, no sooner did he take in the sight of me sitting next to his master, than he came stomping forward, his usual composure lost, and only catching the bottle of medicine before it dropped and smashed to pieces on the floor by a hair's breadth.

"Sasuke-kun! Orochimaru-sama requires rest, please don't get in the way, let me give him the medication and leave him in peace!"

To my surprise, Orochimaru was fast to answer, chuckling heartily at his favored medical ninja. "It's alright, Kabuto. He can stay."

"But Orochimaru-sama! It would be unwise now to excite yourself. Your body is getting less and less steady and to subject it to any great... exertion could-"

It was rather amusing to watch his face go ruddy as, probably, unwelcome images popped into his head, but sadly, Orochimaru cut in.

"Does it look like Sasuke-kun is exciting me right now?" he purred.

I let out a snort-like laughter.

Kabuto, too embarrassed to continue insisting, simply handed him the glass of—this time dark red—liquid, and after taking the empty cup, hurried out of the room.

"That was amusing." I commented, snuggling more comfortably into the pillow.

The immortal shinobi merely hummed in reply.

I absorbed myself in my musings again.

It was an uneasy feeling in my gut that roused me. Where was I? Right, I must have fallen asleep in Orochimaru's room.

What was happening? Was there an enemy nearby? What was this thick, sick intent to hurt?

My eyes flew open. No one was in the room but Orochimaru and me.

It was him who was... peering at me in a peculiar way.

Starving.

"What is it?" I asked raising an eyebrow, and carefully tried to inch away from him, closer to my Kusanagi no tsurugi tilted against the side of the bed.

He compressed his lips into a manic grin.

"I shall take your body now!"

Fast. He pounced at me before my fingers could curl around the hilt of the sword, and we both plummeted to the floor, him on top of me, Kusanagi no tsurugi pushed out of reach from the impetus.

While I gasped for oxygen, the rough landing and his weight on me knocking all air out of my lungs, the snakes he summoned with his lightning-quick Sen'ei jashu coiled themselves around my arms and throat. He straddled me on the hips and ensured I couldn't move.

"Wait...!" I wheezed, wriggling frantically in his clutches.

"No, I have waited for far too long already! I'll have your Sharingan now!" he snarled into my face, bowing close, very close, leaning on his arms propped next to my head.

"You know it as well as I do you don't want me gone!"

His mouth was gaping in a rictus, resembling, now more than ever, a vicious serpent that is about to strike. "You think I'd give up my life's goal, your beautiful eyes in exchange for you?"

He struck me across the face with the back of his free hand.

"You think I feel affection for you? That I might love you because I've made you mine?"

He threw his head back in a boisterous laughter at the very idea.

Was it just me, or did he actually sound atypically defensive just now? It would appear I hadn't been the only one doing some thinking of my own.

"Certainly not. You are incapable of love, Orochimaru." I sneered, licking the blood off my lower lip—why do I always end up bleeding when we come to be this close to each other?

He can't stop hurting me and I can't stop hurting him.

"However, you are feeling alone. I saw it, felt it. You try to repress it, to banish it to the recesses of your mind, but it is there, a dull ache."

Slowly, he shut his mouth and shrugged his shoulder as if to say 'so what'.

"And I ease that tenacious feeling. Right? It scares you. You have been feeling that prickling emptiness for so long, its lack is too alien, too hard to handle, to accept."

Tasting what it would be like without the sun's glare.

Daring to envision hiding its orb forever.

"That's why you came up so unexpectedly with this assault. You want to sunder this bond before it grows any stronger. Because it would make you vulnerable and would definitely hinder your way to mastering all ninjutsu."

A wide array of emotions wafted across his face as I was analyzing him. Fury, surprise, daze, resentment, indignation. All the while his body was frozen in indecision.

"But you are already wavering... It confirms what I'm saying." I softened my tone a shade, even as my own words sounded strangely foreign to me. "Orochimaru, it doesn't have to be like this."

"Foolish kid!" he spat, the snakes' hold tightening simultaneously "It is a small price to pay. I would rather spend an eternity alone but more powerful than a god, than a short, average life where I have someone who can ease the solitude."

Even through my constricted windpipe, I managed to squeeze out a feeble chuckle.

"I didn't...expect anything less...from you. Fortunately...I know a solution."

