Warnings: Kinda dark. Mentions of rape, pedophilia, yaoi. Hey, it's a Sound fic.

Notes: stares at fic I don't have the faintest idea what the hell this is.

And live another day
by fairady

Kabuto opens his eyes to a dark room. The lingering scent of smoke is beginning to fade and it was the last candle's dying hiss that had wakened him. Not the shift of the mattress or the sound of the door closing. The air in the room is heavy and still, he can tell Orochimaru has been gone for hours already.

He sits up slowly, gently peeling the sheets away from where they stick to his body with dried blood. There is no light source in the room but Kabuto neither needs it nor cares to have it. The sharp pain awakened at his movement is more than sufficient to tell him the extent of the damage this time.

Surprisingly it's not very bad and takes no more than a minute to heal. Kabuto wonders if he should be worried at that. A night that he can easily recover from either means a very good day for Orochimaru or an extremely unpleasant morning after for everyone in Sound.

Either way it always makes him wonder, just a little, if it really is worth it.

It's just another mask, another role he plays for survival. It's always been about survival. Allowing himself to be raised in Konoha since they'd proven better than his own family. Throwing in with Orochimaru since the sannin was strong and Konoha had proven to have a weak underbelly. Rolling over and screaming on cue because the more he gave Orochimaru the fewer reasons the man would have to kill him.

Survival.

Kabuto was an excellent spy and medic, but he was a master at surviving. That's why he dresses slowly and waits another hour in the dark room before leaving. A door closes that he can hear this time and he slows his pace slightly. When he reaches the door there is no one in sight, and Kabuto lets himself in easily.

This room is dark as well but he navigates it easily by memory, finding and lighting one of the many dark red candles. Sasuke-kun closes his eyes against the sudden flare that only seems to make the darkness around them deeper. Kabuto feels no surprise as he looks down at the young man on the bed. That would explain his own light wounds.

It seems like only a week ago the sheets on this bed had been white. Sasuke-kun says nothing as Kabuto sets his kit onto the bed and begins what promises to be a long process of cleaning.

It's all about survival. His first and only memory of his blood family is of a faceless person wrapping his small hand around a kunai while a low voice drones, "No matter what happens you must live. Kill, betray, surrender, hide. It doesn't matter, you must live."

He thinks it was an often repeated lesson and perhaps even subliminally reinforced. It's the only possible explanation he can think of. Everything he's ever done has always been for the sole purpose of ensuring he lives a little longer.

Even this.

Kabuto wraps one arm in white gauze watching the pristine white darken. The cuts aren't deep enough to require stitches and he knows they will be mostly closed by the next night provided Sasuke-kun doesn't do anything to exacerbate them. The boy has always been a fast healer.

Sasuke-kun still says nothing as Kabuto packs his kit up and blows the candle out plunging the room back into it's accustomed darkness. He won't say anything as the older boy moves him to the side and curls around him, being careful not to brush too harshly against any of the bandages. He never says anything but Kabuto can still feel Sasuke-kun's pathetic gratefulness as he falls asleep.

It's just another mask and another out for him should he need it.

Because Orochimaru has become obsessed, and obsessed men make mistakes. Mistakes that Kabuto is sure will be exploited and used. Either by the boy now sleeping in his arms, or the blonde demon's vessel he knows will come to Sound sooner or later.

Kabuto isn't sure why he's so set on surviving, but it's what he's always done.