Shouldn't Feel Like Home
Part 12 - Sympathy

Stepping out of my hole of a room, I knew something felt off. It was just the atmosphere of the place to radiate a sort of feeling. This feeling was dark, silent. There was nothing but silence. I tried to ignore it, but as I casually passed a very displeased looking Orochimaru, I knew something was wrong.

He didn't even pause in his motion. He didn't appear to even notice me pass him. I was content with that at the moment, as my curiosity gathered more attention than a training session that was likely to not amount to much. My feet led me to the place I'd gone to often, for one reason or another. But this was the origin of that dark feeling I had picked up on. Kabuto's lab.

I handled the door knob and opened the metal slab, stepping into what was essentially Kabuto's bedroom.

There was blood.

Everywhere.

I looked around, wondering what poor bastard had invoked this horrible wrath, but it had become quickly clear to me that I had been wrong. The red streaks that blotched the tables and floor led up to a certain man who proved to be a bane in my existence when he wanted to be. Apparently, Kabuto was not completely immune to the snake man's wrath.

"Oh my god…" I whispered before I could stop the words from spilling out of my mouth. "Kabuto? Are you….?"

A groan emitted from the form, hunched up against a table leg. "You….were late…for the blood drive." He chuckled with great effort.

"How can you make jokes like this?" I asked, looking at him as I crouched down to be at his level.

The delirious medic chuckled harder. "He at least stopped hitting me when there was more blood outside my body than inside."

"That isn't a good thing, you dumbass." I reached up for a towel to mop up some of the blood choking up his face. "Why did he do this to you? I thought you were his favorite?"

"Orochimaru has terrible moods. Even I can face the brunt of it in certain circumstances…"

"Why aren't you healing?"

"Well, if you pop a balloon and it automatically reforms what do you do to it?"

"Pop it again?"

"You bitch and whine, do your crazy rage thing and set it on fire with your mouth. That's what he did to me, so I stopped healing."

I looked at him sternly. "Bullshit." He blinked. "I don't see the first burn mark on you."

"Shut up, smartass and help me up."

I took his hand and helped him to his feet, only pulling my weight when he braced himself on the table. I watched him trying to focus his balance, his glasses shattered and throwing his world off. I felt an unexplainable anger than I can only remember feeling in the rare occasion when I had put myself in between someone delivering Naruto into death's embrace. I looked at him, bothered by his apparent permanent place being Orochimaru's pet. A little shred of me felt sympathy for him.

"Don't worry about me; I told him that you were the one who set the kitchen on fire after all."

….

"Never mind, I don't feel sorry for you anymore you, prick."

To Be Continued…