The Pound of his Heartbeat

Summary: When Sasuke get's poisoned by Orochimaru and can't save himself, what will happen, as he lies dying on the cold, stone floor?

Pairings: You can make it NaruSasu is you want, but it doesn't have to be NaruSasu if you don't want it to be.

The Pound of his Heartbeat

Sasuke silently strolled through the eerie hallway illuminated by flickering torches. The silent clack… clack… of his sandals echoing throughout the hideout.

He was shivering. Orochimaru hadn't told him it was raining outside, and he hadn't even been outside since he first came here. The rain was nothing but a painful memory to Sasuke, and he was quite relieved he would hardly ever have to see rain again.

How long had he been here for? He lost track after 24 days. After awhile, he stopped caring about how many days he would be trapped in this silent, dull place.

Releasing a held back sigh, he turned and entered his dark room.

Silence. Darkness. The way Sasuke liked it. It reminded him of himself. It was comforting to him. Especially the darkness. It may not seem like it, but, when you need darkness, it is there for you. When nobody accepts you, darkness always will. If you can accept darkness with open arms, it will become the certain comfort you have awaited in your life. Comfort that seems softer than a baby's skin.

Darkness can wrap you up in a warm black blanket, and let you rest your eyes. You don't have to do anything to yourself, or others. When people demand you to speak, yet you desperately want to avoid it, darkness can allow you to do just that. Like a child sleeping with a parent, it will lull you to sleep, a sleep deeper than the heaviest dosage of anesthesia, if it allows.

Darkness was Sasuke's best friend, teammate, and power.

He lied down on his bed, the small cot that Kabuto had wheeled into his room awhile ago, after he was finally allowed sleeping on something other than the cold, stone floor.

Finally, after what seemed like weeks since he had done it, he allowed his eyelids to slide shut, his body welcoming the sleep that flushed out his exhaustion.

He woke up three hours later, the fatigue of his over excessive training with his snake sensei almost completely washed out with the much needed rest.

He heard a strong knock against his door, with a playful voice to accompany it. Sasuke was well aware of a painful headache forming. "Sasuke? You awake?" It was Kabuto. Just as he thought.

Sasuke didn't bother answering to the medic, he never liked him, and he knew that Kabuto wasn't there to make him feel better in anyway. Most likely, he was either there to summon him to Orochimaru, try an experiment on him, or just mock him about something. Sasuke stifled a groan that threatened to escape from his lips, and he lied his head down again. His hair, still damp and ruffled from training, rustled as it swept across his pillow. He had hoped that the sound would make it seem like he was sleeping, and had just turned over.

Kabuto wouldn't fall for it.

He opened the door, his emotionless eyes landing on Sasuke's "sleeping" form. He smirked evilly as he spoke.

"Come on, Sasuke. Orochimaru wants you, and you know feigning sleep won't make anything better. I know you're awake. And before you say anything, I have watched you sleep before, Sasuke, you never turn in a light sleep. Never. Only in the darkest, deepest of your sleeps do you shuffle around, and it you do it very silently. You happen to be like a corpse sleeping, Sasuke. Even shuffling you don't make much noise."

After a few seconds of Sasuke thinking of a way to outsmart Kabuto's cleverness, and coming up blank he just snorted.

"Why would you even fake sleeping?" Kabuto asked, a confused look on his face.

Sasuke gave a soft hn as if he was still sleepy. "I'm still tired, that's all." He said, rubbing his eye.

Kabuto gave him a halfhearted smile. "Well, after speaking with Lord Orochimaru, you can get some shuteye. It's actually nearly midnight. You fell asleep a lot earlier than normal, Lord Orochimaru must have worked you pretty hard. You rarely fall asleep before ten."

Sasuke just blinked, his face expressionless. He never really was a social person, and he hated to speak if it wasn't absolutely necessary. It was just his personality.

Sasuke stood up, then followed Kabuto out the door, towards Orochimaru's room. He had been able to cut off all of his fears of everything, except of Orochimaru. Orochimaru's room sent tingles up his spine, if Orochimaru ever turned his back on him…

Sasuke threw the thought away, focusing on calming himself. Orochimaru can sense any hint of emotions lingering off somebody. He was that powerful.

He managed to calm himself before he reached Orochimaru's room. Kabuto knocked, then opened the door. He bowed to his sensei respectfully.

"Lord Orochimaru, I have brought Sasuke like you said." Kabuto told him, cautious of his tone of voice.

Orochimaru gave a small, evil chuckle. "Excellent." He hissed, "Thank you, Kabuto."

Kabuto bowed again, backing up a couple feet as Sasuke stepped forward, staring at his sensei in the eye. He couldn't help noticing how much worse his headache had gotten in the small amount of time.

He stood up, making his way towards Sasuke, who didn't do as much as flinch.

"Glad you could come, I thought you'd sleep through the next two days, Sasuke. You were so tired. You were definitely tired. You look pretty worn out while you slept, we decided not to wake you."

Sasuke visibly cringed. They've been watching me sleep? He wondered, feeling an immediate loss of privacy.

