[Oh. He can't quite help the quickening of his pulse, primed for worry, worn in troughs through his mind — but he trusts Cy. He'll listen to anything he has to say. There's a careful nod, then a slower inhalation, attempting to calm the physiological response that instinctively rises.]
I think I told you, right? My safeword's always a god of war. Some culture, some mythos. Something that's tied to the essence of what I am.
（ it's been ares, it's been aktal-sonn, it's been haixei, it's been sasidavna. it's been a thousand things. but that has been a constant. a reminder, a vow.
his hand is a warm weight up sasuke's spine, resting at his nape, an anchor. ）
[Another nod, because he does recall that conversation. He knows it is less Ares than it is the concept fixed behind it, intrinsically tied to who and what Cy is. And he also anticipated this question, so he responds with thought and care.]
There wasn't much, but I read everything that was available in the library. It seemed as if the Greek people feared him, so he was not spoken of often outright, except in reverence and respect as the god of the underworld. "The Unseen One." The most prominent myth was that of his relationship with Persephone.
[He has other things to say about his opinion of Hades, but these are not strictly factual comments — so he withholds them for now. His head leans back against the hand at his nape.]
（ his fingers are pressed beneath sasuke's chin, tipping his head up. cy, unreadable and blank as a night without stars, just looks at him for a long moment.
there are some things you can't walk back from. ）
I think I'd like to change mine too.
（ that's the part that will feel like rejection. he lets it carve out space in the air, and settle there. ）
[The fear, of course, constricts in his throat — he can feel the moment he's gone too tense to breathe and his heart climbs up in his chest, beating dully beneath the cage of ribs. Angled up by that touch, the interplay of emotions is stark on pale features, fringe brushed back to show everything on his face.
Did he do something wrong? But Cy told him to keep listening, and he trusts Cy. He's never trusted someone like he trusts Cy.]
（ the yawning nothingness cracks like a mirror, and emotion bleeds back into him by degrees. as if they are amorphous things in the air that he must catch in both hands and drag into himself, it seems an effort.
then another kiss is pressed against sasuke's mouth, soft and chaste like a holy rite. ）
[He sees that change, that fragmentary transition from ancient emptiness reaching back for its humanity in pieces, signed by a kiss — and then the word. It's impossible to brace himself for the crater impact left by its impression. One-handed, he levers himself up from the bed, mismatched eyes gazing down at Cy as the sentiment cracks open the look on his face. He can guess at many meanings for this choice, but none of them make sense, not when Cy has described to him the significance of his safeword as an emblem of what he is.
Hades and Persephone — the knot in his chest is wound tighter, a furling of sentiment that threatens to choke him, but he manages a low whisper. One question.]
（ something doleful touches at the corners of his eyes, the set of his mouth. he does not try to stop sasuke from that upwards shift, but he collects the icepack where it's slid to the bed. it's beginning to warm, spent to its purpose. ）
Is it enough to say I'd follow you into hell?
（ there's a smile. wry, tired. built up, torn down. he is a million things at any given moment, but now only one that matters: in love. ）
[Everything in him feels — brittle like glass, carved out of light for the way those words refract in him.]
Didn't Hades abduct her against her will?
[It's still spoken in that quiet tone, but now searching, as gentle and careful as the hand he lowers to find Cy's own, lacing fingers in a gesture not fully conscious.]
（ sasuke laces their fingers together, and now cy acts to lift it up, kiss his knuckles gently. it feels as though he's done it a thousand times before, like those soft touches of affection are carved along channels and grooves in them both. ）
I always preferred the idea that she fell in love, too.
（ but the idea of a woman's agency was... not great in that day and age. before his time, but the athenians had some pretty specific ideas about a woman's role and place in the world, and that was oft reflected in their gods. ）
[It's beginning to settle, like fine sand in the grain of a stinging wound, what Cy means and the gravity in his decision. Those lips are a warm graze across the backs of knuckles, not a gesture he will ever take for granted in its soft allowance, the evocation of intimacy and affection. It dawns on him — less a flood of daylight than a slow, creeping slant of a sunbeam, illuminating darker corners held in reserve, forgotten, for so much of his life.
