(no subject)
Characters: Sasuke, Orochimaru
Status: Closed
Location: Right outside of Katzu
Date: April 7, Saturday evening.
Summary: Meet, talk for the first time in ages. :D
Warnings: Nothing of warning here. :D Orochimaru calls Kabuto harmless...?
Saturday evening, as he had promised Sasuke, he waited, leaning against the wall of the apartment complex. It was a pain to get out to even be sure to do this, more-so than he had expected. Orochimaru didn't ever think that he would have run into the issue of someone being so pushy about making him stay inside, in bed, and resting. But he willed his body past the silver-haired roommate and through the halls of the dorm, putting on the neat facade of perfect health, mentally cursing the fact that he was in fact a human and that like humans, was still susceptible to illness.
Sasuke was not late in leaving his apartment or meeting the other outside, but he certainly didn't rush himself either. He wanted to ask the right questions when he met with Orochimaru, had thought about them long and hard and still did not know quite how to form them properly, to form them in a way that would not raise the other's suspisions. It was important to Sasuke to, when he moved to New York and told no one, be unable to be found, to leave no loose ends behind that would, even out of a passing fancy, look him up and find him.
He had deliberately left his cigarettes back in the apartment in hopes of giving the impression he was really doing far better now than he had been in the past, that Orochimaru could move on and find a new protige because Sasuke wasn't going to bend to him.
When he seen that figure reclining against the wall he approached and cleared his throat to draw the other's attention to himself.
The golden eyes were as observing and all-seeing as they always had been. He had been curious of the other's instigating this conversation that the two of them were going to have, considering that it had been quite some time since he had talked to the younger male. He was sure not to let a moment's guard down, mentally taking every note, and taking those same notes when he would return.
This conversation was not for him, he would not instigate it, at least on the matters of whatever it was that Sasuke had wished to discuss. "Sasuke-kun," he greeted, clearing his throat briefly. He was intending to make this short and return so his absence went unnoticed.
Likewise Sasuke hoped to make this short, but that all depended upon just how agreeable Orochimaru was. He'd become perhaps a little too adept at telling lies now, and at reading them in others. He'd been living a lie for a little while now, having everyone under the impression he would be staying here and creating a future here... when he had every blasted intention of leaving it all behind without a moment's notice when the time was precisely right. Soon... very soon.
"Orochimaru. Glad you weren't too ill to make it," he commented dryly, arms folding over his chest and over the front of that buttoned up long black coat.
"Sasuke-kun, I fail to see why we'd be here to discuss my health." He mentally was amused, though his tone seemed to have lost that amusement that it may have typically had. It was just as dry as the tone he was given in return. He was glad, though, that meant he was doing a good job, pushing that beneath the surface. It was one of the reasons he was glad he was already quite a pale man, or else he would have been noticably so. His own arms folded over his chest, expecting Sasuke to elaborate with a quirk of an eyebrow.
"Of course," he said flatly, stepping a little closer so that those in passing, however few were out tonight, would not hear what was being said between them. "I'll skip to the point then. I just remembered... you being someone who stressed formality and respect. But whatever." A shrug. It made no difference to him to skip by it if the other preferred it.
"I ran into someone you know the other day, and they seemed... to have heard some words about me and my former connection to you from you. I was wondering what that was all about." Former was a subtle addition of his own, deliberately not stressed, as if it merely did not need to be, was fact.
Orochimaru disregarded his first statement, he hadn't the time to waste on respect and formality at the moment. He let his eyes linger on the shorter male before him, before the closed in thought, then a smirk spread across his lips at that question...or more like a statement of fact and a demand. But he knew instantly who he was talking to, since while few people knew he and Sasuke had known each other, even fewer knew anything of the way they had trained, even briefly.
"Ah, you must be speaking of Yakushi Kabuto?" he said absently. "Where does your curiousity lie, specifically?"
