Chapter Text
What little strength he had immediately after being resurrected had been fleeting. It had barely been enough to get them out of the mess Kabuto had gotten them into, even with his additional chakra. It had felt warped, not quite like his own. The sage markings around Kabuto’s eyes had slowly faded away under his touch. He felt nauseous thinking back.
It hadn’t taken him long to decide on a new vessel, anything semi-suitable would have done at that point. Orochimaru had been glad to have Karin and Suigetsu locate one relatively quickly.
Losing another three years was a shame, but pondering this was of no use. He figured that most of these three years would be used to try and recover some of what was lost in his absence. Having a perfect vessel right at this point might not have been of much use either way.
The hideouts had hardly been abandoned for a year and yet nature had found a way inside, taking back what was hers slowly. Roots were growing out from between the once sterile tiles, rodents were nesting in crevices.
Orochimaru had been appalled. This was his life’s work. These hideouts once had held all of his knowledge. Everything he’d ever done, he’d done for this.
Now scrolls lay scattered between broken vials and appliances.
Orochimaru would simply not allow it. Nature would have to, once again, wait her turn.
Karin had astounded Orochimaru almost as much as his first glance at the hideout had.
She immediately started working through the scrolls with him, meticulous and concentrated from start to end. Her knowledge on the topics wasn’t anywhere close to where Kabuto’s had been, but she made up for it with a surprising amount of quick wit and reading comprehension. Perhaps he had underestimated her. Still, it took them almost a year to get the places up and running again.
Slowly, things were starting to go back to normal. Orochimaru almost felt normal again, the hideout almost felt normal again. Working there felt almost normal again. Until Karin or Suigetsu asked a question that he’d had to answer, until he had to stop working to fix himself something to eat.
Until he realised how incredibly dreary it was to wrap up a day’s worth of work only to sit and drink tea alone, unable to talk to anyone about the progress that had been made. Not that there was much progress to speak of, experiments had started slow and most hypotheses hadn’t yet been sufficiently confirmed.
It reminded him of the time he’d spent at the northern hideout with Kimimaro, where Kabuto hadn’t followed. At the time, his jealousy had been amusing to Orochimaru.
Kimimaro’s company had been easy, the boy had done anything and everything to please. But it also had felt like toying with prey too hurt for fight or flight. There had been no use in talking to him, no new insights to gain from it, just soft smiles and nods. Orochimaru didn’t need those.
What he needed was a challenge, something to keep interested in.
He didn’t have that right now. What he had was all work and no play, something that had been going quite well for him when he’d been in his early twenties but for some reason it didn’t thrill him anymore. There had been something special about the balance that Kabuto had brought into his life, something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Breaks from work with steaming cups of tea, fruitful conversation (despite the occasional snarky remark) while working away at more monotonous tasks.
Whatever balance Kabuto had brought, he had not left any of it behind for either of them when he had decided to quite literally distill Orochimaru's remains into some sort of sick vitamin replacement in an intravenous drip.
Unsurprisingly, it had not done him any good, an actual vitamin infusion would certainly have been a better idea.
Anything would have been a better idea.
Orochimaru had to forcibly shove the thought to the back of his head. There wasn’t a lot of heat left in him when it came to this. He’d been angry about it for long enough, had fumed over Kabuto and how stupid he had been, about Sasuke and the Uchiha audacity. He had laid in bed, shaking with anger, unable to do anything about any of these things at all. Apart from slowly working back towards where he had been before the war.
He hadn't taken care of that room himself, he had taken one look at it, inspected the giant distiller, trailed a finger along the cool metal, the dried speckles of blood.
Then, he'd left and told Karin to get rid of the thing entirely.
One day the room would be his again.
Though Karin clearly was the one more helpful for most of their daily routine, Suigetsu was the one that usually kept close by, following him around like a puppy. Orochimaru had been somewhat surprised that he wanted to come back at all — instead of using the aftermath of the war as an opportunity to start over somewhere else. He certainly wouldn't suggest it though, Suigetsu was useful, despite being a little slow on the uptake. However, even that was practical in itself. If Suigetsu had been any smarter, he certainly wouldn't be working for him right now.
He had plopped down on the floor next to where Orochimaru was standing, flipping through the pages of a book he had no idea he owned.
"Orochimaru-sama.", he began, as if he knew that he had been the topic of Orochimaru's thoughts, even though he sounded a little hesitant.
"Yes?"
"Karin told me not to talk about--", he fumbled with his shirt's sleeves, "but --".
Orochimaru raised an eyebrow and tucked the book back into the shelf. Was this about Kabuto?
"-- but why don't we at least ask Kabuto about the stuff Karin doesn’t know how to work with?"
Of course that would be what both of them were tiptoeing around.
"That would be because Kabuto is in Konoha, caretaker in an orphanage nonetheless, and I'm fairly certain Yamato won't let us go there, even if we wanted to."
"Don't you want to?" Suigetsu cocked his head to the side.
"No." This conversation was exactly what Orochimaru did not need. "Suigetsu, did you come here just to bother me? Those tiles don't exactly seem comfortable enough to warrant the effort."
"N-no, of course not, I was hoping I could help with anything. Eventually. Maybe?"
