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[hallowing]

@torontonian

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[chokuto]

[A pair of mismatched eyes watch that shoe go sailing into the creek with a sad splash of water. Then they flick back to Cy.]

If it isn't a date, you can't compliment me. [You made this bed for yourself. (Or: Sasuke's avoiding compliments.)] Do you mean the color is bright on me? [hello, "lit"?] I wouldn't agree.

[If anything it looks darker in contrast to his skin. Sasuke busies himself with finding a pair of chopsticks among the utensils provided, snapping them apart with his teeth before he tries a bite of the salad.]

... Tomato.

[hallowing]

（ oh yeah, he should probably get that shoe back before it floats away, huh? give him a second to call it through the void, and then it drops soddenly down beside the other one with a sad, wet thwock. is he even going to wear it back? who knows. maybe he will just go barefoot for fun and profit. ）

Okay, so I am hereby declaring it a date for the next ten seconds （ he absolutely squints down at his right wrist like he expects to find a watch there, which he absolutely is not wearing, so — ） so I can say that colour looks really gorgeous on you, which is basically what 'lit' means.

（ yes, he managed to time that out perfectly, why do you ask? ）

Now that we're back to just two dudes havin' dinner together, yes tomato. I noticed your weird little beeline towards those biscuits. Shitty memory doesn't mean I'm not observant, you know.

（ says the guy who still clearly has not noticed that half-finished guitar sitting out clearly and plainly visible in his room, but i digress. ）

[chokuto]

[The combination of both of these—compliment and observation—is disarming, upending, and for a moment he simply stares down at the cup of salad stabilized carefully on his thigh. He's heard it before. His appearance has earned plenty of attention in the past, but never so sincerely stated, never from a man he's kissed. Has kissed him. And then the fact that Cy has noticed something as subtle as a preference when his own mind struggles to hold onto so much.

Sasuke's chopsticks hover, head tilted down. Some pink color rises at the back of his neck and tips of ears. He's... touched, by both, and the sentiment is like a dull ache after how they'd last ended things apart by his request.]

You can't change the rules only to suit yourself. [Yes, apparently there are rules.] ... I do like tomatoes. So you weren't wrong.

[will he ever stop being perceived]

Have you finished your guitar?

[hallowing]

Are you gonna stop me?

（ from changing the rules, he means. it's said with a cheeky grin, as he picks up one of those capped mushrooms and pops it in his mouth, chewing obnoxiously. Because That's What Heroes Do, or something. ）

The guitar? No, I thought you threw it out?

（ ... he really just did not look. ）

[chokuto]

[...]

I didn't. [He knows he has flaws, but that would just be? so mean? Especially after all the work Cy was putting in to carve it.] I left it by your bed, on the shelf.

[In plain and visible sight.]

Did you make another mess of your room that quickly?

[hallowing]

（ you know that look dogs get when they've just eaten half your sofa and you've come home to find a mess?

yeah.

similarities. he squints a bit, and then raises his gaze skyward as if trying to mentally tabulate where that might have been. then he just props a finger up aloft in a sort of universal, hold please, gesture and transmats out back to his room. he makes a slow circuit, turning on his heel. locates the guitar with the newly processed information as to its whereabouts, goes 'ah, i see' in a speculative murmur, and then pops back in in that oppressive haze of roiling energy. ）

For legal purposes, you'll have to ask my lawyer about the mess my room may or may not be at the moment.

（ which is telling enough. yes, it's a mess again. perhaps a little less of one in an attempt to be respectful of the work sasuke went to the first time around, but also: he sucks at maintaining his space just... more broadly. ）

Anyway. Moving right along — how've you been?

[chokuto]

[Cy vanishes in front of him, a flicker of potent dark energy, and—he frowns, but he continues to eat his tomato salad in careful bites while waiting for the return. Then Cy is back in moments as if never gone; Sasuke barely contains an urge to roll his eyes at the words that follow, whatever 'lawyer' is notwithstanding.