Persephone, if he recalls correctly, is the goddess of spring according to Greek mythology. So it feels like Cy has done to him — put down roots, new growth in a soil previously cold and barren. The emotion fills him to the brim; he cannot speak past it, at first. He knows what it is and what it means. He's felt it before, yet this intensity is greater and more magnified, because for once he is unthreatened by an abrupt dismissal or departure. The fear still exists; he thinks it always will, but Cy has laid a foundation of trust down for him and so the impulse to run is muted.
He's already been acting out this feeling for Cy in so many ways without words, but the vulnerability of pitching it into the open is difficult. Only because of what Cy has said is he able to do it. Only because of all of their conversations to this point does he reach for that bravery. Sitting further upright, squeezing braided fingers in desperation for an anchor, face a scrawl of severe sentiment —]
I love you.
[The words are a declaration: 愛してる. They are not meant lightly, reflected in the graveness of their telling, a solemnity touched by all the loss and grief behind him.]
Edited (i liked this better) 2024-03-12 18:07 (UTC)
he knew, or surmised, that first morning in the showers. love has been laid bare in action and deed, in the growth that sasuke has shown as he flourished beneath his hand. he has known, but hadn't anticipated it would become a tangible sentiment sheltered between them, spoken into being like the spin of filigree glass. catching love's first light in a fractal shimmer warm with all the colours of sunrise.
his brows lift. it leaves his expression looking broken open, softly vulnerable in the moment. hearing the admission, he's overcome, briefly — torn between a loving admiration and the awareness that he had abstained from saying it aloud himself only because he wasn't certain it wouldn't make sasuke run away. if this conversation is teaching him anything, it's that he should be giving him more credit.
the tether of their hands serves to pull sasuke in, closer against him. he kisses him as if seeking to claim the words from the lips that spoke them, the tongue that shaped them. he kisses him airless, lifting his free hand to skirt along sasuke's thigh, his hip, his side. even when sasuke's need to breathe becomes apparent, he shifts his focus to his throat, where soft presses of his lips offer affirmation. between these kisses, then, he speaks — ）
Je t'aime au-delà du temps.
（ sasuke might recognize a word here and there. he knows now that je means i. but after a moment, pulling back enough to meet his eyes, brushing the fringe of his hair back from his face, he offers the translation in full: ）
[The kiss becomes a half-dozen, an endless chain of intimacy in the seal of lips, anchoring him to the world until air is dire — and then Cy's mouth slips down his throat, and those touches are everywhere, holding him close in that smother of affection. For someone else, it might be too much. For a boy whose life is nothing but the starvation of that love, it's barely enough. He clumsily climbs to lay on top of Cy so every point of their bodies connect somewhere, desperate for physical proximity and wishing he had his other arm to complete the circle of an embrace.
Cy's words, first in French and then translated, have undone the remainder of his composure. He doesn't — make much noise, but the tears are drawn out of him in a seemingly endless flow with no stop. They paint silent tracks down his cheeks. He can't express how that statement resounds so deeply through him, how it becomes a permanent presence, how the Sharingan throbs in the socket of his right eye because he'll die just to keep this moment. Beyond time. He wants that.]
[You silly man. The words are a little hoarse, head lifting at the kiss to his brow. Sasuke turns his own arm and tilts the face of the device toward Cy, their fingers still intertwined.]
Fuck me, I can't even make a joke about turning into a pumpkin because you will absolutely take it literally.
（ another ice pack is summoned, and cy snaps the little ammonium nitrate pack to activate it and shakes it at sasuke, mock-menacingly. ）
Sit on this, please. Fifteen minutes. You're already going to be in for a world of hurt tomorrow, you keep squirming away from the ice pack I'm going to withhold any fun roughhousing for a month.
[Yes, this is a literal interpretation. He looks at the ice pack once it is produced from thin air, frown marring his lips, but he does not shrink away. It's mostly an act; he'll be dutiful about sitting on the pack.]
It's cold. [Colder when he's not fresh off the spanking session.] A month seems excessive.
It's a reference to an Earth fairytail. A girl gets blessed by a fairy godmother and goes to a fancy ball all dressed up, but her carriage is made out of a pumpkin, and the magic wears off at midnight. It's kinda been co-opted into pop culture to reference like, 'oh no, at x time I'll turn into a pumpkin, haha, better go!'
