๏ผ 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: ๏ผ
I'm not against telling you the whole story. ๏ผ 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. ๏ผ But are you sure you want to walk through that door?
๏ผ his smile is — crooked. ๏ผ
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.
[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 selflessโto 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 thoughtsโhe 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.
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 — ๏ผ
A long time ago, when I wasn't much older than you, I did something kind.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
I helped someone I shouldn't have. ๏ผ 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. ๏ผ There wasn't any way of knowing that. I don't blame myself for that part. ๏ผ implicit: there are other parts he does. ๏ผ His name was Kulo Vayn. He was the god of war. He was dying when I found him.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
๏ผ it never was. he doesn't need to say as much. there's a shift, and he props one hand behind his head. ๏ผ
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.
[It's hard to hear. Of course it is. It was going to be.
Kulo Vayn. Unlike before, unlike Takรซthal, 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 feelsโtainted. 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 fromโand 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 hereโhe 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?
Edited (clarity nbd) Date: 2024-01-19 08:55 am (UTC)
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
Iantha? ๏ผ he laughs, a bleakly incredulous sound. ๏ผ Yeah, she knew, the bitch. She had the audacity to apologize to me afterwards.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
[Another sentiment eases in to replace the griefโslow, 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 himselfโnot in his kindnessโtherefore 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?
Edited (when u reread three times and still have a typo) Date: 2024-01-19 05:31 pm (UTC)
๏ผ his tone lightens, and nothing about it feels forced to say: ๏ผ
Well, everything from here on out is boring.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
[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 sharedโeverything 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 youโbut I have the ability to extract information from another's mind, whether that be a specific memory or some other knowledge.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
I appreciate the offer, but no. What's up here — ๏ผ a knock against the side of his head with his free hand. ๏ผ 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.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
[He accepts that answer, expecting it already. Even those familiar with the Sharinganโor perhaps those especially who areโwould 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.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
๏ผ his free hand lifts and brushes at sasuke's cheek, smudging his thumb against the hollow beneath the bone. ๏ผ
[A slight tilt of the head presses his cheek against Cy's hand. There's a quiet, thoughtful silence in the wake of that admissionโany 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.]
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
[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 lipsโteeth obligingly take it, then letting it drop deeper into his mouth before he attempts a bite on Cy's thumb for his trouble.]
Who says I was talking about you suited you? I've just got buyer's regret, that's all.
๏ผ 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: ๏ผ
But I guess any blanket would look good if I'm fucking you on it.
[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 shellโanother 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.
Are you saying you want to bequeath your virginity to me? Sasuke, you charming rogue. I accept.
๏ผ his fingers hook in against the boy's throat, tugging him upwards by the leash of that dark sweater in such sharp contrast of his pale skin. he kisses him, sharing in the snap of flavour profiled against his tongue from that tomato. with a parting lick against his lips — ๏ผ
But when you're ready, okay? I'll trust you when you say you are, but don't rush it. Be there.
[A rapidly flushed protest cut short when he's pulled up and kissedโtheir seal of lips and tongue cleaning out the last bright taste of tomato from his mouth. He's still glaring after, but it's tempered, soothed.]
... I know. [And if he's not ready, they can stop, and try again.] That's why I said whenever.
[Look, he's trying. Now sitting upright, he turns his head to face their meal.]
๏ผ his expression transmutes, something soft and achingly fond. and then he's standing up, and holding out a hand to haul sasuke back up too. ๏ผ
Just because I went to an effort doesn't mean it needs to be finished.
๏ผ yes this is a metaphor. ๏ผ
But aight.
๏ผ he returns to the blanket and sits agura in a smooth motion, and pats the blanket beside him for sasuke to join him there. when he does, cy will use a little spark of that voidborne magic to call the half-eaten salad back to his hand in this new place. ๏ผ
So how does this match up against Konohagakure?
๏ผ the pronunciation is flawless, the tender care of someone who has made a concerted effort to remember, to preserve a small piece of something they were told. ๏ผ
[Yet he's obedient to the hand as he follows Cy over, lowering down at his side. In a snap, the salad is returned, fingers reclaiming the chopsticks perched on top of the bowl. A few more bitesโenjoying the flavor on his tongue, savoring the freshnessโand he looks over.