The snakes allowed some air, which I avidly took advantage of.

"What? What could you possibly offer?" Orochimaru asked, voice thick with disbelief.

I smirked, through some exertion.

"My brother."

A stunned silence ensued. The immortal shinobi gaped at me, dumbfounded.

"How? I thought you meant to kill him." he asked at last, fixing me with a searching gaze.

"I've reconsidered." I answered simply, licking at the blood that had gathered in the small dip below my lips. "Defeating him and handing his body over to you will satisfy me just as well. It may be relatively more difficult to win without killing him, but I believe I can do it."

"Are you...serious?" he arched a brow quizzically.

I released a pained sigh. "I am. Now, would you remove yourself and your snakes from me?"

Lingering for another, eternally long moment, he complied and stood up.

I gently massaged my sore neck, noting that I was almost certainly going to have ugly purple bruises the following day. When I finally got to my feet, our eyes met again.

"Have your men search for Itachi! You won't last much longer in that body."

"Don't order me about!" he barked, riled up no doubt that he'd decided to take a risk.

Nonetheless, he strode out of the room, growling a chilly 'wait here' at me. I occupied my spot on the edge of the bed once more.

Despite the unforeseen vehemence of the last minutes, I felt composed and sure in the knowledge that I'd accomplished what I wanted. Then again, I didn't delude myself into thinking that everything was solved. I couldn't be certain Orochimaru wouldn't try to take over my body at one point, once his patience runs thin. My instincts warned me to be on my guard.

When the immortal shinobi returned, he lingered at the door irresolutely, taking a few steps toward me then halting.

This was new. For both of us.

Still without much conviction, he slinked closer to me, coming to a stop before my sitting form.

He crouched down and put his hands lightly on my knees.

"Your Sharingan." he muttered in command.

I activated them, intuitively understanding what he wished.

"Your eyes haunt me. Their power is so astonishing, so sweet, I've put aside everything in order to find a way to obtain them. Ever since I witnessed what it makes your brother capable of, it has been calling to me, mocking me with how close it was, yet impossibly out of my reach. Each time I look at you, I want to rob you of it, to rip it out for myself...can you feel how tremendously I hunger for it?"

I felt it.

His fingers flexed convulsively around my knees, eyes emblazed as he riveted his gaze on me.

"However...sometimes...when I'm at my weakest, I feel that this terrible covetousness pales in comparison to how I long to have you for myself."

His pallid hands slid up my thighs, and just like that, my blood began to race. Was it his arousal or my own? Impossible to tell.

"Not just your body, no. If only it were that simple! I want to have you, from the most trivial fragments of your existence to the most extreme manifestations of your passion. Everything from the rare sparks of joy to the last smoldering embers of hatred. From your smile to your cold curses, everything. I want your everything. To myself."

Words that Orochimaru would never say out loud. Words he nonetheless allowed me to hear. Each one engraved itself into my mind like a charm, my heart pounding faster concurrently.

For the fraction of a second, I saw us from the outside. Two men, unmoving, unspeaking, transfixed by some sort of an enigmatic spell, gazing at one another and breathing heavier and heavier.

Almost comical.

"When I choose to indulge my own mindlessness, I imagine abandoning my plans altogether, settling for something inferior to keep you. Can you comprehend how absurd that is to me? How horribly it maddens me?"

I felt the spikes of his vexation lashing at himself mercilessly, lulling into reluctant submission as the urges spiraled out of control, only for his ire to flame up with twice the vigor.

"Yes…" I breathed, even though he wasn't expecting a reply.

His fingers inched further, thumbs digging into the grooves of my hiplines through my pants. I bit back a groan and willed him to venture even further and untie my obi. My own hands clawing creases into the sheet, I edged closer to him.

The wild mixture of his red hot anger and lust had an inebriating effect on me. His inner battle, the feral clash between two opposing and mutually exclusive desires enthralled me to the point I couldn't distinguish what was his and what was mine. His turmoil became mine.

For him, to take my body or keep me. For me, to kill Orochimaru—who has outlived his usefulness to me, and was rationally no more than a burden with the distraction and threat he posed—or keep him. Wasn't it all the same in the end?

Come on, try and make me yours again like you boasted you'd done so before.

How intriguing. Whatever we were outside the privacy of the bedroom, it became utterly irrelevant, because in here, he ached to possess and I to be possessed.

