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The mud was caked on. It wasn’t something Karin was particularly happy about, but given the situation, she had no opportunity to complain until after the reservoir repaired and the perimeter secured. A water line break in a desert isn’t pretty. Nor is being one of the only two people in a facility allowed out of a cage to repair it. She’d been working for four hours, in a cave underground, destroying one uniform and breaking at least two nails. Orochimaru would hear about this, as soon as he got back from his training mission with Sasuke, protocol be damned.
Karin could complain about anything, especially coworkers and grungy jobs, but in this case she really couldn’t complain about the help. The reservoir was repaired, and in record time. A quick glance around the cavern confirmed this; the water was still, the glowing green algae calmly light the place, and the seals around the spring and various pipes were back in place. No more random geysers, no dangerously crumbling walls, and thankfully no more exploding pipes. With a sigh she wiped a bit of mud from her glasses with the cleanest section of fabric in her outfit, then turned to climb the slick ladder steps and back into the main compound. Half way up, she nearly slipped off the rail and tumbled back into the mud, but her ‘help’ caught her and hauled her up with a mud-soaked hand.
She really couldn’t complain about him. Unlike the rest of the useless idiots in the place, Kabuto was actually willing to contribute. In a small compound like hers there wasn’t enough of a budget for servants and cleaning staff…but once Orochimaru, Kabuto, and Sasuke had arrived a month ago Kabuto had quietly taken over exactly half of the responsibilities. He cooked, cleaned, and laundered, while at the same time running quick experiments and serving Orochimaru and Sasuke. And he was willing to crawl around in the mud for half an hour trying to find leaks in the pipes.
Despite herself, Karin was impressed. She was also covered in mud and low on patience, and slowly coming to an unfortunate realization as they squelched their way towards the closest corridor.
“Ugh.” She sighed. “At least the water will be hot for the baths.”
He chuckled and pulled a lump of algae from his hair. “I’m looking forward to dry cloths more than the hot shower. I feel like I haven’t been dry for weeks.”
She pulled her own hair from the mud coating her back. “Fine, you get your dry cloths, but I call dibs on the first shower we come to.”
“I’m afraid that’s the men’s restroom a block away. So I’m getting the first shower.”
She’d known that. The women’s baths were on the other side of the men’s baths…but the design of the building meant that she’d have to walk along the whole length of the main complex before she could switch to the women’s half of the building. It wasn’t a walk she was going to relish…and it wasn’t a walk she was going to make if she had her way.
“Like hell you are. I’m getting the first shower, and that’s that. I could care less if I have to see you’re naked ass, but I’m getting clean, and I’m getting clean now.” With that she slammed open the door to the men’s bathroom and stormed in, daring Kabuto to disagree. It was her complex, after all. She could do what she wanted.
Instead of arguing he followed her in, a bemused expression on his face beneath the layers of mud and grime. “Suit yourself, Karin.”
She didn’t respond, instead making a beeline for the showers, not even pausing to take off her shoes. Muddy footprints trailed after her, followed by the slightly larger set that Kabuto left behind.
The first touch of warm water was bliss, and she stood fully clothed under the stream for a full minute before remembering to take her glasses off and set them aside. At least they wouldn’t have muddy smudges on them when she got out. Her shirt came off a minute later, when the mud had softened enough to let her work the zipper, followed by her shoes and shorts. Close by she heard another shower head turn on and Kabuto swearing under his breath at the ties on his pouch.
She would have said something, but the warm water had and almost meditative effect. The best she could do was a quiet jab. “…hope you don’t plan on looking.”
“You don’t have anything that I haven’t seen before.” He retorted. She blinked. He must be in the next stall over, separated from her by nothing more than a curtain…which she just realized she’d forgotten to pull closed.
“Damn it, Kabuto!” He glanced up from undoing his shoes at the furious form of his compatriot blushing angrily and covering her muddied bra with one grime-coated arm. “You could have used another – “
“It was the closest that you hadn’t taken.” Even with her eye sight blurry from the water and lack of glasses, she could tell he was smirking. “And you’d already warmed the water…”
“I didn’t warm it for you, you perv!” Cupping her hands she gathered enough water to splash him in the face. “Stop looking!”