"That would be him," Sasuke clarified, tone of voice not any less dry than it had been moments earlier. "As for my curiosity, well, I was strictly under the impression that our previous dealings were our business and ours alone, and that while I wasn't to speak to others about it, you were going to do the same. Why is it he knows things that he shouldn't...?"
Orochimaru's eyes averted past Sasuke, staring off as his shoulders lifted in fell what was a deep breath on Orochimaru's part. He let his arms fall to his sides, then his hands went into his pockets. "Kabuto is an old acquaintance." Associate. Friend, perhaps? It was something difficult to explain. The two were quite alike, and different at the same time. And were at a mutual respect, which was really the closest thing to friendship that existed for Orochimaru. "A friend, perhaps you could say. He is rarely excluded from my dealings, he frequently knows things of matters like that." He was going to try not to give away any of Kabuto's character, but considering that he associated with Orochimaru...it said a lot more than some would say.
"You should have told me about him before hand, Orochimaru." It made no difference really, not now, not unless... "I just wanted to make sure I didn't happen into him by more than coincidence. I wanted to make it clear that I'm no longer in need of your services, and that you no longer have to extend your eyes and ears in my general direction. Whatever it was you wanted in payment for your assisstance, you never clarified before, so when you decide, you can let me know... Otherwise, I don't think either of us have anything more to say to one another."
Orochimaru's eyes l never diverted. Even those who had escaped him like Anko had, never really had been able to. "It was purely coincidental," Orochimaru assured Sasuke. The amused tone somehow made it through, supressing it was more difficult than letting it take part of his voice. "...I didn't know you wished to know of the relationships I had with others, as it was, Sasuke-kun. I was with the understanding that it was about you, not myself."
"It was," he agreed, stressing his words this time, arms unfolding. "It isn't about either of us now, however. Now... well, you ceased being able to give me what I needed. I am washing my hands clean of it... I don't have need for you anymore." To Sasuke that was all there was to it. He could... somehow... if careful enough... avoid the other and lose him, or at least lose his interest.
Orochimaru lifted his shoulders once again in a subtle shrug. "I've known that for quite some time, Sasuke-kun." Sasuke wasn't someone who really needed Orochimaru's training from the start, and it had indeed been about the snake-like man more than it ever had about Sasuke. Once he was allowed in on the other male's life, getting shoved out of it was a difficult feat. My, Kabuto's words must have gotten beneath Sasuke's skin. "Do not let him get to you. Kabuto is quite harmless." Better than the others here at hiding his nature.
"You misunderstand," Sasuke sighed, his head shaking before his dark hues honed in on Orochimaru's golden eyes. "This has nothing to do with him, really. And as for harmless, I don't think I'll believe that about anyone who associates with you, I know better, thanks."
A glance away, watching people stroll away from the apartment complex. "To be honest, I just want you out of my life. I have no desire to be pointlessly stalked the way some others I know happen to have been, and still are in some instances."
"You let him get to you. You let his words bother you," Orochimaru answered. He turned his head briefly to the side, coughing into his hand, moving it briefly over his lips before letting it move into his pocket. "I am out of your life, I have been for quite a long time." He kept his eyes solidly on Sasuke's, since the smaller male, to him, seemed to be striving to keep that eye contact. They were gold and unreadable, and almost vacant, perhaps from illness. Not once holding an amused glint.
"As for pointlessly stalking, I fail to understand or know what business that is of yours, or why you chose those words." He stopped reclining against the wall, but when his body disliked it, he returned to his previous state. "The past is the past, it has fallen behind us. Not every person I have associated with needs to be treated the same way."
"I don't like to leave things unfinished," Sasuke clarified, frowning. "I couldn't just walk away from this and have it ended, otherwise you could take it upon yourself to assume you had right to do as you pleased where I was involved, which isn't the case anymore."