（ a pause. then: ）
I'm not going anywhere, just waiting for the clock to strike down. And hush about the cold and do what I say and you won't have to worry about a month.
（ you fool, you've fallen for one of the classic blunders! ）
You'll have to wait and see.
（ and since sasuke is sitting on that ice pack, cy just adjusts until he can bracket him in a playful embrace, like a poor man's nonsexual lotus position with his legs thrown over sasuke's thighs and hooked at the ankles behind his back. this puts him in prime kissing distance, the threat of it omnipresent in how he leans forward to steal one in an affectionate nuzzle. ）
[I hope you are prepared for a life of explaining Earth references to him. Yet Sasuke is obedient to the new arrangement of limbs, even more for how it puts Cy directly in front of him — such that he is leaning for a kiss before it comes. Easy, reflexive affection.]
... Spring. [It's not even Persephone that sets his mind to this answer, although it certainly weighs it more heavily.] My village always looked like another world during that time of year.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Yes.
no subject
（ it's been ares, it's been aktal-sonn, it's been haixei, it's been sasidavna. it's been a thousand things. but that has been a constant. a reminder, a vow.
his hand is a warm weight up sasuke's spine, resting at his nape, an anchor. ）
How much did you read about Hades?
no subject
There wasn't much, but I read everything that was available in the library. It seemed as if the Greek people feared him, so he was not spoken of often outright, except in reverence and respect as the god of the underworld. "The Unseen One." The most prominent myth was that of his relationship with Persephone.
[He has other things to say about his opinion of Hades, but these are not strictly factual comments — so he withholds them for now. His head leans back against the hand at his nape.]
I didn't choose it lightly.
no subject
（ his fingers are pressed beneath sasuke's chin, tipping his head up. cy, unreadable and blank as a night without stars, just looks at him for a long moment.
there are some things you can't walk back from. ）
I think I'd like to change mine too.
（ that's the part that will feel like rejection. he lets it carve out space in the air, and settle there. ）
no subject
Did he do something wrong? But Cy told him to keep listening, and he trusts Cy. He's never trusted someone like he trusts Cy.]
To what?
no subject
then another kiss is pressed against sasuke's mouth, soft and chaste like a holy rite. ）
Persephone.
no subject
Hades and Persephone — the knot in his chest is wound tighter, a furling of sentiment that threatens to choke him, but he manages a low whisper. One question.]
Why?
no subject
Is it enough to say I'd follow you into hell?
（ there's a smile. wry, tired. built up, torn down. he is a million things at any given moment, but now only one that matters: in love. ）
no subject
Didn't Hades abduct her against her will?
[It's still spoken in that quiet tone, but now searching, as gentle and careful as the hand he lowers to find Cy's own, lacing fingers in a gesture not fully conscious.]
no subject
（ sasuke laces their fingers together, and now cy acts to lift it up, kiss his knuckles gently. it feels as though he's done it a thousand times before, like those soft touches of affection are carved along channels and grooves in them both. ）
I always preferred the idea that she fell in love, too.
（ but the idea of a woman's agency was... not great in that day and age. before his time, but the athenians had some pretty specific ideas about a woman's role and place in the world, and that was oft reflected in their gods. ）
no subject
Persephone, if he recalls correctly, is the goddess of spring according to Greek mythology. So it feels like Cy has done to him — put down roots, new growth in a soil previously cold and barren. The emotion fills him to the brim; he cannot speak past it, at first. He knows what it is and what it means. He's felt it before, yet this intensity is greater and more magnified, because for once he is unthreatened by an abrupt dismissal or departure. The fear still exists; he thinks it always will, but Cy has laid a foundation of trust down for him and so the impulse to run is muted.
He's already been acting out this feeling for Cy in so many ways without words, but the vulnerability of pitching it into the open is difficult. Only because of what Cy has said is he able to do it. Only because of all of their conversations to this point does he reach for that bravery. Sitting further upright, squeezing braided fingers in desperation for an anchor, face a scrawl of severe sentiment —]
I love you.