It isn't that he thought Cy would forget so soon. Sasuke still doesn't know the exact boundaries of a ruined mind's ability to create memories, to save or catalogue new information, but... this one is obviously a purposeful attempt. There's an unfamiliar feeling that swells in his chest in recognition of that fact; he might misjudge it for emotional pain, because it is all he has to compare against, except Cy has done nothing wrong by mentioning his home village.
He's felt something like this before. In the Valley of the End, under the sky, laid out on a rock.]
... It's a little more humid. It reminds me of summertime, but the vegetation here is different. The closer you get to the lowest parts, the more everything grows close together. It's harder to navigate with that kind of density compared to the forests of Fire Country. [He places back his empty bowl, this time reaching for the miso soup.] But the greenery is the same. The shadows, the play of light. The fresh smell, though I don't recognize the flora. Like those glowing mushrooms.
[A dark head tilts, looking up at the canopy above them.]
๏ผ sex metaphors at dinner, his new band name! cy makes a soft hm of sound as he cantsn his head like a curious bird to follow sasuke's gaze to the interwoven greenery above. leaves flutter and sway but do not fall, and beneath its welcoming shade the air is cool and inviting as open water on a hot day. ๏ผ
I don't even know if it's real. Or — if it's real the way we're used to trees being real, anyway. But it's not half bad, huh?
๏ผ he leans in against sasuke, companionable. kisses his temple. then: ๏ผ
I mentioned I like nature. It's... I don't know, I find it restorative. Cleansing, almost. I don't visit a lot of worlds where human structures predate me, but the dirt always does. I might not be older than a single tree but there are a lot of forests that have me beat. It's the closest I ever feel to truly divine, when I'm just... some natural place that's never been touched.
๏ผ that's never known pain, never seen a spill of blood, that's never cradled the bones of fallen soldiers in the dirt until they became just another component of its cycle. when he walks a world, he always knows when battle has happened. when life has been taken. when territory has been claimed. all of that information lives unbidden in the back of his mind, and like a dam surrendering to a swollen river, he is often swept away by it, by the horror and strength of its surge. ๏ผ
Not that I don't like cities, too. I like being around people. But I can lose myself in too much living.
[As he listens to Cy talk, he's aware of the warmth of the man's body against his sideโwhere even this mild gesture of companionship is so new as to feel unreal. It's almost unbelievable to have reached this point with someone so quickly. Then he hears Cy describe the dirt, and divinity, and it makes sense; there is something ancient in Cy, something far beyond words or comprehension, and yet he still makes such an effort to connect. To be present.
Sasuke has not found many people like this, if at all, if anything but the soul-to-soul connection he shares with Naruto. His interactions with others feel too often difficult and unyielding, that stop and start of mistake after mistake. So he doesn't know the proper way to do thisโconnecting. All he knows is that, with Cy, it feels possible. Almost frighteningly easy.]
Do you have followers, as the god of war? Or as what stands as that god even if the ascension itself was not successful. [It doesn't feel like something Cy would want, or even accept, but now he's curious about this question of divinity.] People who worship the concept of you.
๏ผ he grabs the second of the bowls of miso, and prises the lid off carefully so as not to spill it. ๏ผ
That... requires a bit of background on my universe, I guess.
๏ผ one messy slurp later — ๏ผ
I say 'gods', but that's... not quite the right word. It's the word humans use. But what they — we — actually are is an 'aspect'. Some facet of sentient life given form. To the best of my understanding, in the primordial soup of consciousness at the beginning of the universe, as creatures began to gain more complex levels of thinking, of emotions... those emotions shaped that consciousness. Eventually, the soup started to get portioned out into different bowls that governed different things. But each one of them is sort of... fundamental to the structure of existence. I'm holding up a pillar of the world, so to speak.
๏ผ because war, because conflict, because violent death always exist in places where sentient creatures live. it's inevitable. he's never found a single species that has known only peace. ๏ผ
There aren't multiple gods of the same thing at our level. The latest planet I've been on, Earth, has like... I don't know, a few hundred different 'war gods' across various polytheistic cultures. Maybe more, lost to time. All of them are me, all of them aren't me. People worship the name or the face or the idea they give to the concept that lives here, ๏ผ a tap to his chest. ๏ผ and I'm... aware of that. But it's not something I cultivate on purpose, and it's not like I walk around telling people what I am, or inviting them into my bullshit. ๏ผ he laughs, and shakes his head. ๏ผ I don't know that I've ever given anybody the rundown like this. That much, I'd remember.