Considering the state of the man's room when he last visited, it isn't shocking, as that sort of mess requires a particular kind of concentrated (lack of) effort. A reflection of the mind it belongs to, perhaps. He'll have to see if he can get in there when Cy isn't around, because he doesn't like the idea of him living like that.

The question nearly earns a knee-jerk, "Fine." But Sasuke stops himself, because it's been weighing on him since last time.]

... Uncertain. [More truthful.] What is it that you do when you move things around? Including yourself, when you teleport. Is it related to your immortality?

[hallowing]

（ he lapses into a thoughtful silence, reaching for a carrot stick as he does. one unhealthy dollop of dressing later, and he says: ）

I've never really tried to explain it to anyone that I remember offhand, so this is probably gonna come out clumsy as shit for the record. But — it's... imagine a 4D space folded flat — and I say 4D in the sense of the 4th dimension being time — and then plotting a chart from me to the thing, or vice versa. I have to do a shitload of calculations on the fly to make it work, otherwise I will embed myself in a wall somewhere or, I don't know, drop a wet shoe in your salad.

（ promise, threat? it is hard to say with him. the carrot gets crunched, firmly and deliberately. ）

It's not tied to my immortality directly in the sense that one requires the other. It was kinda just the full meal deal when I got godified.

[chokuto]

It makes some sense.

[Amenotejikara is his closest parallel in mind—although Cy's ability seems more expansive in application, and perhaps more complex based on the need for mental calculation, whereas his own jutsu technique relies on the Rinnegan's sight.]

When you were turned into a god against your will through the Ascension. Were you aware of that happening?

[hallowing]

（ there is no overt shift. nothing in the body language he controls so well, no slip in his expression. he chews that carrot in the same obnoxious way that he went to town on the mushroom cap, and swallows, and breathes.

then: ）

I'm not against telling you the whole story. （ that much is offered, extended freely. cy isn't precious about his history. he doesn't have to be. when you live alongside something long enough, you stop noticing the way it wears on you. like a piece of shrapnel buried in a beating heart, he is a paradox that should not exist. ） But are you sure you want to walk through that door?

（ his smile is — crooked. ）

It's not me I'm worried about. It's just — it'll make you hurt, it'll make you sad, it'll make you sorry. You'll carry it until you die. That's a lot to put on anyone. Don't ask me unless you're absolutely certain.

[chokuto]

[It is expected that Cy would offer him an out. Everything he's done so far has demonstrated the same kindness, the same careful consideration for Sasuke's autonomy and feelings, even when it causes difficulty. Or especially when. It is behavior that has been entirely, wholly selfless—to a point that now blooms with new concern.

Is this a history Cy has shared with all of those forgotten others? His past lovers, friends, companions over countless years? If Cy is selfless to guard him from it, then perhaps he is selfish to want to hear it, to make him say it again. But the offer is there; Cy wouldn't make it unless he was willing.

He hasn't denied Sasuke anything so far, which is frightening enough on its own. So rather than think his thoughts—he tries to speak them aloud.]

I've been hurt, and sad, and sorry. [He knows pain. He's already carrying the burden of his own life to his grave.] I can't deny that it will have an impact, but to me it's worth the cost.

I want to know everything about you.

cw: rape/torture/war horrors oop

[hallowing]

（ in front of his salad??? smh.

but he just — sighs, because of course that would be the answer. unbidden, he sets aside the meagre plate he'd cobbled together for himself, and flops onto his back. overhead, the tree's canopy seems to close over them like a cloak, guarding them against the casino's ills, against the night that seems to never end. one hand is held up briefly, fingers aligned to places on the tree where artificial light spills through, and then — ）

A long time ago, when I wasn't much older than you, I did something kind.

（ would it have mattered? would it have made a difference? if he'd left kulo vayn where he found him, if iantha had killed him with her celestial sword, if the stars hadn't exactly aligned to fuck him raw, would anything have changed at all? strange, how he can envision no other life but this. ）

I helped someone I shouldn't have. （ there's a bite of real emotion in his voice. some heavy quality that makes it feel as though the words are mired in the mess of his throat. he's not ashamed of it, and doesn't try to hide it. it's fucking hard. he won't pretend it isn't. ） There wasn't any way of knowing that. I don't blame myself for that part. （ implicit: there are other parts he does. ） His name was Kulo Vayn. He was the god of war. He was dying when I found him.