“Stop talking, then.” He stood and stole the sponge from her stall. “Then I’d have no reason to look at you.”
She sputtered, but turned away and tried to pull the curtain closed. When it got stuck half way she swore, then gave up with a toss of her still muddy hair. Let him look. He was right – it wasn’t as if he’d never seen anything like it before. Heck, he’d seen her before, stripped down for her physical and with much less concealing grime.
Socks and underwear hit the floor after only a momentary pause. By now the floor was a treacherous pool of mud and water, soaked up by the quickly clogging drains and the random discarded clothing. She turned the water up, and began to fumble with her bra.
A minute later she was still messing with the straps, mud having clogged the catch and cemented the straps to her body. A steady stream of curses flowed around the steamy showers, stopping only when Kabuto stepped behind her and unclipped the bra with a quick motion.
“You could have asked for help, you know.”
She refused to blush, even as he slipped the last bit of fabric from her shoulders. He wasn’t Sasuke, after all. There was no reason to be embarrassed. “I don’t need help.”
“Really? You still have mud in your hair.” He tugged on one short strand of hair and she focused on not thinking of the naked man behind her.
“Do not.”
“And on your back.”
She whirled around, shaking his hand off and turning the full force of her glare on him. “You’re no better! You’re still covered in mud.” Turning around was a mistake, but she stubbornly refused to get embarrassed. She was a doctor, after all. Bodies were just bodies. No reason to note the scar on his stomach or the play of muscles in his chest…other than with clinical detachment. And no need to be embarrassed that he might be looking at her in the same way.
He shifted and crossed his arms, leaving a smear of mud across his chest. “And whose fault is that? Perhaps the redhead that’s hogging the hot water?”
He caught her hand before she slapped him. “Would it be better if I asked you for help?” He placed a sponge in her open hand. “I can’t reach the small of my back. Surely you can do at least that.”
He dropped her hand and turned away as her mouth dropped open. Yes, she could wash people as well as dishes, but how dare he ask her to do so? If he hadn’t been her superior she would have ignored him and simply stolen the sponge back. Instead, she acquiesced, scrapping the sponge across the last patches of mud and grime on his back, trying to ignore the way the water made his skin feel.
“Thank you.” He responded when she dropped her arm.
“You could have done that easily. Jerk.”
“But then I wouldn’t have the excuse to -“
She shoved the sponge into his mouth and turned around, hearing him chuckled and pull the divider fully closed. Had she been paying attention she might have noticed the laugh to be a bit forced…but she was distracted by trying to control the response within her own body. Damn the man. He’d turned at the last second, and the intimate contact between his skin and hers had broken through all of her carefully constructed barriers.
So now all she could think of was filling in the blanks of his interrupted sentence with the filth her mind normally reserved for thoughts of Sasuke. Sasuke…who wasn’t here right now and hadn’t paid any more heed to her advances than last time. Sasuke, who didn’t help with anything at all and was being pampered like the god-child that he was.
She shook her head. It was right to adore Sasuke. He was perfect, while Kabuto was not. It was those imperfections that had landed the older man here, making him accessible while she was vulnerable and in need. And the one thing Kabuto was good at was taking advantages of vulnerabilities. Karin sighed. She’d have to even the playing field somehow. Asking him to scrub her back in turn seemed like the best way to start off.
“Kabuto?” She called before yanking the curtain back, her doctor’s defenses back up.
“Don’t!” The element of panic in his voice almost caused her to stop, but she was already in the other stall, yelping at the suddenly freezing water. She glanced down quickly…and a smirk spread across her face.
“Having difficulty taking your own advice, doctor?” She taunted, secretly glad she wasn’t the only one feeling the effects of close contact.
He sighed, lowered his hands, and shrugged. “The human body has needs like any other. Sex is one of the more basic of them.”
“You must not be getting much if you can get turned on by someone like me.” She snorted and indicated the sponge, confident that the power was back in her hands. “I came for the other end of the bargain. Clean my back, please. Unless you can’t resist my feminine allure.”