[It requires his mind to grasp at ideas previously unknowable. His knowledge of the world, of any outside universe, is limited to the boundaries of what he's experienced himselfโhe knows the history of his own nameless planet only because he had to, learned in facing Kaguya and the ลtsutsuki Clan, learned in the knowledge of himself as a reincarnation of that first born son. So it is like wrapping his mind around a strange shape, hearing Cyram describe the beginning of all sentient life.
There's no disbelief in him, though, because it makes an awful sort of sense. War as this fundamental aspect, rewoven through structures of civilization again and againโhe has seen it play out with his own eyes. Men who would go further. Danzou, ceaselessly hungry for power, who would take war in his hands and turn it against his enemies. Madara, and by extension Obito, who in seeking to end the crisis of war upon the shinobi world invited only more of it beneath the illusion of peace.]
I've heard of Earth. [The only other name of a world he's come to know since being here.] ... The world I'm from doesn't have the same creation in that sense. I don't think there is a name that we've given to the idea. We don't worship it; we practice it. [In a way, it's similar enough.] My kind have been in conflict with one another since our genesisโcompared to how long you've existed, it's nothing. A thousand years. Yet before that, what sentient life dwelled in that place was still fighting. They just used less effective weapons.
[He cannot imagine an existence without it, let alone his own.
Sasuke sips more quietly on his miso bowl by comparison.]
Has no one asked before? I'm surprised. [A glance from the corners of his eyes.] You're interesting to me.
๏ผ it's its own sort of answer. cy lifts a shoulder up, halfly shrugging. ๏ผ
I figured out early on that wouldn't be possible here, so there wasn't much point to it. I'm sure I've told some people over the years about the immortality, or about being a god. The last guy I married on Earth knew, I remember that much. Well. Not married, it was illegal then, but — the concept. Anyway — those things are easy, but... when people feel like they've reached the natural end of an answer, most don't dig beyond that. They rely on their own assumptions and feelings and instinct, and fill in the gaps of what I don't say, and that's enough.
๏ผ he drains the rest of that miso soup in one long draught, and then sets the styrofoam bowl back down. ๏ผ
I don't think I would've told the rest to someone else. I hedged my bets you'd know better than to treat me with pity.
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Date: 2024-01-19 05:48 am (UTC)then: ๏ผ
I'm not against telling you the whole story. ๏ผ 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. ๏ผ But are you sure you want to walk through that door?
๏ผ his smile is — crooked. ๏ผ
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.
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Date: 2024-01-19 06:04 am (UTC)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 thoughtsโhe 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
Date: 2024-01-19 06:40 am (UTC)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 — ๏ผ
A long time ago, when I wasn't much older than you, I did something kind.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
I helped someone I shouldn't have. ๏ผ 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. ๏ผ There wasn't any way of knowing that. I don't blame myself for that part. ๏ผ implicit: there are other parts he does. ๏ผ His name was Kulo Vayn. He was the god of war. He was dying when I found him.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
๏ผ it never was. he doesn't need to say as much. there's a shift, and he props one hand behind his head. ๏ผ
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.
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Date: 2024-01-19 07:17 am (UTC)Kulo Vayn. Unlike before, unlike Takรซthal, 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 feelsโtainted. 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 fromโand 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 hereโhe 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?
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Date: 2024-01-19 02:26 pm (UTC)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.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
Iantha? ๏ผ he laughs, a bleakly incredulous sound. ๏ผ Yeah, she knew, the bitch. She had the audacity to apologize to me afterwards.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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Date: 2024-01-19 05:30 pm (UTC)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 himselfโnot in his kindnessโtherefore 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?
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Date: 2024-01-20 03:56 am (UTC)Well, everything from here on out is boring.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
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Date: 2024-01-20 04:11 am (UTC)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 youโbut I have the ability to extract information from another's mind, whether that be a specific memory or some other knowledge.
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Date: 2024-01-20 04:26 am (UTC)๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
I appreciate the offer, but no. What's up here — ๏ผ a knock against the side of his head with his free hand. ๏ผ 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.
๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
But it's kind of you to want to help.
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Date: 2024-01-20 04:37 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2024-01-20 04:49 am (UTC)๏ผ 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. ๏ผ
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.