（ he remembers seeing the body in the creek that ran near his house. he remembers, too, putting strong hands on him and hefting him up. staunching the blood. everything about that first contact is engraved on his mind the way notches are cut into the bones of a consumed animal during fireside starvation. ）

I don't want to get into the messy parts. All you need to know is that I became his slave. And he liked to hurt people. He liked to make me hurt people. Torture, rape, you name it. I killed kids. I burned worlds. I'd cut the tendons on people's heels so they couldn't run. I took them apart in ways that kept their heart beating until the end. I'd hurt them in every way it's possible to hurt someone. I learned early on not to beg for anyone's life, to make it quick, to make it painless.

（ it never was. he doesn't need to say as much. there's a shift, and he props one hand behind his head. ）

But he made a mistake. His life was tied to mine. Another god — of dreams — found me, and she got into my head. She told me that there was a plan to kill him, and that I could take his place. I didn't want to, but it was — better, than surviving like that. So I agreed. The ascension. Except it didn't — work. At least, not the way she said it would. It destroyed me. But I'd inherited enough of his power — and it's a fraction, to be clear — that the healing took over. I spent — a while, in a tomb, deep beneath the earth like a ruined city. And I wasn't... a person, then. I was just an open wound. Meeting Tak came after that.

[chokuto]

[It's hard to hear. Of course it is. It was going to be.

Kulo Vayn. Unlike before, unlike Takëthal, he does not echo this name in his mind with any sanctity or preciousness. He will remember it because it is a part of Cyram, but even the presence of having it in his thoughts feels—tainted. A vile, slithering creature of a thing. It takes no effort to imagine that act of service; it hurts to hear it become twisted into an endless existence of pain. To hear what Cyram has done, those unspeakable horrors administered by own hands. His mind does the math, because if Cyram was around his age then it must have been... years, presumably, that he lived a slave to the monstrous Kulo Vayn until that fraction of power was inherited and immortality froze him in time.

It hurts. Sasuke's empathy has always been one of his biggest weaknesses, as framed by the world he comes from—and he can feel it now, a physical wound in his chest that bleeds for every word. The unimaginable suffering Cyram has endured for no other reason than his kindness. It threatens to tear through him, that scar of darkness.

He sets his food aside with no more appetite to eat. Then he stares at his own hand in his lap for the rest of those words.

When Cyram stops speaking, he rises from the blanket and steps silently around until he's on the grass, moving to put himself close at Cy's side. He sits down here—he doesn't touch, half doubting whether it would be accepted and half because he does not know how to initiate the affection so easily. He wants to, desperately, but his hand stays on the soft earth.]

I'm sorry.

[Gentle words against the growing knot of despair he feels on this man's behalf.]

You were supposed to become the god of war with his death, but instead it left you as you are now. You cannot be killed by anything? Did this god of dreams know what would happen?

[hallowing]

（ sasuke comes to sit by him, and cy — unbidden — lifts an arm and reaches to touch his knee. it's soft, and deft. there and gone. ）

A celestial blade can kill a god. But making it requires the sacrifice of a world and all its peoples, and it can only be used once. It starts to disintegrate on contact with our blood. You gotta make it count.

（ even in his darkest moments, when he has been nothing but a maelstrom of grief howling into the fucking dirt, he hasn't considered it. he can't. maybe if one day he feels himself becoming more and more like that monster, he'd do it in a last act of mercy. but until that day comes — it's not even on the table for him. ）

Iantha? （ he laughs, a bleakly incredulous sound. ） Yeah, she knew, the bitch. She had the audacity to apologize to me afterwards.