“You’re playing with fire, Karin.” But he turned the heat back up and flicked the sponge down her back, leaving a trail of soap suds over the grime.
“At least with you I’m getting results.”
“Hmpf. Sasuke doesn’t know what he’s missing.” She flushed at his complement and focused instead on the motion of his hands. Another two passes and most of the dirt was gone, but he didn’t drop the sponge. Instead, he ran it over her shoulders then crouched to clean the back of her legs, working with an efficiency born from doing the same for his master often.
She shivered as his hands moved to the insides of her legs, now making smaller, slower movements.
“Kabuto…”
His hand paused, almost to the top of her inner thigh. His response was low and she tried not to think what that might indicate. Somehow she doubted anger. “…yes?” He whispered, and she watched him swallow hard as he looked up at her.
And then her nature got the better of her. “Enjoying the view?”
He looked up, water speckling his hair and eyelashes, and she felt her breath freeze in her chest. That look, full of – of something, something that she couldn’t place, but undeniably hungry. His hands, pressed against such an intimate bit of her anatomy, burned. Then the moment was gone, and he began laughing, the tension and careful control ebbing out of him as he placed the sponge on the ground.
“You don’t need to stop!” she snapped, slightly irritated at the loss of his touch, but more so at the loss of his lust. She worked damn hard to get Sasuke to look at her that way, and had somehow assumed that other men would only find her attractive under extreme duress.
The water blurred his expression, but he lifted the sponge higher, and she flushed at the first brush of his hand against her groin. He slipped a finger inside her folds, causing her to clutch hurriedly at the bar as her knees went weak, and then opened her enough to slip the sponge against her heat.
He wasn’t doing this with the calm efficiency that he’d had before, and she had to bite a lip to stop from making an unseemly noise of pleasure. She wasn’t going to let Kabuto know how nice his hands felt…not that she needed to say anything, given the heat that was starting to pool there.
After a few moments he set the sponge down, prompting her to complain “Don’t stop!”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
His hand lifted, fingers repeating the same gesture they’d just performed, but this time without the thick sponge separating his skin from hers. The first stroke was smooth, and then one finger slipped inside of her, and she did lose control of her voice.
“Should I stop now?”
“No!” With a wet hand she reached down and tugged on his hair. “I order you not to stop.”
There was a flicker in her second sense – his chakra abruptly shifting as he relaxed and released more of it. He leaned forward, pressing another finger inside of her, and kissed her folds.
She gasped, his tongue being a warm counterpoint to the now tepid water. She glanced down, flushing harder at the expression of concentration on his face, as his fingers explored and stretched her, seeking the perfect spot.
A thought of Sasuke flickered across her mind, but was abruptly silenced as his fingers found her sweet spot, causing her to cry out and his mouth to twitch upwards in a satisfied smirk. She leaned back harder against the wall, one hand knotted in his hair, the other clutching the handrail for support as his tongue replaced his fingers in that perfect place.
She nearly swore at him when he moved away, but didn’t when he began to kiss his way up her front, tonguing her navel and nipping lightly at each breast before licking her neck.
“Do you want this, Karin?” He whispered to her ear, and she had to bite her lip to keep from berating him about asking about the obvious. Of course she wanted him to continue. If his fingers hadn’t convinced her of this fact, the rush of endorphin and the feel of his teeth against her skin gave her would have done the job.
Instead, she nodded, stabilized herself a bit more by throwing the hand that had formerly captured his hair across his shoulders, and opened her hips wider. “I want you, Yakushi.”
He pulled away, and an odd expression flitted across his face. “I wonder if you do. Will you call his name, or mine?”
She wanted to slap that frozen “spies don’t show emotion” expression right off his face, but she settled for tugging him down into a kiss, making sure to include lots of tongue and position herself hard against him. Even if he did have a point about her affections, Sasuke wasn’t here, and this man was.
She rubbed against him, succeeding in gaining a shuddering sigh from the ever-controlled Yakushi Kabuto, then gasped when he thrust forward without warning, pressing just enough into her to force out a swear.