Orochimaru looked at him and Suigetsu visibly winced. "Thank you for your concern. I'm fine for the moment, though. Now, do me a favour and go and ask Karin if she could use your help."
Suigetsu listened to him, as always, left, and didn’t return to his side for the next days either. Orochimaru hated working alone. There was something about an empty room that ate away at him slowly. He enjoyed the first couple of hours, maybe even the first day or two. After that, empty rooms were just extensions of his wandering mind, leaving more space for thoughts to settle down in. He had never quite understood the concept of it. He had a tendency to get lost in thoughts but why would the mere presence of someone be enough to remedy that? Maybe he was just getting too soft and things that shouldn’t get to him started to do just that.
He let his gaze rest on a wet specimen he brought from his study in Konoha. A small grass snake, now preserved for eternity, an ouroboros in itself.
In order to get different results, he would have to try out different methods. And for now, his thoughts kept drifting back to a certain medic that had not even bothered to contact him. He definitely owed Orochimaru an apology, but right now, Orochimaru didn’t care for it. He wanted to know what Kabuto was doing. Surely, he wasn’t happy with his new life.
It wasn’t even the city. He could certainly see Kabuto living a happy life in Konohagakure, working in the hospital, working as a shinobi, but not in an orphanage.
His talents were wasted there.
Orochimaru doubted he’d last very long without going absolutely insane.
Actually, Suigetsu was right. He would be interested to go and see exactly that for himself.
It was a win-win situation either way, if Kabuto, for some reason, had truly changed and actually enjoyed his new life, he’d be virtually useless to him and it would be easy to move on and find someone with similar skills. But if he hated the orphanage and his life there, it would absolutely bring Orochimaru some well-deserved comfort.
He felt the hint of a smile tugging on the corners of his mouth.
He could probably risk a trip to Konoha. Yamato’s incompetence was appalling at best and Orochimaru was fairly certain that even something as basic as a shadow clone should do the trick if he let Karin distract him for just a few seconds.
He should see how Yamato was doing first though. Check on the other people stationed outside with him. How many were they? He hadn’t even bothered to look before. Now, suddenly, he was quite intrigued.
Timing would be everything.
It usually was, he just wasn’t a very patient person.
For now, Orochimaru decided to prepare a tray with a teapot and two cups to bring outside. He was lucky that it was gloomy and cold as can be, plus, the past days hadn’t exactly been sunny either. It was quite likely that Yamato cursed his job every couple of seconds.
The whole ordeal was amusing, really. While Orochimaru didn’t appreciate being tailed, he certainly didn’t have to waste much time or thought on it. Yamato, however, was stationed outside in the cold every hour, every day. The most interesting thing he got to do presumably was following Orochimaru when he decided to take a walk to clear his head.
When he saw him approaching, Yamato’s face went through at least five different, albeit subtle, expressions. One of them being relief. So he really was that bored.
Orochimaru smiled at him before lowering his head in an almost submissive manner.
“It seemed rather cold. I brought you some tea, Yamato-san.“
Yamato stared at the tray, then awkwardly gestured towards the makeshift table and chairs he’d set up, apparently having used the mokuton.
Orochimaru quietly placed the tray on the table and poured some tea for them.
“May I sit?“, he asked, looking back up at Yamato.
“What do you want?“
“I don’t want anything from you, Yamato-san. I’m done with work for the day and you have to watch me no matter where I sit, so I might as well sit with you. If you don’t mind, that is.“
Yamato hesitated, then sat down despite himself. “Alright.“ His voice sounded brisk. Clearly he didn’t believe a word Orochimaru was saying, but that really did not matter.
“You are very welcome to stay inside, Yamato-san. This can’t possibly be comfortable and I’m sure you’ll be stationed here for quite some time.“
Yamato stared at him.
Orochimaru sat down on one of the free chairs. Technically Yamato had been assigned a few chunin that were here with him, but apparently they were doing something else at the moment. He’d ask Karin to check out their chakra signatures later.
“I will do no such thing.“, Yamato replied, his expression stern.
“Ah, so you keep saying. But there are free rooms for you and your team if you ever find yourself… caught in the rain.“ Orochimaru put on a gentle smile, enjoying the annoyance that flickered over Yamato’s features. Despite being so stoic, he was easy to read.
“It pains me that you have to stay out here because of me.“, he added. “I think I have caused enough mayhem in your life already. You deserve a more diverse job, even though I understand very well why Konoha has decided to add a few shadows to mine.“ Orochimaru took a sip of the tea.
Yamato didn’t answer, but looked at the cup of tea in front of him warily.
“I can assure you it is not poisoned. Would you like to swap cups? Though I’m afraid I’ve had some of mine already.“
Again, no answer, but this time Yamato took a sip of the tea. He caught his gaze. Was this supposed to be an act of defiance, or was he trying to prove something to himself?
Orochimaru averted his eyes again and took another sip of tea, savouring the lingering taste of jasmine.
„Why did you come here?“
He allowed himself a little sigh. “Would you like me to leave you to drink your tea in peace?“
“Yes.“
Orochimaru smiled, stood up, gave Yamato the world’s smallest bow, and left.