Title: Cold Tea
Author: kajamiku
Fandom: Naruto
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto -sigh- more's the pity
Characters: Orochimaru, Sasuke
Summary/Notes: Just a little something I whipped up...
Does Sasuke really know what he wants?
Cold Tea
It's a stupid thing. Too cumbersome to think about in most circumstances, but the way haunted eyes don't meet his teacher's show he's serious.
The black no longer wavers.
They show he means what he says, that the trembling of his hands, as they fumble blindly with the teapot in the dark, lie.
The air is filled with 'imagined' rationalisations.
I know what I'm doing.
Do you? Do you really think so? – This is what the teacher's eyes convey without pale lips having to move.
He still doesn't look up. He is too busy wiping the steaming liquid from the old wood of the tabletop, seemingly drawn to tracing the grains in the old material.
The teacher has had the table since he left Konoha.
What possessed him to bring it with him to this crypt is anyone's guess. It's not a question the sennin would answer. Even more impressive is that the thing had lasted so long there.
The snake is amused, his eyes glinting in the dark. But there is a sombre settling to the light in them.
It makes him appear sincere in his concern.
I know what I'm doing.
Sasuke is wrapping his hand with a rag, stemming the flow. He does not want to stain the table.
The cup he broke sits before him, pleading in vain to be salvaged. The porcelain is not white anymore. It's stained like his teacher's robe. The one he carelessly tossed aside when they entered the room. It lies forgotten in the dust.
Orochimaru is still looking at him. He knows he must say something.
He stares at the broken cup in distraction, he winds his emotions more tightly about his finger, lest he let them loose like a lost balloon at a fair.
The teacher sees but says nothing, stoic in silence even when his eyes hold a one-sided conversation for him.
You have no idea, do you? – they say, mocking in one instance but brushing him with a tone that is soft and light, dangerously solacing.
You don't know what it is you want – a barely hidden smile appears, noticed only through the student's time spent in his master's shadow. He knows.
I know what I'm doing.
The shadows of the room grow, the room is strangely smaller. He didn't remember that there was a plant in that corner.
It was dead.
Sasuke inhaled harshly, like a man deprived of life, and allowed his wounded fingers to brush the broken porcelain. It wasn't sharp, but the edges cried out to him, calling him to… what? He didn't know, he couldn't understand such things anymore.
The small blue flowers were tainted, it made Sasuke smile to see it. Or rather, his rough approximation of a smile. He hardly remembered them. He couldn't be expected to, he had been dragged too deep now. He was chained to a grave, rooted like a tree in the cold earth of Orochimaru's will.
I know what I'm doing.
A rough sound that could have been mistaken for a laugh. Orochimaru's eyes lost interest, his eyelids dropping to display his impatience turned boredom, as the glittering things drifted from him.
I know what I'm doing.
The tea was cold.