Observing that cough, that hardened expression relaxed a little. Orochimaru still deserved his respect, but it was more apparent to him now what the other was... and it was not all that superior to him at all. "Look, I'm not searching for an argument. His words didn't bother me so much as they brought something to my attention, reminded me that I had unfinished business with you, and I came here to make sure things were understood. That's all." A pause. Then he rolled his eyes. "If you were this ill, why did you even agree to come out here and talk to me in the first place...? We could have went someplace warmer. I'm not going to be held responsible for you getting more sick or worse."
Orochimaru quirked an eyebrow and sighed. "I agreed because I did," he answered. It was not a complex way of answering, but it would make the most sense. "I do as I wish. I've been rather confined to a room. The temperature is of no business to me." He then, let that smirk threaten at the corner of his mouth. "You hold no responsibility here, and I assure you the only one that will be blamed for this is myself." And oh the blame Kabuto would place on him, he was sure.
He wanted a cigarette, mostly because dealing with Orochimaru was always nerve wracking, most often because he just wasn't able to predict what that golden eyes snake would do despite what he said he would. He was with all due respect, a liar to the core, the very one who had taught Sasuke the most about deception and how it was a necessary evil. But could he pull one over on the one who had taught him what he knew? That was the test, he supposed... and he had from now until the time he left in order to accomplish that task.
"Well, whatever. If you need your rest, go and rest, hn? I don't need you contaminating my good health." He smirked before heading back towards the apartment building doors. "Just remember," he called back as he kept on, "stay out of my life. As yours is not any of my business, mine is not any of yours now."
His expression was unamused at Sasuke's words, and he watched the male vanish into the apartment complex doors. He only nodded in response to them, words were unwilling anymore. He took a deep, shaky breath that had been suppressed in their conversation. He would wait for Sasuke to be away before he, too, slipped inside, and decided to rest on the couch in the apartment lobby. HE wondered, honestly, if Sasuke would take his word, or if he would become paranoid that somehow, the snake-like man knew every thing he was doing. However, Sasuke's suddenly misplaced awareness made him realize he would have to be careful to stay out without actually staying out.
Status: Closed
Location: Right outside of Katzu
Date: April 7, Saturday evening.
Summary: Meet, talk for the first time in ages. :D
Warnings: Nothing of warning here. :D Orochimaru calls Kabuto harmless...?
Saturday evening, as he had promised Sasuke, he waited, leaning against the wall of the apartment complex. It was a pain to get out to even be sure to do this, more-so than he had expected. Orochimaru didn't ever think that he would have run into the issue of someone being so pushy about making him stay inside, in bed, and resting. But he willed his body past the silver-haired roommate and through the halls of the dorm, putting on the neat facade of perfect health, mentally cursing the fact that he was in fact a human and that like humans, was still susceptible to illness.
Sasuke was not late in leaving his apartment or meeting the other outside, but he certainly didn't rush himself either. He wanted to ask the right questions when he met with Orochimaru, had thought about them long and hard and still did not know quite how to form them properly, to form them in a way that would not raise the other's suspisions. It was important to Sasuke to, when he moved to New York and told no one, be unable to be found, to leave no loose ends behind that would, even out of a passing fancy, look him up and find him.
He had deliberately left his cigarettes back in the apartment in hopes of giving the impression he was really doing far better now than he had been in the past, that Orochimaru could move on and find a new protige because Sasuke wasn't going to bend to him.
When he seen that figure reclining against the wall he approached and cleared his throat to draw the other's attention to himself.
The golden eyes were as observing and all-seeing as they always had been. He had been curious of the other's instigating this conversation that the two of them were going to have, considering that it had been quite some time since he had talked to the younger male. He was sure not to let a moment's guard down, mentally taking every note, and taking those same notes when he would return.
This conversation was not for him, he would not instigate it, at least on the matters of whatever it was that Sasuke had wished to discuss. "Sasuke-kun," he greeted, clearing his throat briefly. He was intending to make this short and return so his absence went unnoticed.