（ she found him not long after he buried tak. he hadn't known who she was, at first, that memory one of many that had been burned away, but he remembers the way his entire being reacted to her, with a sort of primal, bone-deep fear he's not sure has ever really been carved out of him. she found him, and she looked at him with those eyes like constellations, and she said, I'm sorry, Auhle. It had to be like this. ）

[chokuto]

[Another sentiment eases in to replace the grief—slow, insidious, a poison cloud hovering over all thoughts. Sasuke realizes, too late, that he has ripped a handful of grass out of the earth. Bloodless fingers uncurl, letting the blades flutter loose. The emotion does not completely overtake him, but there is still a suggestion of it, beating hot in his body like a second pulse. An almost frightening intensity because he's felt this way before and he recalls vividly what he did on behalf of it.

Emboldened by the brief touch to his knee, he seeks Cy's hand with his own. Wrapping around it, grasping. He cannot tell if it is more for himself or for Cy now.

Iantha. A name he will hold beneath a knife.]

... I'm glad you told me.

[Even in its bleakness, even faced with the knowledge that Cyram would never willingly choose to sacrifice a world for himself—not in his kindness—therefore dooming him to this eternal state of suffering... Sasuke does not regret hearing any of it.]

Your mind. When it rewrites itself, are those past memories gone completely? Or are they simply lost and inaccessible to you? Do you know?

[hallowing]

（ his tone lightens, and nothing about it feels forced to say: ）

Well, everything from here on out is boring.

（ he lets sasuke take his hand. it's a few seconds, perhaps — telling in and of itself — before he returns the press of those fingers, the warmth and closeness of the grasp. ）

So now I'm relying solely on my ebullient charisma and hotness factor to keep you around from this point onward, just so you know.

（ he shifts onto his side, which puts sasuke yet again within dangerous kissing range — this one is touched down against the back of his hand like a promise. ）

I have no idea. Gone, I think. But it's not like I can crack my brain open like an egg and sift through the embryonic fuckery going on.

[chokuto]

[A gentle chuff of breath in slightest laughter, his eyes follow Cy's mouth as it lands on his hand. A tender, affectionate gesture in spite of everything he's shared—everything he's done.]

You don't need those things to keep me interested in you.

[He has spent so little time around others that even sitting beside Cyram like this, sharing their thoughts and their minds, as deep and dark as they may go, is a new experience. Each conversation between them feels like a change in himself. Novelty.]

I can do that. Not in those words, not so violently, but with my eyes. It wouldn't physically harm you—but I have the ability to extract information from another's mind, whether that be a specific memory or some other knowledge.

[hallowing]

No.

（ it isn't quite said so quickly as to be frantic, but there's a finality to it. absolute certainty. he sits up, makes eye contact, still holding sasuke's hand between them. ）

I appreciate the offer, but no. What's up here — （ a knock against the side of his head with his free hand. ） is only mine. Even if it was going to give me something of myself back. There's nothing in there I need so desperately I'd risk exposing you to the realities of what I've done.

（ and without knowing what that ability entails, without knowing the power behind it — there's a chance it could put him within spitting distance of kulo vayn. he already knows that creature would love to put his hand around sasuke's throat and squeeze, would love to pin him beneath the weight of cy's body and make him fucking bleed. it's there, that urge, that dark tilt shift in his mind, every time he looks at the kid. warborne, touched by death and pain and loss and grief and power. kulo vayn would have prided itself on beating him down to nothing.

only three people ever survived it. only three, in a thousand fucking years.

cy leans in, and kisses sasuke's forehead. leans against him, breathing the same air. ）

But it's kind of you to want to help.

[chokuto]

[He accepts that answer, expecting it already. Even those familiar with the Sharingan—or perhaps those especially who are—would not have been keen on such an invasion, the inner safety of the mind breached by foreign power. And knowing what Cyram harbors in his past, knowing his demonstrated kindness, he wouldn't want to take Sasuke anywhere close to that.

So he understands. He only wanted Cyram to be aware it could be done.]

You did bring me to dinner. With tomatoes.

[A low murmur in that space between them, forehead warm where Cy's kissed it.]

I can see now. [These words venture more carefully.] Your interest in control, and someone else's willing obedience. Why you would never want to take it without that consent.

[hallowing]

Yeah.

