The only time Orochimaru ever struck Sasuke in anger was early on, when the boy bit one of his current body's fingers hard enough to make the bone crack, and he slapped him across the face hard enough to knock him from the bed entirely. He regretted it the moment he did it; something so paltry wouldn't leave a lasting mark, but it did temporarily mar the pale and otherwise flawless skin, and he didn't particularly want to look at a black eye for a week. Sasuke refused to come back to the bed at that, and Orochimaru ended up having to drag him up off the floor.
Usually when a boy bit him, that was the end of it: he would be thrown into one of the prisons, or one of the labs, or he would be made to fight to the death as a learning experience for someone stronger. Orochimaru had neither the time nor necessary empathy to waste on problem cases. But Sasuke was special; like his brother, he seemed to depend on that fact to survive from day to day in the company of those far greater than himself. So he was not thrown to wolves, or even teased with the possibility, and the mark didn't darken -- though it remained a red smudge on his cheekbone for several days.
Kabuto smirked when he saw it. "Orochimaru-sama is very kind to you, isn't he?" he said, running his fingertips over the back of Orochimaru's hand. Sasuke stood nearby and said nothing. "A broken finger makes it hard to form seals. And look, he's barely touched you."
Sasuke's face grew stormy, and Kabuto returned to his work, feeling the subtle break in the bone. Orochimaru didn't let the twinge of pain reach his face. "Peace, Kabuto," he said softly, "I know that Sasuke-kun is sorry, even if he is too proud to say so." Sasuke snorted, and this time Kabuto's answering smile looked forced.
"It comes with his youth," Orochimaru concluded, smiling, looking Sasuke in the eye.
"Don't talk about me like I'm not here," the boy snapped. Kabuto tutted softly to himself, fussing with a length of gauze.
"Now, now," Orochimaru continued, "I've been lenient. I would never deny you your place at my side. You are far too precious to me, Sasuke-kun."
Sasuke frowned, transparently unsure if he were being appeased or mocked. "And you have no way of knowing," Orochimaru said softly, "what happens to people less cherished than you when they displease me."
Kabuto chuckled at that softly and wound soft cloth around Orochimaru's hand.
After a handful of tense seconds, Sasuke asked, "What?" He glanced between the two of them, suddenly alert. "What are you talking about?"
---
The lowest level of the current hideout was home to their second most extensive lab; Orochimaru tried to make time for the subjects down here when possible, but time was a more fleeting commodity with every passing day. He couldn't remember off-hand whether or not Sasuke had been down here before, but the boy didn't ask any questions.
When he left Konoha, he'd lost years' worth of data. Trying to reassemble it all was useless; learning from his mistake, he now spread his experiments out between several labs across his country. Here, in the more remote spaces, were things that did not require his attention day to day, or even month to month. He barely remembered what was down here, or who.
The wide, dusty room lit up with a harsh florescent ping, and Sasuke was startled into raising a hand in front of his eyes before looking around. He took a few bold steps forward before faltering and looking back, uneasiness writ in the line of his narrow shoulders. "...tanks?"
Orochimaru smiled, and Sasuke made a breathy sound just short of a snort to express his annoyance with being forced to figure things out for himself. The boy possessed a lovely face and a quick mind -- quick enough, anyway -- but he had no patience. Walking forward silently, like a cat that senses a long-absent dog, Sasuke approached the nearest tank and examined a yellowing labeled taped to its side.
"That's just seawater," Orochimaru said softly.
"Why bother keeping a tank of seawater?" Sasuke asked.
Orochimaru moved to stand directly behind him; Sasuke eased to the right, pretending to get a better look at the handwriting on the label. "This," Orochimaru said, indicating a bank of glass tubes with a gesture, "is the control group."
"Control group?"
"In scientific experimentation, you need a control group. It undergoes exactly the same set of conditions as the treatment group, save the factor being tested."
Sasuke eyed him sidelong, and then turned to look in the direction of the other tanks in the room.
"I was testing several factors, actually," Orochimaru continued, "but few of them led anywhere promising. Come, let me show you something."
The tank he directed Sasuke's attention to was murky, but nothing in particular set it apart. Sasuke eyed the fluid suspiciously before reading the label on the glass. "Houzuki?"
Orochimaru looked up to the network of pipes that led into the tank from the ceiling. "He's probably dead."
Sasuke's eyes widened in his reflection. Orochimaru reached over the boy's shoulder to lay a hand flat against the glass; he was surprised to feel a faint stir of chakra against his palm. "Oh? ...that's extraordinary. It's been years."
Sasuke didn't say anything; his eyes were locked on the back of Orochimaru's hand. Orochimaru turned it over to stroke the cold surface with the backs of his fingers. "He took a chunk of flesh out of my arm the size of a walnut."
Sasuke grew very still; even his breath froze. The gauze wrapped around Orochimaru's finger was very stark against the dusty glass.
"A Mist ninja. You're familiar with them, I believe."
