#kabukarin

Kabuto glanced up from his coffee to find an irate red-head glaring him down. He sighed.

"That would be One-One-Eight, I assume. Purple snake with thick green stripes? He's considering the name "Ami". "

karin considered, then nodded. She recognized the snake, if not the boy. Kabuto probably had a name for that, too. He had an unhealthy obsession with naming things he had a hand in creating.

"His interest in you is likely my fault. I'm sorry."

"I don't care whose fault it is, I want to know why he's doing it! And if he's going to stop any time soon. It's getting bloody creepy, those sharingan always on me."

Not that Kabuto would know, surrounded by those eyes all the time. Karin briefly wondered if moving the Shin away from the bulk of the orphanage had been a good idea. Sure, it protected the rest of the kids from the creepy, kill-happy clones, but Kabuto had never been the best at self-identity. He was putting himself in danger of backsliding every second he spent with the children.

"He won't hurt you, I promise. He is simply...trying to understand something, and you are the best example he can find."

"So that's why he's got his sharingan out all the time? he's recording me? That doesn't make me feel any better!"

At least Kabuto looked a bit appologetic. But there was something about his eyes...Twenty years with the man had finally given Karin the ability to notice when he was hiding information or emotions behind that seemingly stoic mask.

"There's more to it, isn't there? Come on, spill!"

Kabuto coughed. "Ami asked me a question and was not satisfied with my answer. He decided to simply take the answer from my mind...And I was not fast enough to deflect him. The memory he saw led him to you."

Now the orphanage director looked openly uncomfortable, and Karin couldn't blame him. Part of the reason Kabuto was able to control the Shin was their respect of his abilities. Being able to catch him in a gengitsu, even for a few moments, destabilized his hold over them, and at a time before their individuation fully took.

But if only one Shin seemed interested in her, then the boy had kept whatever had had found in Kabuto's head to himself. So rather than a threat to stability, it became another teaching moment. 

'Fine. He can follow me around all he wants. But you still haven't told me the question he asked."

If possible, Kabuto looked more uncomfortable. But he answered anyways.

"He asked what love is."

------------- 

"Love? It's the emotion that makes you value others more than yourself."

The Shin looked at him blankly. "So I love my..." He paused, feeling out the new word that Kabuto had taught them, "...brothers? Since if I die, the collective will replace me."

Kabuto looked levely at the boy. He had hoped he wouldn't have to answer this question until much, much later. The Shins did not even have a concept of empathy yet. Love would be impossible to understand without that foundation.

"Its...similar to that, yes. But most people do not belong to a collective. They can never be 'replaced'. The closest they -we - can come is by seeing our children survive."

The Shin considered this. "In such a case one might sacrifice themselves so their children would survive. That is logical."

"Yes. But humans are not logical. They are motivated by emotions like love to do what is best for their 'collectives'. "

"But that could cause errors."

"Yes. Emotions do that. But the benifits outweigh the costs."

The Shin clearly didn't believe him, but considered his words none-the-less.

"So to understand 'love' I ust feel the emotion. Give it to me, please."

Kabuto's mind whirled, trying to parse what the boy could possibly mean. He realized just a moment to late, and gengitsu took effect the same moment his hands met in the seal to block it.

----------- 

"So he caught one of your memories of Orochimaru?"

Kabuto looked at her like she was crazy.

"No, thank all the spirits. I doubt I would ever be able to explain that 'error' well enough to undo the damage. He found something much more recent."

"But who - Oh. Oh." She flushed. "Kabuto, I didn't - I mean - "

He shrugged. "I love easily. His Lordship could never break me of that habit."

"yes, but -"

"But?"

Karin searched for the words to express how flattered she was at Kabuto's affection. After Sasuke she had never really onsidered that someone could love her for, well, her. Certainly not enough to be the first thing that came to mind at the word. But their relationship...she laughed, surprised and amused all at once.

"That poor boy. Imagine trying to understand what we have?"

Kabuto smiled and shook his head. "In fact, I think it was the best way he could have learned."

----- 

Five seconds. That was all Shin-118 got, his father's hands moving too fast and the gengitsu snapping back almost instantly. Five seconds of memory, jumbled and confused, full of sounds and sights and sensations he couldn't even fathom.

But he felt it, none the less, a taste of that emotion he had never experienced before, carried on the back of that flicker of memory.

The smell of damp, clean hair. Red, spilled across his chest, its source a soft weight against his side. A quiet, contented noise, as the form beside him shifts, pressing closer, nuzzling into his shoulder. Morning sunlight, caught on red eyelashes, just peeking open. The felling of a smile on his face, mirrored on hers, sleep not quite done with either of them. And through it all the feeling of a warm weight on his chest, almost painful in the way it fills the whole world with joy.

Shin, soon to be Shin-Ami, blinked the memory away from his mind, but it stuck, following him around his daily chores, hounding him with all the questions it raised. None of the logic Kabuto spoke of was in that moment of memory. It was all just...feelings.

He followed the woman around, trying to understand what was it about her that could prompt such an illogical reaction from his father, but it explained nothing.

It comes as something of a surprise. He comes as something of a surprise.

Which isn't to say Kabuto had never orgasmed before. Simply that in most sexual situations it seems like too much effort, and his focus is not upon his own satisfaction but getting as much information as possible out of his source. Usually, that means teasing and pillow talk and being very, very apt at giving his partners exactly what they want.

Masturbation deals with a problem, simple as that, and it isn't something he engages in often. An erection is something that can be induced by the right releases of hormones, no need to be attracted to the other. Certainly in his time he's slept with many people he's found personally repulsive. That never stopped him from getting the job done.

But Karin is...different. There's nothing he wants from her, and nothing she wants from him. As she always says, "It's a good way to blow off steam." Nothing more. It's not as if they have any secrets left to hide, nor any other partners that could understand.

Despite the clause of 'no strings attached' he does it because he's fond of her. There's no one else he's seen grow into womanhood quite like she has, going from a precocious child to an arrogant teen to a woman confident in her own needs and powers. She's strong and capable and doesn't need him to play a role for her.

He's not sure why she picked him, of all the men in her life. Perhaps it was just that he was the safest. "No strings attached", and he tries to stay true to that promise, though he suspects he loves her. How would he know, though? He's never loved anyone before. In all the stories he reads to the children, love is something wild and crazy and big, tied up in loyalty and lust and need. Like what he felt - still feels - for Orochimaru. But Karin? He sees her perhaps twice a month and they chat over books and coffee and paperwork, and then go their separate ways and live their separate lives. No strings attached.

Yet...

Yet there she is, hot and sweet beneath him, hair mussed and glasses askew, and quoting some line from the last ridiculous porno Suigetsu brought to the base. And he finds himself laughing, and then she is laughing too, her body tightening round him, rippling as the chuckle turns into a guffaw and then...into something more.

It catches him completely by surprise, one moment he is looking down at her, beautiful in despite - no, because - of her imperfections and scars, and the next the world tightens to a single point somewhere within him...yet also somewhere within her, and he is caught in the the cross between total individuality and total surrender, and he gasps and gives in to the sensation.

"Kabuto?" She asks a moment later, slight concern in her voice.

He opens his eyes and finds her brow creased and damn but she's still beautiful, so he kisses her sweetly and whispers "Thank you".

She doesn't understand. She might never. How could he explain to her without ruining what they have? So he thanks her genuinely, from the deepest part of his heart, thanks her and they go on just as they always have.