（ he doesn't deny it. there's nothing to deny — he's made peace with his own feelings. having a safe outlet for all the damning things that live under the skin of him was necessary to survival. discipline holds the line in him he cannot cross. ）

I don't like that those feelings live in me. But denying them just — made it worse. So, control's the better option. Safe, sane, consensual. I don't have to be only what I was made.

（ his free hand lifts and brushes at sasuke's cheek, smudging his thumb against the hollow beneath the bone. ）

Is there anything else you want to know?

[chokuto]

[A slight tilt of the head presses his cheek against Cy's hand. There's a quiet, thoughtful silence in the wake of that admission—any lingering questions he may have are not crucial, are too vague as they drift through his mind, fed by the river of curiosity that Cy evokes in him. He finds himself wanting to guide them away from the dredge of that awful history, at least now; he will think on all that Cy has said later. And if there is more he wants to know, he can ask then.]

Did you find me a new blanket?

[hallowing]

（ what follows is a laugh, and he heaves a playful shove against sasuke's shoulder. a brief, unserious scuffle ensues, and ends with him straddling the kid against the ground, thighs set to either side of his hips. from one of the platters of vegetables, he calls one of the little tomatoes to his hand, and then he holds it against sasuke's lips with a faint raised eyebrow. if he happens to open his mouth obligingly, cy will seat the tomato between his teeth with the push of his thumb. ）

You're a little shit, first of all. Second of all, of course I did. I'm not a monster. I even paid for it. But now I'm regretting the colour, it clearly should've been blue.

[chokuto]

[He allows himself to be pushed down, bangs tossed across his eyes in the brief, short-lived struggle, heart jumping a little quicker. The look he angles upward, however, is coolly defiant even with Cy's weight bracketed across his hips.]

Your ten seconds ended a long time ago. You're not allowed to talk about how the color blue suits me.

[The tomato halts any further speech, pushed up against his lips—teeth obligingly take it, then letting it drop deeper into his mouth before he attempts a bite on Cy's thumb for his trouble.]

[hallowing]

Who says I was talking about you suited you? I've just got buyer's regret, that's all.

（ that bite makes his fingers furl against his cheek in a thoughtful, affectionate stroke.

maybe it should be harder to lapse into this ease on the heels of what they discussed — and yet, nothing feels more natural. setting those ancient, awful feelings aside is something as practiced now as reflex. and if sasuke is going to take his cues from cy on the matter of a gently distractive comment meant to serve as both lifeline and tether, who is he to turn that down? it's one more sweet thing from a broken boy.

where did he put all this care before? the little acts of service, of kindness — were they just swallowed down the same way he swallows pain? he has a sinking feeling he knows the answer already.

he leans down, butting his head against the side of sasuke's in an almost catlike gesture of affection. in a whisper that continues the continuity of their more light-hearted exchange, he murmurs: ）

But I guess any blanket would look good if I'm fucking you on it.

[chokuto]

[Distraction sluices into his mind the longer that Cy is above him, as warm fingers stroke his cheek in yet another showing of affection in sharp deviation from their bleak talk. Yet to Sasuke, it doesn't feel strange either, because he's learning that these dark annals of history between them are not to be hidden, to be ashamed. The way Cy speaks so openly about himself and what he has done is frightening, but it is also hypnotic. Like a spiral shell—another curve always out of sight. He doesn't know if he can do the same, but he hopes so, some day.

It's a little too easy. Cy leans down, nudges in against the side of his head, whispers low enough for only his ear. Sasuke feels his body respond, too desperate, attraction for this man carved inside of him too deeply by now. He doesn't reach or try anything to coax more physical contact between them; he just... breathes out hard in awareness of their proximity. The slightest squirm, as if conscious of the way the fabric of his sweater is trapped against the ground.

The tomato bursts in acidic flavor when he bites into it, swallowing to speak.]

I've thought about it. [Constantly, an obsessive note plucked in his mind since he was first laid out on Cy's bed and this fantasy planted.] Whenever it happens, I want to do that with you. I want you to fuck me.