But he wouldn't move. Was he expecting me to…? His thoughts weren't coherent anymore, he left me clueless.

Bastard.

I leaned in and smashed my lips against his, forgetting about the wound he'd split on my lower lip. I winced from the sudden pain, but it quickly waned, insignificant, as he responded instantly and with a passion that equaled mine. After the initial brutality, I drew back a little, allowing our hot, rapid breaths to mingle between us, and I tongued his lips, his jaw, the length of his neck.

He wedged himself in between my legs as tightly as he could in a kneeling position, and snaked one arm around the small of my back, while the other tangled itself in my hair, pulling and guiding my mouth on his flushed skin.

Because it wasn't so deathly pale anymore.

When he grew impatient with my tender treatment, he yanked my head back and descended on my lips roughly, plunging his tongue in and licking the roof of my mouth with greed.

Fuck me I wanted to growl, not feeling ashamed at the blatant vulgarity of it because that's what I was itching for, so hard I was unable to contain the shivers that ran down my whole body.

Was this my arousal or had his seeped into me through his eyes? I didn't care. The two were one and the same.

His lower hand, after loosening my obi, found its way under my shirt, roaming over the expanse of my back as he pulled me flush against him.

I moaned, quite obscenely and loudly, into his mouth in sheer abandon.

His hold around me tensed into a clutch, and, releasing my hair to support himself on one arm, he began to push me onto the bed. Crawling backwards in haste, I grabbed the hem of his shirt and tugged it off, ignoring his annoyed grunt for having to let go of me.

We landed in a squirming heap, his lips seeking mine at once, hands wresting my shoulders free of clothing. His mouth then slithered to my chest, leaving a wet streak on its way and he bit hard into my flesh.

I caught a fistful of his hair and jerked his head back to meet his eyes.

"You won't escape me now." his gaze, as well as his thoughts assured me, and I was overrun by an irresistible need to laugh.

To escape? Nothing was further from my mind that moment.

My glee evaporated immediately as Orochimaru was abruptly caught in a fit of nasty coughs, blood oozing from between his fingers as he covered his mouth.

His body was at its limit, as I'd conveniently forgotten.

While he was violently gasping for air, I seized him by the arms, and carefully but decisively switched our positions.

His eyes flickered to me in question, and I slanted a smile at him.

We were far too gone, far too submerged in this heady insanity to stop now. The most I could do was ensure he stayed put.

I hooked my index fingers into the hem of his pants and started to pull slowly, savoring the thunderstruck expression on his face as it dawned on him what I was planning.

When he lay spread out and naked in front of me, I leaped at him without hesitation, tracing the curves, dips and bulges of his slender physique with my tongue, taking pleasure in the strong salty taste of his soft skin. The only indication I received that he was enjoying himself was the haphazard alternation of rapid and drawn-out, shallow and deep in his breathing.

As I arrived to his crotch, I only lingered for a split second to tease him with the whisper of a touch on the flushed, glistening tip of his rigid cock, earning a strangulated gasp, then continued down to his inner thighs.

If his restless fidgeting was anything to go by, I was torturing him with success. Moving upwards on his sensitive skin, licking each time an inch higher, but falling ruthlessly back to the starting point at every turn.

By the time I was passing my tongue along his entire length, hovering inches over the velvety knob of the head, he'd had his legs wrapped around the small of my back, pulling me forcibly closer.

"Sasuke..." he hissed through gritted teeth.

Surprised he dropped the usual suffix from my name, I took mercy on him and sucked him into my mouth fully, wrapping one hand around the base.

That soundless shudder—as though it was drawn from his very core—spurred me to quit my former cruelty and move in fast, hard strokes, bobbing my head in conjunction with the movements of my right hand. My other hand found purchase on his protruding hipbone.

My thoughts wandered.

This was another man's body in the disguise of Orochimaru's appearance.

To my own amazement, I found that I didn't give a shit about that. As long as it was him in it, his soul.

Was the nature of his body negligible to me then?

No… it wasn't. I wanted his lean form, his impossibly white skin, his long raven hair, his face, his characteristic snake-eyes, his bloodless lips and thick tongue.

It did matter then, didn't it. But to what degree? If he were in a woman's body, would I lust for him this much?