Likewise Sasuke hoped to make this short, but that all depended upon just how agreeable Orochimaru was. He'd become perhaps a little too adept at telling lies now, and at reading them in others. He'd been living a lie for a little while now, having everyone under the impression he would be staying here and creating a future here... when he had every blasted intention of leaving it all behind without a moment's notice when the time was precisely right. Soon... very soon.
"Orochimaru. Glad you weren't too ill to make it," he commented dryly, arms folding over his chest and over the front of that buttoned up long black coat.
"Sasuke-kun, I fail to see why we'd be here to discuss my health." He mentally was amused, though his tone seemed to have lost that amusement that it may have typically had. It was just as dry as the tone he was given in return. He was glad, though, that meant he was doing a good job, pushing that beneath the surface. It was one of the reasons he was glad he was already quite a pale man, or else he would have been noticably so. His own arms folded over his chest, expecting Sasuke to elaborate with a quirk of an eyebrow.
"Of course," he said flatly, stepping a little closer so that those in passing, however few were out tonight, would not hear what was being said between them. "I'll skip to the point then. I just remembered... you being someone who stressed formality and respect. But whatever." A shrug. It made no difference to him to skip by it if the other preferred it.
"I ran into someone you know the other day, and they seemed... to have heard some words about me and my former connection to you from you. I was wondering what that was all about." Former was a subtle addition of his own, deliberately not stressed, as if it merely did not need to be, was fact.
Orochimaru disregarded his first statement, he hadn't the time to waste on respect and formality at the moment. He let his eyes linger on the shorter male before him, before the closed in thought, then a smirk spread across his lips at that question...or more like a statement of fact and a demand. But he knew instantly who he was talking to, since while few people knew he and Sasuke had known each other, even fewer knew anything of the way they had trained, even briefly.
"Ah, you must be speaking of Yakushi Kabuto?" he said absently. "Where does your curiousity lie, specifically?"
"That would be him," Sasuke clarified, tone of voice not any less dry than it had been moments earlier. "As for my curiosity, well, I was strictly under the impression that our previous dealings were our business and ours alone, and that while I wasn't to speak to others about it, you were going to do the same. Why is it he knows things that he shouldn't...?"
Orochimaru's eyes averted past Sasuke, staring off as his shoulders lifted in fell what was a deep breath on Orochimaru's part. He let his arms fall to his sides, then his hands went into his pockets. "Kabuto is an old acquaintance." Associate. Friend, perhaps? It was something difficult to explain. The two were quite alike, and different at the same time. And were at a mutual respect, which was really the closest thing to friendship that existed for Orochimaru. "A friend, perhaps you could say. He is rarely excluded from my dealings, he frequently knows things of matters like that." He was going to try not to give away any of Kabuto's character, but considering that he associated with Orochimaru...it said a lot more than some would say.
"You should have told me about him before hand, Orochimaru." It made no difference really, not now, not unless... "I just wanted to make sure I didn't happen into him by more than coincidence. I wanted to make it clear that I'm no longer in need of your services, and that you no longer have to extend your eyes and ears in my general direction. Whatever it was you wanted in payment for your assisstance, you never clarified before, so when you decide, you can let me know... Otherwise, I don't think either of us have anything more to say to one another."
Orochimaru's eyes l never diverted. Even those who had escaped him like Anko had, never really had been able to. "It was purely coincidental," Orochimaru assured Sasuke. The amused tone somehow made it through, supressing it was more difficult than letting it take part of his voice. "...I didn't know you wished to know of the relationships I had with others, as it was, Sasuke-kun. I was with the understanding that it was about you, not myself."
"It was," he agreed, stressing his words this time, arms unfolding. "It isn't about either of us now, however. Now... well, you ceased being able to give me what I needed. I am washing my hands clean of it... I don't have need for you anymore." To Sasuke that was all there was to it. He could... somehow... if careful enough... avoid the other and lose him, or at least lose his interest.