๏ผ his free hand lifts and brushes at sasuke's cheek, smudging his thumb against the hollow beneath the bone. ๏ผ
Is there anything else you want to know?
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Date: 2024-01-20 05:02 am (UTC)Did you find me a new blanket?
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Date: 2024-01-20 05:12 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2024-01-20 05:20 am (UTC)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 lipsโteeth obligingly take it, then letting it drop deeper into his mouth before he attempts a bite on Cy's thumb for his trouble.]
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Date: 2024-01-20 05:38 am (UTC)๏ผ 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: ๏ผ
But I guess any blanket would look good if I'm fucking you on it.
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Date: 2024-01-20 06:04 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2024-01-20 06:15 am (UTC)Are you saying you want to bequeath your virginity to me? Sasuke, you charming rogue. I accept.
๏ผ his fingers hook in against the boy's throat, tugging him upwards by the leash of that dark sweater in such sharp contrast of his pale skin. he kisses him, sharing in the snap of flavour profiled against his tongue from that tomato. with a parting lick against his lips — ๏ผ
But when you're ready, okay? I'll trust you when you say you are, but don't rush it. Be there.
๏ผ be present, and wanting, and sure. ๏ผ
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Date: 2024-01-20 06:28 am (UTC)Don't put it like that.
[A rapidly flushed protest cut short when he's pulled up and kissedโtheir seal of lips and tongue cleaning out the last bright taste of tomato from his mouth. He's still glaring after, but it's tempered, soothed.]
... I know. [And if he's not ready, they can stop, and try again.] That's why I said whenever.
[Look, he's trying. Now sitting upright, he turns his head to face their meal.]
We should finish. You went to a lot of effort.
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Date: 2024-01-20 07:01 am (UTC)Just because I went to an effort doesn't mean it needs to be finished.
๏ผ yes this is a metaphor. ๏ผ
But aight.
๏ผ he returns to the blanket and sits agura in a smooth motion, and pats the blanket beside him for sasuke to join him there. when he does, cy will use a little spark of that voidborne magic to call the half-eaten salad back to his hand in this new place. ๏ผ
So how does this match up against Konohagakure?
๏ผ the pronunciation is flawless, the tender care of someone who has made a concerted effort to remember, to preserve a small piece of something they were told. ๏ผ
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Date: 2024-01-20 07:22 am (UTC)Then maybe I'm still hungry.
[Yet he's obedient to the hand as he follows Cy over, lowering down at his side. In a snap, the salad is returned, fingers reclaiming the chopsticks perched on top of the bowl. A few more bitesโenjoying the flavor on his tongue, savoring the freshnessโand he looks over.
It isn't that he thought Cy would forget so soon. Sasuke still doesn't know the exact boundaries of a ruined mind's ability to create memories, to save or catalogue new information, but... this one is obviously a purposeful attempt. There's an unfamiliar feeling that swells in his chest in recognition of that fact; he might misjudge it for emotional pain, because it is all he has to compare against, except Cy has done nothing wrong by mentioning his home village.
He's felt something like this before. In the Valley of the End, under the sky, laid out on a rock.]
... It's a little more humid. It reminds me of summertime, but the vegetation here is different. The closer you get to the lowest parts, the more everything grows close together. It's harder to navigate with that kind of density compared to the forests of Fire Country. [He places back his empty bowl, this time reaching for the miso soup.] But the greenery is the same. The shadows, the play of light. The fresh smell, though I don't recognize the flora. Like those glowing mushrooms.
[A dark head tilts, looking up at the canopy above them.]
You chose a good tree.
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Date: 2024-01-20 03:12 pm (UTC)I don't even know if it's real. Or — if it's real the way we're used to trees being real, anyway. But it's not half bad, huh?
๏ผ he leans in against sasuke, companionable. kisses his temple. then: ๏ผ
I mentioned I like nature. It's... I don't know, I find it restorative. Cleansing, almost. I don't visit a lot of worlds where human structures predate me, but the dirt always does. I might not be older than a single tree but there are a lot of forests that have me beat. It's the closest I ever feel to truly divine, when I'm just... some natural place that's never been touched.
