Title: The Secret Life of Snakes
Rating: PG-13 for mild language
Characters: Read the title
Word count: 730
Summary: Some things just refuse to die.
Author's Notes: This chapter contains spoilers up through chapter 356 of the manga. It also includes some dreaded continuity with previous chapters. You've been warned.

Orochimaru felt his eye twitch. Well, he felt AN eye twitch. He could no longer be sure whose eye it was. His hands itched to wring Sasuke's neck. Or Kabuto's. But he didn't really have any control over hands anymore.

Damn it. That stupid, ungrateful brat, Sasuke. I was going to join with him. I was going to finally have that fricking sharingan.

The eye twitched again. Orochimaru checked, just to be sure. No, there was no sharingan in that eye. Where WAS he?

Why couldn't you be more like Kimimaro, Sasuke? Kimimaro loved me. Kimimaro understood me. Kimimaro was looking forward to being my new host. Damn it, Sasuke. You two had so much in common. Why not this?

There were noises around him. Orochimaru could almost make out the words being said, but his control was weak in this body, whatever body it was. His control should have been absolute. He had entered Sasuke's body, he remembered that much. But…. Orochimaru's memories were fuzzy after that. Had Sasuke stopped him somehow? That should have been impossible. He had researched possession techniques for years. There should have been no escape, once he was lodged in Sasuke's mind.

"…Sasuke"

One word, slipping through the fog. The sound had a harsh rasp to it, but it pulled Orochimaru's attention like a lodestone. Where had it come from? Someone his body was talking to? No, his body had said the name. A string of obscenities flooded Orochimaru's mind. This wasn't Sasuke's body. All the evidence pointed that way. And that meant it had to be Kabuto.

Orochimaru hated Kabuto.

Of course, leave it to that sycophant medical ninja Kabuto to find some way to preserve his conscience, and at the same time to… to CASTRATE him so thoroughly. Orochimaru should have killed him years ago. Was Orochimaru in Kabuto's body, then? No, Kabuto had never been the sort to accept possession. He would have desired Orochimaru's power, but surely he wouldn't risk letting Orochimaru's consciousness gain strength in his own mind and subvert his will. Orochimaru must be somewhere else. Perhaps Kabuto had done some sort of test to explore moving Orochimaru's consciousness?

Focusing all his mental strength, Orochimaru tried to increase his control over this host vessel. He had to know where he was, what sort of host he'd been given. Start with the ears. His body had been talking about Sasuke, hadn't it? Maybe if he could hear more….

With painful slowness, Orochimaru felt the sounds of the shadow-world where his consciousness dwelled fade, replaced with a low humming. Yes, he could hear the world, faintly. There was a gravelly murmuring, as of voices all around him. They seemed to be chanting, over and over again. Orochimaru strained further, trying to make out the word.

"Sa-su-ke. Sa-su-ke. Sa-su-ke."

Not only his voice? What was this? It made no sense. But the power of that name….

Sasuke had been Orochimaru's dream, ever since he realized he was incapable of taking Itachi's body. Any Uchiha would do, really. But Sasuke was to have been his masterpiece.

As his thoughts wandered, Orochimaru forced his focus onto the eyes of his host. Gray haze greeted him, like static. He needed more control.

Sasuke. Sasuke had everything I needed. A nubile young body. A talent for ninjutsu rarely seen. And that sharingan.

The grayness receded slowly. There were shapes around him, strange shapes. They looked like towering bushes, but not bushes. Yucca plants? They seemed to have spines like a yucca, anyway. But they moved. Plants didn't move….

I need that sharingan, damn it. There's no way I can get back at Kakashi unless I have a sharingan of my own. I can't believe how much money he tricked me out of with that thing, telling me it was always my turn to pay for dinner. He knows almost as many techniques as I do. His defenses are too strong. If I don't have the sharingan, I'll never be able to get my revenge!

The scene around Orochimaru resolved, slowly. Spiny and brown. Certainly not plants, then. With… eyes? All the spiny things had eyes. Eyes with vertical slits, just like his own.
No. No, Kabuto wouldn't have. He couldn't have.

Damn you, Kabuto! You were supposed to use the porcupine army to get me that shampoo I liked!