"Yes." The boy's gaze crept back along Orochimaru's arm.
"My previous body's," he clarified.
"Oh," said Sasuke.
"It's an interesting ability, being able to reduce oneself to one's base element. Such a skill could potentially make one invincible. After he proved himself unwilling to cooperate with a simple examination, I decided to see how long he could keep it up." He chuckled softly. "More than five years, it seems."
"How old is he?" Sasuke asked it as though he couldn't keep the question back.
"Hm. Fifteen or sixteen? A few years older than you." Orochimaru laid his other hand flat against the small of Sasuke's back, feeling his heat through the thin cloth of his yukata. Sasuke shivered. "He was rather small at the time."
Their gazes met in reflection on the glass, and Sasuke's eyes were large and dark and looked as though they belonged to someone with a heart; his reflection always betrayed him. Orochimaru slammed him forward into the tank before the boy could anticipate the movement. Sasuke shouted and struggled, but he had already been well-pinned.
"Well," Orochimaru said. "Here's a good experiment. Do you think he can see you? Hear you?"
"Don't!" Sasuke yelled. "Let go of me--"
He knotted his fingers into the boy's thick, black hair, pressing his elbow between his shoulders, and reached around his hip to untie the yukata's belt. "Do you think he cares what happens to you?"
He couldn't see Sasuke's body as his clothing fell away from him, but he didn't have to. He had seen it many times before. He kissed the boy's ear and whispered, "Probably not. He's just surviving now, at the baseline of his awareness. Can you even imagine what such an existence would be like?"
Sasuke bared his teeth. "I didn't mean to, it just hurt, I wasn't thinking--"
"Shhh." Orochmaru leaned in and wrapped his hand around the boy's cock, bandaged finger and all; Sasuke yelped, pressing his forehead into the glass and squeezing his eyes shut. "Shhhh," he said again, and Sasuke's cry trailed off into a thick groan.
Boys Sasuke's age were fairly easy to control. And if they weren't... well. Sasuke himself was the very model of obedience, even if he didn't want to be; he stiffened rapidly in Orochimaru's grasp, even as he was still trying to twist away. Orochimaru started to stroke him, letting the head of the boy's cock brush the cold glass occasionally. Sasuke's entire frame jerked every time. "Do you think he'd want to help you? Save you? Or do you think he'd say, here is a boy who has it fairly easy." He squeezed the base of Sasuke's erection, and Sasuke shuddered. "Here's a boy who can come and go and he pleases, here's a boy who gets to learn at his master's feet."
"Stop, stop, stop," Sasuke hissed against the wall of the tank.
"Here is a boy who has everything he asked for, and does nothing but complain and make trouble." He stroked Sasuke like a lover would. "Stop? Don't? You can't really mean that." Sasuke's hands fisted uselessly against the tank; he was flushed and breathing hard. "Are you too proud to submit even to what you like? Sasuke-kun." He nuzzled the boy's hair, and said it again, more softly. "Sasuke-kun."
Sasuke trembled as the gauze from Orochimaru's hand caught gently on his skin. Sometimes the boy acted like the heroines from those dime store novels that Jiraiya used to read: all reluctance and distress on the outset, but a little whore when cornered. Like all boys at heart. He had stopped trying to speak and now only let his breath shake in his throat and fog the glass.
There was no particular hurry. Sasuke had an amusing tendency to be a bit of a hair-trigger, but he wasn't going to get away with that today; Orochimaru's touch was light and careful. There was water on the floor on this side of the room, an unfortunate side effect of condensation and uneven flooring. The boy's feet made wet sounds every time he awkwardly adjusted his footing. "Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru crooned softly, "My precious."
"Don't call me that," Sasuke gritted out.
Orochimaru laughed. "But imagine if you weren't!" He dropped his voice, making it low and rough in the boy's ear. "Imagine how much trouble you'd be in." He closed his fingers hard and twisted his wrist; Sasuke went rigid, shouted briefly and deafeningly, and came, all as though Orochimaru had hit a button. Sasuke braced himself against the glass as he shuddered, eyes screwed shut, and then slowly slumped forward as he softened in Orochimaru's hand.
"There, now," Orochimaru said, releasing him. "Not such a terrible fate is it? But a very stark contrast." He reached up to stroke the glass again; this time the response within the tank was far more subdued. "You need a better sense of perspective, Sasuke-kun."
Sasuke shifted so he was leaning his hip against the tank as he retied the yukata with shaking hands. He looked like a dog trying to work out if he could get a bite in before he was kicked. A smear of fluid on the glass caught his eye, and he hastily wiped it away with his sleeve, glancing up the length of the glass tube with something like shame.
"He probably isn't aware of us at all," Orochimaru lied. "Don't worry. Come, you need a bath now."
"Hn," said Sasuke, and Orochimaru turned towards the passageway. He didn't look back to see if Sasuke was following him, or if he was still considering his test subject.