Orochimaru seemed to read his thoughts, and smiled. "It's alright, Sasuke. We had only come to check on you a few times. We were worried, you weren't waking to our presences. That worries me deeply, Sasuke, what it if had been the enemy? You would be dead." He hissed with a tint of playfulness to it.

"Now, to what I had called you here for…" Sasuke glanced up at his sensei's venom eyes.

"You've been recently lagging a lot in your training. You're losing your strength, you've been low on Chakra. You haven't been doing your best recently, and have been sleeping a lot more than usual, excluding tonight because of the extra training. Care to comment?" Orochimaru hissed, flashing a warning sign through his eyes, which pointed at Sasuke like daggers.

"…" Sasuke didn't want to comment, he knew his power has been recently going downhill. He wasn't lazy, and he knew Orochimaru knew that. Truth was, he was training too frequently. He didn't have enough time between training sessions to recover from wounds he received. Kabuto never healed him, partly because Sasuke didn't want anything to do with him, and also because Kabuto didn't want to waste Chakra on somebody like Sasuke. He hated him.

"Not responding huh?" Orochimaru hissed, his tongue spinning in a complete circle in front of him. He was now standing only a couple feet away from Sasuke. He stared down at the boy with a threatening stare.

"I think you should be punished for both your lack of training and your refusal to speak, don't you agree Kabuto?" He asked, glancing towards his medic, who only nodded and walked beside Orochimaru, smiling.

Sasuke immediately got into a battle position, deepening his stance, reaching for his sword with one hand, and blocking his neck with the other.

Orochimaru shook his head and laughed like he had just heard the funniest joke ever.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and was about to ask what was so funny when he felt a row of sharp teeth clamp down tightly into the left side of his neck. Sasuke was immediately distracted by the pain and turned his head sharply to try to pry the snake off his neck, forgetting about his sensei and the medic ninja, who was shuffling around in his clothes.

He grabbed a needle, flipping off the small lid it had. Before Sasuke could see what was happening, he felt a sharp prick on the other side of his neck, then a fluid sliding through his neck.

He kept his neck still, he had a snack viciously biting down harder and harder on his neck on one side, and on the other side, a needle, which Kabuto still had a firm grip on the needle. Once the fluid was gone, and all of it was in Sasuke's system, he slide the needle.

Sasuke twisted around and pinned the snake to the ground, punching it two times before he felt weak. He found his arm heavy, and he couldn't lift it. In fact, he couldn't keep his body up from the ground at all. He tried to lift his body up from the ground, but gave up and fell onto the stone.

Kabuto snickered. "I have found that those calming serums work well on him."

Orochimaru laughed, casually approaching Sasuke, who was lying curled on his side glancing up scared. When Orochimaru started bending down, Sasuke closed his eyes tightly, so tight it hurt. Sweat trickled down his forehead, and he tried to inch away from his sensei.

"I wouldn't move too much, Sasuke. The poison from that Black Snake will quickly spread."

Black Snake? I was attacked by a BLACK SNAKE!? If I would've known that I would've kept still!

A Black Snake. The most deadly of all snakes in Orochimaru's Sound Village. When bitten, the poison immediately affects you. You die in a minimum of three days, suffering for at least those days. Afterwards, the second three days passes, you most likely die. If you don't die, you continue suffering. Orochimaru developed the poison in the snake, which was once harmless.

Sasuke couldn't believe it. The poison's only cure was to undergo surgery and get it removed that way.

"Lord Orochimaru?" His voice was high pitched, and it made him visibly flinch.

Orochimaru's eyes glared at him, but with a smile. An odd mixture. "What is it, Sasuke?" He asked, his voice icy.

"Why kill me? Don't you need me as a…" he coughed, the poison was starting to affect him. "…vessel?" He finished.

Orochimaru's evil smirk returned to his face, he brushed the hair out of Sasuke's face, which made Sasuke want to throw up. Those pale, icy fingertips brushing against his skin made Sasuke very uncomfortable.

"If you can't survive this more than two days after the death point, you are not worthy of being my next vessel." He hissed.

Two days!? Sasuke's mind was screaming. People can't even survive the first second after the three day mark! My chances of surviving after the three day line are 20% at best…

Orochimaru picked him up in his arms and walked out of his room, making Sasuke want to kill himself.

Seeing Orochimaru was gross enough, now Orochimaru was HOLDING him!

The calming serum was possibly the only thing keeping him from lashing out at Orochimaru, poisoned or not.

He started to drift off, never realizing his own tiredness until then. He hated falling asleep in Orochimaru's arms, but the drowsiness was overwhelming.

He closed his eyes, slowly falling asleep.

Orochimaru heard his breaths even out and his head hit his chest lightly as Sasuke fell asleep, and he gave a evil smirk, as he walked to Sasuke's room and lied him down in his bed.

Chapter 1, DONE!

I don't know how long it will be until chapter two is out, but it definitely won't be a long time like a month or whatever. Longest wait will probably be a couple week, PM me if it's not done in a week so I can get it out if I forget.

REVIEW!!!

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! No pairings in this story by the way!

~SasukeUchihasGuardian