Maybe. But to be honest, I couldn't imagine it. Virility, after all, was an inseparable part of Orochimaru.

I continued my ministrations with contemplative thoughts whirling wildly in my head, pleased to no end, at the same time, whenever I felt his muscles twitch under my free hand which I roamed over his hips, abdomen and thighs.

Naturally, I'd never done this before. It was pure instinct that guided my movements, stroking, licking and sucking intuitively, following my vague ideas of what would most likely make my own self feel good.

I payed attention not to graze his sensitive skin with my teeth, although I had absolutely no idea if that would hurt or perhaps thrill him even more, tolerant as he was to pain. Nevertheless, I decided I'd find out if he had any masochistic tendencies another time.

When I sensed he was close, I picked up the speed of my synchronously moving hand and mouth, tightening my lips around him as much as I could, while pointedly ignoring the twinging sensation this rather unfamiliar contraction of muscles awakened.

Without warning his hands flew into my hair, gripping my locks so aggressively I started, and as his thrashing subsided into weaker jolts, he spurted his warm and slightly bitter fluid into my mouth.

I swallowed, for a lack of space to spit.

Sitting back on my ankles, I took in his open-mouthed heaving form, cheeks tinted red, eyelids heavy, pupils blown wide and trained vaguely on me. A weirdly bewitching sight. He was totally undone.

However, I wasn't. I was still thirsting for release, the narcotics of lust still coursing through my veins.

Further loosening and then doing away with my obi completely, I pushed my pants as low as it was necessary and pressed Orochimaru's legs together to create a suitable perch. And right there, straddling his thighs, under his watchful gaze, I began stroking myself, unashamed.

I conjured up the thrilling image that he was taking me in the shower again, with him hotter against my back than the steam saturating the air. Then another, him, thrusting into me, facing me on the bed, his eyes aflame as he hit his peak inside me, small tremors shaking his body in that strikingly enticing way.

I let my torso fall forward, supporting myself on my hand as I leaned over him, closer.

Closer.

I was close, in a matter of mere minutes, and that overwhelming need to become one with him rippled through me again, come to me, don't just leer at me from your pillow, encompass me in your arms, shut out the world, drown the sun's offending rays, let us lose ourselves in this inscrutable and inconceivable reality we've dreamed, come...

He gripped my hand with his and pulled, his other hand gliding to the small of my back to give me an insistent push.

Like a sleepwalker, I blindly complied, on all fours I dragged myself upwards until he stopped me when my hips were above his chest. He drew me closer.

I widened my eyes.

His tongue slid from his mouth, lengthened by his favorite technique, and coiled itself tight around my cock.

My heart seemed to beat a bruise into my chest, and I couldn't help a whimper.

He tortuously moved his spiraling tongue up and down my shaft, squeezing in a surpassingly artful manner, but persistently sticking to a slow pace that rendered me into a trembling mess, held securely upright by his—also shaking— , after who knows how many torturous minutes, all at once he pulled me even closer and took me fully into his mouth.

The sensation drove me crazy, that perfect friction, that slickness, that warmth... barely restraining myself, I bucked into him. I didn't last long. I came with a choke-like sound tearing itself from my throat, and I felt him swallow my seed, as I had done.

By then, I was so drained of stamina, I all but collapsed on him, rolling to the side and crawling down in level with him through great exertion.

"That was...a creative use of your tongue-elongating technique." I commented, struggling for breath.

He smirked at me, self-satisfied beyond words.

"I'll have to teach you soft physique modification sometime in the future. So that you can return the favor."

"Shush."

I closed the gap between us and pressed a firm kiss on his lips, intending to keep both our mouths shut so as not to exchange our own tastes.

After this, I would leave and search for Itachi myself.

But the bastard forced his way into my mouth, and would not have me escape a wet, fierce clash of our tongues. I huffed, wanting to bite him so badly, even as my fingers buried themselves in his hair to deepen the kiss. But to injure that deft tongue of his...

Maybe I could stay and rest a few more minutes.

My brother can be damned.

A/N: Well. The beginning turned out to be a bit comical (not sure how that happened). So, to quote Michael Scott, well well well, how the turned tables *long awkward silence*. Sasuke has decided to take matters into his own hands (oh my, that sounded...never mind) and change the original plan of using and disposing of Orochimaru! What do you all think? ^^