A/N: Just some Kabuto-childhood fluff. Spoilers for some things about Kabuto's past. Rambly and drabblish. Oneshot. Reviews appreciated!

Pairings: None
Characters: Kabuto (mentions of Orochimaru and Sasori)
Rating: K+
Warnings: Sappiness, possible OOCness (but, with Kabuto, can you really ever be sure?), cuteness and sadness that might pose a threat to the state of your heart, vague mentions of death
Also posted on: crazyhighlander

On to the fic!

Kabuto liked stars.

As a child, he often climbed to the rooftop of his adoptive parents' house at night and sat there, staring with solemn black eyes up at the sparkling canvas of lights spread out above him.

He never did settle on a reason why he liked them so much.

Mostly he thought it was just in his nature. He'd always been fascinated by the unknown, and liked to ponder the "meaning behind the meaning" in things.

Other times, he attributed the attraction to some suppressed sense of aesthetics. After all, he seemed to remember meeting an artist when he was younger. Maybe the meeting had influenced his subconscious.

Both of these were valid conclusions, but he was never satisfied with them as answers. After all, when he looked at the stars, he didn't think about the "meaning" behind them. Mysterious as they were, he really didn't feel the need to figure it out - a mystery in itself. Neither did he really feel that stars were beautiful. Well...they were, certainly. But not in and of themselves.

There was another reason.

Another reason staring at the night sky made him feel calm and shaken.

Made him want to smile and sob.

There was something more.

He just knew it.

Unfortunately, the real reason behind his fascination with stars was something he would not - could not - discover until he was much older.

When Orochimaru entered his life.

Or, rather, when he entered Orochimaru's life.

When the chakra binding his memories and will was released.

When he suddenly knew things.

Things like who he was and where he came from.

And why he liked the stars.

He knew.

He knew how rough and thick the fingers were that had enfolded his baby-soft miniature ones.

And how those same fingers had pointed to the new-moon inverted-field of bright dots they called "stars".

The body that owned those fingers had held him when he'd grown tired.

His father's chest had felt so firm, and that warm thumping was just making him so sleepy.

His mother's eyes (he knew they were hers; so dark and warm and full) had lit up at the stream of light that was a shooting star.

And he'd smiled his little baby smile and reached out a fragile arm.

And then he remembered how suddenly everything got quiet.

Everyone was just so quiet.

People shouted and all he heard was silence.

That empty dreadful sordid silence.

Silence.

Silence, where there should be warm thumping to make him sleepy.

But he's not sleepy anymore.

He's cold.

He never liked the cold.

Cold like his father's chest and his mother's eyes.

So cold and quiet and now he's crying in his three-year-old voice and begging his mother and father to say something and stop being so cold because they have to look at the big star he found and he promises to catch the falling one so his momma will be happy all the time but you have to wake up first because I can't hear anything and I'm so cold and...

He doesn't remember what happens next, but by now he's old enough to know.

Quiet is relative.

So is cold.

And true beauty.

Sasori never was as great of an artist as he pretended.

Maybe he learned that from him, too.

But he's tired of people not entering his life, because it's not his to let them into.

So maybe he can find some way to kill the silence here in the Sound.

And learn how to keep the warmth from dying...

And catch that falling star he promised his mother.

"I always liked stars."

Orochimaru doesn't ask.

Kabuto doesn't offer.