“No?” He asked, worry written in the way he hurriedly withdrew, only to gasp when she wrapped her legs around him and pulled him back, angle adjusted and now ready for everything he was willing to give.
“Yes.” She whispered.
It wasn’t an easy position to hold, back tensed just so, thighs resting on the bar and one hand clenched on the rail to give her leverage. She wouldn’t have been able to manage it at all, had it not been for his hands on her waist, holding her steady and giving her the support and balance she needed.
She bit back a gasp of pleasure as he thrust in a second time, this time hitting all the right points, easing in slowly but surely, feeling out the best angle through her quiet gasps and mews.
“More?” He whispered as he pulled out and paused, teasing her with a smirk and earning a growl in response.
The pace he set after that was just what the doctor ordered after a long day spent crouched and cold and frustrated. She did her best to return his attention, tightening around him, hands clenching at hair and muscle, leaving light scratches with her nails that closed up under her fingertips.
He nipped her occasionally, on the corner of her mouth, the side of her neck, the edge of her shoulder. It was never enough to trigger her bloodline talent, but enough of a reminder of the pleasure such a bite could bring her. It added an extra spice of intensity to their play.
Her hand was deep in his hair, her other clenched on the bar, mouths knitted together but panting, when she felt the others approach.
Kabuto immediately stilled beneath her and she had to bite her tongue not to whimper in frustration. They had been so close…
“Kabuto?” Orochimaru’s voice, followed by the odd sickly feeling of his chakra.
“Yes, Lord?” Did Kabuto’s voice sound gruff to his master’s ears, just as it did to hers?
There was a silence, and Orochamaru’s chakra shifted, even as Kabuto resettled himself, gripping her more firmly and pressing hard into her special spot. She tensed around him half instinctively, half in revenge for nearly causing her to lose her grip on the rail and cry out.
“Sasuke is in need of healing. When you find Karin, inform her of that.”
“Yes, Lord.”
And with that, the man was gone. There had been…amusement in his voice, Karin realized with surprise, even as Kabuto began again, apparently uninterested in wasting time obeying his master’s orders. She wasn’t quite sure which of them had initiated the rougher movement, but it was wonderful none the less, his hands holding her steady even as he rocked into hard and she muffled her gasps with a hand. The other tightened in his hair as she returned the thrust with as much force as her position would allow and he groaned and jerked forward, pressing into her deepest point and forcing out a muffled scream as the first shake of her orgasm began. She fought her way through the waves of pleasure to return the favor, tightening around him and holding tight to the bar as he shivered and nearly dropped her, his hands falling from her thighs to clench the bar hard as the pleasure over took him as well.
He groaned into her shoulder, the muscles in his back tightening into hard lines, even as her back arched and she let out a tight whimper.
They rode the aftershocks together, her with her arms wrapped around his neck and his hands pressing her waist into his, her legs wrapped around his thighs. Light hands stroked her back and damp hair, even as she nuzzled his neck and nibbled at his ear. It was…nice. Surprisingly so. It only lasted a minute, before both knew they had to return to work. But Karin was surprised to sense some hesitance as Kabuto finally pulled away and set her back on the floor.
“That was…” she said as they tugged on their clean clothing, looking for the right word to describe the comfortable intensity, the feeling of fitting together so easily with another and knowing that there was no expectations or bonds to break, “nice.”
He grunted, not looking at her as he tied his sash. “Sasuke needs you. Don’t dawdle.”
The reminder was all she needed to spur her to throw on the rest of her clothing. Kabuto was nice and comfortable, but Sasuke was perfect. And Kabuto understood that.
But she paused, hand on the door to the shower-room, and looked back at him, shoulders bowed and expression hid beneath the wave of his white hair. There had been something in the way he had spit the other man’s name out…
“I meant it, though. That was nice. And…” hesitation, but only for a moment, “And it might be fun to do it again sometime?”
He hid the smile that lit his face before he turned to her, but she felt it in his chakra shift and lifted shoulders.
“…I would like that.”
No, she really couldn’t complain about the help.