Protégé

by spiderlilysam

Summary:

Orochimaru waits for Sasuke to ripen. Nothing is perfect without cultivation; like fermenting fine wine in sealed oak barrels or aging expensive cuts of meat in cool cellars, it will take years for Sasuke to become perfect.

Notes:

Just wanted to play around with some dark themes, subject Sasuke to whump and Humbert-ify Orochimaru. There's nothing sexually explicit here, but please proceed with caution.

---

 

Patience is a virtue few living beings, human and animal alike, truly have. Most begrudgingly tolerate it as a fact of life, resigning themselves to the restless wait. The malignantly impatient among us are inconsolably anxious and neurotic, fidgeting, desperate for sweet relief, driven to near insanity at the unbearable torture of waiting.

 

Snakes are unnerving in their true embodiment of patience. Neither anxious nor restless, they are seemingly built - evolved - to lie in wait. The common python can go weeks, sometimes months without a meal. Their feeds are dramatic affairs, consuming prey several time their size, stretching themselves around the prize meal.

 

Digesting such a meal, swallowing it whole and liquifying it from within, leaves them vulnerable for a couple days, unable to move or defend themselves.

 

And so it is imperative that Orochimaru waits for Sasuke to ripen. Nothing is perfect without cultivation; like fermenting fine wine in sealed oak barrels or aging expensive cuts of meat in cool cellars, it will take years for Sasuke to become perfect.

 

There is no satisfaction, no glory in taking a victim before their time. In this way, Orochimaru is more human than he likes to admit. All base animals, monsters and predators alike, will eat when the opportunity presents itself. They lie in wait, stalk quietly until they're a hair's breadth away, crowd their prey, separating the young, sick and feeble, outrunning them before sinking fangs into tender flesh and hot jugulars.  All predators - serpents specifically - are opportunists. To domesticate prey, mold it to one's tastes, age and season the meat for superior taste and texture: that is a human desire.

 

 

What is true in life is also true in love. How one does anything is how one does everything. True greatness can only be achieved with practiced discipline, so Orochimaru patiently lies in wait.

 

 

Sasuke's first weeks of training are quiet; he's obedient and diligent. He accepts the uniform of rope belts, stirrup tights and open-chest robes without so much as a peep. He tempers his usual insolence with stoicism, shaving down the blade of his focus into a single, sharp point. When the side effects from the cocktail of injections become too much and too painful, Sasuke squeezes his eyes shut and bites his bottom lip, stifling his cries with shuddering breaths.

 

 

Fall turns to winter: gruelling training and cruel rounds of battle royale push Sasuke's lanky, adolescent body to the limit. Kabuto informs his master that the new protégé has started quietly crying himself to sleep every night. Orochimaru smiles wryly at this admittedly unsurprising news - he is still a child after all and this is no life for a child.

 

 

That night, he creeps silently into Sasuke's windowless, candlelit room. He sits by the edge of the bed and Sasuke's eyes, red and ready, shoot open. The scent of fear fills the room and a perverse thrill thrums through Orochimaru’s veins, savouring the sheer vulnerability of his little captive. He reaches out to ghost a bony knuckle across soft cheeks, rounded by youth and wet with salt tears. Sasuke flinches at the touch but does not look away.

 

 

“You may not want this. You may even think you don't need it. But you are still human. The longer you go without, the harder this will be."

 

 

Orochimaru feigns concern, offering a compromise that might lower Sasuke’s walls.

 

 

"I could find you a friend to hel-"

 

"I don't need friends."

 

The flickering candlelight casts long shadows across Orochimaru's aquiline face. His smirk hides behind darkness, eyes glinting in warm light.

 

Correct answer, my pet.

 

"Then you leave me no choice. I'll be quick - for now. You'll soon get used to it."

 

 

Cold hands disappear under the sheets and onto trembling gooseflesh. Sasuke flinches and squirms; Orochimaru notes how soft and supple Sasuke's shivering flesh feels beneath his touch. Mine, all mine. His breathing is uneven, punctuated with hiccups and confused tears stream down his cheeks.

 

 

Orochimaru hums, a low rumble befitting a predator contemplating its prey. A preference for consuming youth is not itself unique. Lamb is prized for its tender texture and delicate flavour. All humans fear their own mortality; obsession with adolescent flesh seems to be one of the ways men soothe themselves.

 

The lamb before him puts up a brave face but cannot stop shaking.

 

 

He's scared. He doesn't understand what's happening to him. He's not ready.

 

Orochimaru sucks an exasperated sigh in and out through his nose. The difficulty with vessels is their inherent instability and unpredictable neuroticism. They almost always make some attempt at masking a troubled mind with calm, impenetrable exteriors. It works, for a while. Cracks are inevitable and asceticism only serves to make the falls fatal. Sasuke is too young to understand the science behind psychosomatic connections. He is already, at only 13 years old, profoundly resistant to the signals of his own body. Orochimaru smiles wryly through the heavy petting: this child, for all his untapped potential, is unknowingly damaging himself. Despite years of cutting edge research, Orochimaru has yet to crack the code on finding the perfect balance between unrivalled power and an unshakeable, well regulated nervous system. The strongest of his protégés are always too nuclear for his taste; prone to self-destruction and ultimately too damaged for long-term use.

 

Sasuke has shown remarkable progress - perhaps he is different. However, only fools continue to make the same decisions only to expect different results. Orochimaru is no fool. Given the unique, sensitive nature of his ward's psyche, he tries to motivate Sasuke with a different approach:

 

 

"If you can take me, I'll take the week off research to train you. Just you. No Kabuto, no lesser experiments. You'll be that much closer to your revenge, my pet."