๏ผ that's never known pain, never seen a spill of blood, that's never cradled the bones of fallen soldiers in the dirt until they became just another component of its cycle. when he walks a world, he always knows when battle has happened. when life has been taken. when territory has been claimed. all of that information lives unbidden in the back of his mind, and like a dam surrendering to a swollen river, he is often swept away by it, by the horror and strength of its surge. ๏ผ
Not that I don't like cities, too. I like being around people. But I can lose myself in too much living.
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Date: 2024-01-20 05:03 pm (UTC)Sasuke has not found many people like this, if at all, if anything but the soul-to-soul connection he shares with Naruto. His interactions with others feel too often difficult and unyielding, that stop and start of mistake after mistake. So he doesn't know the proper way to do thisโconnecting. All he knows is that, with Cy, it feels possible. Almost frighteningly easy.]
Do you have followers, as the god of war? Or as what stands as that god even if the ascension itself was not successful. [It doesn't feel like something Cy would want, or even accept, but now he's curious about this question of divinity.] People who worship the concept of you.
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Date: 2024-01-20 05:19 pm (UTC)That... requires a bit of background on my universe, I guess.
๏ผ one messy slurp later — ๏ผ
I say 'gods', but that's... not quite the right word. It's the word humans use. But what they — we — actually are is an 'aspect'. Some facet of sentient life given form. To the best of my understanding, in the primordial soup of consciousness at the beginning of the universe, as creatures began to gain more complex levels of thinking, of emotions... those emotions shaped that consciousness. Eventually, the soup started to get portioned out into different bowls that governed different things. But each one of them is sort of... fundamental to the structure of existence. I'm holding up a pillar of the world, so to speak.
๏ผ because war, because conflict, because violent death always exist in places where sentient creatures live. it's inevitable. he's never found a single species that has known only peace. ๏ผ
There aren't multiple gods of the same thing at our level. The latest planet I've been on, Earth, has like... I don't know, a few hundred different 'war gods' across various polytheistic cultures. Maybe more, lost to time. All of them are me, all of them aren't me. People worship the name or the face or the idea they give to the concept that lives here, ๏ผ a tap to his chest. ๏ผ and I'm... aware of that. But it's not something I cultivate on purpose, and it's not like I walk around telling people what I am, or inviting them into my bullshit. ๏ผ he laughs, and shakes his head. ๏ผ I don't know that I've ever given anybody the rundown like this. That much, I'd remember.
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Date: 2024-01-20 06:32 pm (UTC)There's no disbelief in him, though, because it makes an awful sort of sense. War as this fundamental aspect, rewoven through structures of civilization again and againโhe has seen it play out with his own eyes. Men who would go further. Danzou, ceaselessly hungry for power, who would take war in his hands and turn it against his enemies. Madara, and by extension Obito, who in seeking to end the crisis of war upon the shinobi world invited only more of it beneath the illusion of peace.]
I've heard of Earth. [The only other name of a world he's come to know since being here.] ... The world I'm from doesn't have the same creation in that sense. I don't think there is a name that we've given to the idea. We don't worship it; we practice it. [In a way, it's similar enough.] My kind have been in conflict with one another since our genesisโcompared to how long you've existed, it's nothing. A thousand years. Yet before that, what sentient life dwelled in that place was still fighting. They just used less effective weapons.
[He cannot imagine an existence without it, let alone his own.
Sasuke sips more quietly on his miso bowl by comparison.]
Has no one asked before? I'm surprised. [A glance from the corners of his eyes.] You're interesting to me.
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Date: 2024-01-20 06:39 pm (UTC)๏ผ it's its own sort of answer. cy lifts a shoulder up, halfly shrugging. ๏ผ
I figured out early on that wouldn't be possible here, so there wasn't much point to it. I'm sure I've told some people over the years about the immortality, or about being a god. The last guy I married on Earth knew, I remember that much. Well. Not married, it was illegal then, but — the concept. Anyway — those things are easy, but... when people feel like they've reached the natural end of an answer, most don't dig beyond that. They rely on their own assumptions and feelings and instinct, and fill in the gaps of what I don't say, and that's enough.
๏ผ he drains the rest of that miso soup in one long draught, and then sets the styrofoam bowl back down. ๏ผ
I don't think I would've told the rest to someone else. I hedged my bets you'd know better than to treat me with pity.
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From:cw nsfw now and ๐ hopefully sasuke doesn't cockblock himself
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From:cw: (cy grab bag - war horrors/assault/trauma/suicide)
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