Orochimaru lifted his shoulders once again in a subtle shrug. "I've known that for quite some time, Sasuke-kun." Sasuke wasn't someone who really needed Orochimaru's training from the start, and it had indeed been about the snake-like man more than it ever had about Sasuke. Once he was allowed in on the other male's life, getting shoved out of it was a difficult feat. My, Kabuto's words must have gotten beneath Sasuke's skin. "Do not let him get to you. Kabuto is quite harmless." Better than the others here at hiding his nature.
"You misunderstand," Sasuke sighed, his head shaking before his dark hues honed in on Orochimaru's golden eyes. "This has nothing to do with him, really. And as for harmless, I don't think I'll believe that about anyone who associates with you, I know better, thanks."
A glance away, watching people stroll away from the apartment complex. "To be honest, I just want you out of my life. I have no desire to be pointlessly stalked the way some others I know happen to have been, and still are in some instances."
"You let him get to you. You let his words bother you," Orochimaru answered. He turned his head briefly to the side, coughing into his hand, moving it briefly over his lips before letting it move into his pocket. "I am out of your life, I have been for quite a long time." He kept his eyes solidly on Sasuke's, since the smaller male, to him, seemed to be striving to keep that eye contact. They were gold and unreadable, and almost vacant, perhaps from illness. Not once holding an amused glint.
"As for pointlessly stalking, I fail to understand or know what business that is of yours, or why you chose those words." He stopped reclining against the wall, but when his body disliked it, he returned to his previous state. "The past is the past, it has fallen behind us. Not every person I have associated with needs to be treated the same way."
"I don't like to leave things unfinished," Sasuke clarified, frowning. "I couldn't just walk away from this and have it ended, otherwise you could take it upon yourself to assume you had right to do as you pleased where I was involved, which isn't the case anymore."
Observing that cough, that hardened expression relaxed a little. Orochimaru still deserved his respect, but it was more apparent to him now what the other was... and it was not all that superior to him at all. "Look, I'm not searching for an argument. His words didn't bother me so much as they brought something to my attention, reminded me that I had unfinished business with you, and I came here to make sure things were understood. That's all." A pause. Then he rolled his eyes. "If you were this ill, why did you even agree to come out here and talk to me in the first place...? We could have went someplace warmer. I'm not going to be held responsible for you getting more sick or worse."
Orochimaru quirked an eyebrow and sighed. "I agreed because I did," he answered. It was not a complex way of answering, but it would make the most sense. "I do as I wish. I've been rather confined to a room. The temperature is of no business to me." He then, let that smirk threaten at the corner of his mouth. "You hold no responsibility here, and I assure you the only one that will be blamed for this is myself." And oh the blame Kabuto would place on him, he was sure.
He wanted a cigarette, mostly because dealing with Orochimaru was always nerve wracking, most often because he just wasn't able to predict what that golden eyes snake would do despite what he said he would. He was with all due respect, a liar to the core, the very one who had taught Sasuke the most about deception and how it was a necessary evil. But could he pull one over on the one who had taught him what he knew? That was the test, he supposed... and he had from now until the time he left in order to accomplish that task.
"Well, whatever. If you need your rest, go and rest, hn? I don't need you contaminating my good health." He smirked before heading back towards the apartment building doors. "Just remember," he called back as he kept on, "stay out of my life. As yours is not any of my business, mine is not any of yours now."
His expression was unamused at Sasuke's words, and he watched the male vanish into the apartment complex doors. He only nodded in response to them, words were unwilling anymore. He took a deep, shaky breath that had been suppressed in their conversation. He would wait for Sasuke to be away before he, too, slipped inside, and decided to rest on the couch in the apartment lobby. HE wondered, honestly, if Sasuke would take his word, or if he would become paranoid that somehow, the snake-like man knew every thing he was doing. However, Sasuke's suddenly misplaced awareness made him realize he would have to be careful to stay out without actually staying out.