 

 

Sasuke opens his eyes and the flickering candlelight catches his crimson irises. They're glazed over and Orochimaru realises he's locked himself in a genjutsu.

 

 

Interesting. Self-preservation. Betrayed by the body, so he retreats into the mind.

 

He's seen other vessels dissociate before, but Sasuke is the only one genetically engineered to alter reality.

 

Perhaps he won't be so weak after all.

 

 

.:.:.:.

 

 

Sasuke is most magnetic when he's vulnerable. By day, Orochimaru finds his insistent insouciance mildly irritating. He's always preferred to play with his prey before striking, provoking any kind of reaction. Sasuke makes up for it with the classic bad attitude of a teenager and sharp-tongued backtalk directed at Kabuto. His precious protégé is prickly - dangerously so.  Sasuke’s idea of defence is a strong offence. At this age, control over weak spots and subsequent reactions is hard-won.  Young, grass-green child soldiers are rarely well-adjusted enough to subvert their pain. Sasuke is indeed what shinobi society might call a “genius”, turning chakra control and swordplay into second nature, but here, Orochimaru finds him to be an utterly conventional adolescent boy. He has already begun fossilising himself in layers of hardened resin, curing his cocoon until the shell is brittle, like so many broken boys before him.

 

 

Strength and true immortality comes from decay and rebirth. Hard shells all eventually break.  In time, perhaps you too will learn this.

 

 

Over the years, he delights in watching Sasuke’s façade shatter. It's made all the more satisfying when his albino, venomous companions wrap themselves around Sasuke's pale wrists, translucent skin thinly veiling vulnerable blue veins. They squeeze around Sasuke and he writhes helplessly, breaths devolving into hiccupped gasps, limbs numb from struggling and shaking. The sight makes his so-called mentor (captor), visibly lick his lips and salivate, allowing delicious agony season and tenderise his flesh before consuming him whole.

 

 

It’s for your own good. If you get used to it now, you won’t feel anything when it finally happens.

 

 

.:.:.:.

 

 

 

At 16, Sasuke learns to flip the tables (or so he thinks). He comes willingly to Orochimaru, who is sicklier and skinnier. Sasuke ties the rope belt of his pale, cotton robe loose, letting the sleeves slip off his shoulders on purpose. He knows Orochimaru likes it.  Straddling the bony hips of his master, he rolls his hips, grinding down whilst breathily bringing up a request to increase the latest dose of performance enhancing drugs. Orochimaru’s mercurial concubine holds his gaze intensely, with eyes that glow red - not as a threat, but as temptation. He flutters his dark lashes, accented with a smudge of sooty ink, lowering his eyes before treading softly.

 

 

"I'll give you want you want if you give me what I want."

 

 

Orochimaru silently relishes the fact that Sasuke never learned to say please - to beg - and by extension, has never learned how to simply ask for what he wants. He's only learned to bargain with his body, trading carnal pleasures for secrets, favours and gifts. (This old, feeble man would have given anything to him freely.) It is curious to watch his ward weaponise his beauty with lethal precision, yet fumble with the basics of tactical manipulation. All young people believe themselves to be invincible, but time is the greatest teacher and Sasuke is no different to his peers: impatient and unable to see the long-term consequences of their actions. Orochimaru smiles and plays along, silently thanking Sasuke for handing him the reigns - better to let his pet think he has the upper hand, better to “give in” than  turn their role-play into a lecture.

 

 

"Hmm...prove to me you deserve it.”

 

And Sasuke does. Proving himself is all he’s done for the better part of 3 years; he does so now with deft hands and a wicked mouth, trained to please his master with deadly precision.

 

These little trysts would be better if you didn’t rush them, pet.

 

The next morning, Orochimaru watches Sasuke sublimate self-destruction into deadly violence. The bodies of nameless, faceless, second-rate, experimental monstrosities pile up around the underground arena as Sasuke calls forth fire and lightning, empowered by boons of chakra-enhancing tonics and pills that numb the pain. His raw power and ability to harness it is clear; ready to reap. Sasuke’s intense bloodlust raises a brow and Orochimaru begins the mental countdown.

 

It’s nearly time. Any longer and you might push yourself too far, Sasuke-kun.

 

 

 

.:.:.:.

 

 

 

In the final moments, trapped within his rapidly decaying body, Orochimaru can’t help but feel a certain level of pride at his fruits of his labour.  He’s decidedly wrong about Sasuke’s impatience; while Orochimaru was waiting for the fruit to ripen, tweaking the temperature here, adjusting the acidity of the water there, his little pet was quietly preparing for the perfect moment to enact his treachery. It is said revenge is a dish best served cold. (A lie. Poetry for humans.) Revenge is sublime no matter how it’s served.

 

 

As his precious student betrays him, a final laugh is choked out, blood filling his mouth and gargling in his lungs.

 

 

How does it taste, my darling?

 

 

In his single-minded pursuit of patience, Orochimaru forgets the other side of serpentine symbolism. Shedding one's skin, outgrowing the old and ushering in the new. The protégé before him is sober and clear-headed, armed with his master's weapons, his master's tactics and his master's complicated feelings about their shared homeland. It seems the little hatchling is finally ready a new beginning.

 

With a final, wheezing breath, Orochimaru accepts his bitter fate.

 

Death is not an ending, merely a new beginning.

 

Maybe a part of me will live on inside you after all.

 

 

.:.:.:.