[The words are a declaration: 愛してる. They are not meant lightly, reflected in the graveness of their telling, a solemnity touched by all the loss and grief behind him.]
no subject
he knew, or surmised, that first morning in the showers. love has been laid bare in action and deed, in the growth that sasuke has shown as he flourished beneath his hand. he has known, but hadn't anticipated it would become a tangible sentiment sheltered between them, spoken into being like the spin of filigree glass. catching love's first light in a fractal shimmer warm with all the colours of sunrise.
his brows lift. it leaves his expression looking broken open, softly vulnerable in the moment. hearing the admission, he's overcome, briefly — torn between a loving admiration and the awareness that he had abstained from saying it aloud himself only because he wasn't certain it wouldn't make sasuke run away. if this conversation is teaching him anything, it's that he should be giving him more credit.
the tether of their hands serves to pull sasuke in, closer against him. he kisses him as if seeking to claim the words from the lips that spoke them, the tongue that shaped them. he kisses him airless, lifting his free hand to skirt along sasuke's thigh, his hip, his side. even when sasuke's need to breathe becomes apparent, he shifts his focus to his throat, where soft presses of his lips offer affirmation. between these kisses, then, he speaks — ）
Je t'aime au-delà du temps.
（ sasuke might recognize a word here and there. he knows now that je means i. but after a moment, pulling back enough to meet his eyes, brushing the fringe of his hair back from his face, he offers the translation in full: ）
I love you beyond time.
no subject
Cy's words, first in French and then translated, have undone the remainder of his composure. He doesn't — make much noise, but the tears are drawn out of him in a seemingly endless flow with no stop. They paint silent tracks down his cheeks. He can't express how that statement resounds so deeply through him, how it becomes a permanent presence, how the Sharingan throbs in the socket of his right eye because he'll die just to keep this moment. Beyond time. He wants that.]
no subject
then, brightly: ）
Hey, any idea what time it is?
（ he... does not keep track actually. ）
no subject
[You silly man. The words are a little hoarse, head lifting at the kiss to his brow. Sasuke turns his own arm and tilts the face of the device toward Cy, their fingers still intertwined.]
There.
no subject
（ yes he is being stubborn about this, don't ask!! ）
no subject
Why midnight? [The look turns more scrutinizing.] We have about an hour.
no subject
（ another ice pack is summoned, and cy snaps the little ammonium nitrate pack to activate it and shakes it at sasuke, mock-menacingly. ）
Sit on this, please. Fifteen minutes. You're already going to be in for a world of hurt tomorrow, you keep squirming away from the ice pack I'm going to withhold any fun roughhousing for a month.
no subject
[Yes, this is a literal interpretation. He looks at the ice pack once it is produced from thin air, frown marring his lips, but he does not shrink away. It's mostly an act; he'll be dutiful about sitting on the pack.]
It's cold. [Colder when he's not fresh off the spanking session.] A month seems excessive.
no subject
（ a pause. then: ）
I'm not going anywhere, just waiting for the clock to strike down. And hush about the cold and do what I say and you won't have to worry about a month.
no subject
[Shinobi lore errs more on the side of grim and terrifying, probably.]
So something is going to happen at midnight. [The look is suspicious now, eyes narrowed to cat-slits.] Should I even ask?
no subject
（ his expression does not bode well for an actual answer, though, shit-eating grin that it is. ）
no subject
What is happening at midnight?
no subject
You'll have to wait and see.
（ and since sasuke is sitting on that ice pack, cy just adjusts until he can bracket him in a playful embrace, like a poor man's nonsexual lotus position with his legs thrown over sasuke's thighs and hooked at the ankles behind his back. this puts him in prime kissing distance, the threat of it omnipresent in how he leans forward to steal one in an affectionate nuzzle. ）
Let's play twenty questions. Spring or fall?
no subject
[I hope you are prepared for a life of explaining Earth references to him. Yet Sasuke is obedient to the new arrangement of limbs, even more for how it puts Cy directly in front of him — such that he is leaning for a kiss before it comes. Easy, reflexive affection.]
... Spring. [It's not even Persephone that sets his mind to this answer, although it certainly weighs it more heavily.] My village always looked like another world during that time of year.
Do I ask you one now?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
cw: suicidality
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
[crazy intensifies]
it's okay they're both weird tbh
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
talking about trauma during sex the cysuke way
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(fade to marathon sex + collars + probably sasuke crying again)