[He is not a modest person by nature or practice, but that lifestyle has hinged entirely upon a certain perspective—that the body is a weapon, a tool, forged to its utmost on the battlefield. Intimacy of the body remains behind doors, between married men and women for the purposes of procreation, and the rest of the shinobi world lives within this sanitized conservation of virtue. To go outside that is an aberration, an embarrassing social blunder at best and an alienating sin at worse, but even under those rules Sasuke has never considered intimacy for himself. He has never seen it practiced. He cannot recall a time his father ever touched his mother with more than a passing hand, there-and-gone. They did not hug or kiss, or at least not in front of him. A pat on the head from his father, Sasuke remembers, would buoy his happiness for a week.
And when the girls who chased him tried to initiate it, he recalls his own reactions to their affection—a shuddering shut-down, a withdrawal, a settling coldness. After all, how he could let them in when it trespassed on such a foundational lesson of his culture? He didn't exist to be caressed, or kissed, or cradled, because his body could only be shaped by fists and blades and pain, anything that would chisel it into a violent point.
He breathes when Cy eases the toy out of him, feeling the accompanying ache of emptiness where muscle has stretched too soon, a jolt of sharp pain up his spine. Then, obediently, he rolls onto his stomach. And such an action is so natural when he has never let someone this close, behind him, that it's almost terrifying. But Cy's hands are soft and masterful as they work over inexorably tight muscles. And his voice is drawling, almost hypnotic, a cadence he can slip beneath just to listen.
And imagine. The temple takes over his mind, lit by the backdrop of an eternally burning flame. Empty stone. Carved architectural beauty. He envisions Cy there, alone, and it doesn't feel very good despite the peacefulness of solitude described. Like there's something else, some haunting presence overlaid.]
Mon Mahara.
[He's testing the unfamiliar shape of those syllables in his mouth.]
My home is called Konohagakure. A forest, green and alive. Mild winters and humid summers. I had a clan—the Uchiha. [Past particle.] We were old and powerful, and angry. Passionate. Uchiha possess an affinity for the nature of fire. It was one of the most complicated techniques I first learned when I was eight, to create that fire: katon. My father praised me for it.
[Face down, in the dim room beneath Cy's hands, it's easier to be vulnerable even if it's nothing new for a man who has lived millennia to hear. Maybe he's talking more for himself. Sasuke shifts slightly, exhaling.]
no subject
And when the girls who chased him tried to initiate it, he recalls his own reactions to their affection—a shuddering shut-down, a withdrawal, a settling coldness. After all, how he could let them in when it trespassed on such a foundational lesson of his culture? He didn't exist to be caressed, or kissed, or cradled, because his body could only be shaped by fists and blades and pain, anything that would chisel it into a violent point.
He breathes when Cy eases the toy out of him, feeling the accompanying ache of emptiness where muscle has stretched too soon, a jolt of sharp pain up his spine. Then, obediently, he rolls onto his stomach. And such an action is so natural when he has never let someone this close, behind him, that it's almost terrifying. But Cy's hands are soft and masterful as they work over inexorably tight muscles. And his voice is drawling, almost hypnotic, a cadence he can slip beneath just to listen.
And imagine. The temple takes over his mind, lit by the backdrop of an eternally burning flame. Empty stone. Carved architectural beauty. He envisions Cy there, alone, and it doesn't feel very good despite the peacefulness of solitude described. Like there's something else, some haunting presence overlaid.]
Mon Mahara.
[He's testing the unfamiliar shape of those syllables in his mouth.]
My home is called Konohagakure. A forest, green and alive. Mild winters and humid summers. I had a clan—the Uchiha. [Past particle.] We were old and powerful, and angry. Passionate. Uchiha possess an affinity for the nature of fire. It was one of the most complicated techniques I first learned when I was eight, to create that fire: katon. My father praised me for it.
[Face down, in the dim room beneath Cy's hands, it's easier to be vulnerable even if it's nothing new for a man who has lived millennia to hear. Maybe he's talking more for himself. Sasuke shifts slightly, exhaling.]
That feels good.