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[hallowing]

@torontonian

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[chokuto]

[He looks up at Cy, eating quietly, brow furrowed. This isn't new information for him — but just as he'd considered Cy not sleeping, this part evokes the same feeling of concern.]

Does it hurt? When you don't eat.

[Yes, perhaps Cy's body does not allow starvation. It still does not sit right with Sasuke that he would neglect himself.]

[hallowing]

It's uncomfortable.

（ but he wouldn't describe the sensation as painful, exactly. it's dull, by contrast to the sunbright burst of something like getting shot or stabbed. ）

Maybe I would've found it painful once. If I ever did, I've forgotten that time in my life. It's more of a dull ache, easy to ignore. Suffocating or drowning are a bit more of a present pain-in-the-ass.

[chokuto]

[The frown on his lips deepens, a familiar line of discontent that fits his expression readily.]

Then it's my responsibility to see that you aren't uncomfortable. Eat.

[His voice is soft — gentle, an entreaty more than a command.]

[hallowing]

I'm not gonna willfully do anything that'll upset you.

（ it's a soft, solemn promise. he tosses the last bite of the onirigi in his mouth and obediently chews it, swallows. shows off his empty mouth with a comedically exaggerated ahhh. ）

Don't worry about me, okay? I'll look after myself for you.

[chokuto]

I know. I'm not worried, but I want to take care of you. [It's... what had Cy called it?] 'Acts of service'.

[Once he finishes his own onigiri, chewing through the mouthful of rice and kelp, Sasuke reaches next for the box of cake.]

Hold this steady for me. [Placed into Cy's hands, he reaches for a fork next — plastic, provided with the purchase.] They were selling a lot of different desserts this week due to the holiday. Is it something you've celebrated before?

[He would assume so, given Cy's expressed interest in romantic relationships.]

[hallowing]

Ah, yeah? Valentine's Day. It's an Earth thing, but a lot of places I've been have similar holidays that celebrate romance, but full disclosure, they're usually just dressed up fertility festival. Valentine's Day is based on... fuck, Lupercalia I think? Roman thing, you might've read about them in that book of yours. Everybody gets liquored up, ritual whipping, nonstop celebratory fucking, and suddenly you've got a population boom on your hands. （ a playful slap against his own stomach, clearly intending to evoke the concept of pregnancy. ） Especially in ancient times when plague or war could wipe out a region, it was pretty important. But over time, that kinda got softened from 'fuck Nikomachē of Paiania full of babies for the glory of the Empire' to 'get that bitch some chocolate, bitches love chocolate'.

（ it's him, he's bitches. as evidenced by the fact that the moment sasuke has a forkful of cake for him to try he leans down and closes his mouth around it. ）

Wasn't around for that one, though. Way before my time, I'm just a history nerd.

（ not like it always sticks in his brain, but. you know. ）

[chokuto]

Fertility?

[It seems a bizarre connection, but perhaps not so far-fetched when he considers where they are, and that prevalent influence of sex in all forms. Yet pregnancy isn't something his culture had celebrated beyond the mere expectation of clans to conceive — not as a holiday, certainly. Even that much would be too flagrant an act. Such an excess as Cy describes is unimaginable.]

... I see. [Anyway, he delicately pares another bite of cake with the fork and lifts it to Cy's lips.] I'm surprised it isn't practiced in that context here, but I suppose children are not the goal of the resort. [Not when many of those walleyed guests have been present so long.] I wonder if it even possible to conceive.

[Why have you put his mind on this track?]

[hallowing]

For a lot of reasons, kinda hope it isn't.

（ he hasn't seen any children running around, thank fucking christ he would've lost his mind by now if that were the case — but if pregnancy is possible, that could mean any number of horrifying things in and of itself.

cy shrugs, and walks himself back from the faint, faraway glimmer of anger at their captivity. accepts the next bite of cake, and manages a smile. ）

Luckily for us both, not really a concern here. （ a gesture between the two of them, playful. ） But I solemnly swear to give it my best effort.

sasuke: i have a new kink and i don't even know it

[chokuto]

[Sasuke stills in the effort of reaching back to the cake with the naked fork, turning a look up — one that is at first dubious, but then shutters with a tug of attraction that he can't quite place. Of course there's the fact Cy is sitting close to him, and they are in his bedroom where they've done many things, and he's performing the intimacy of feeding Cy food. But that alone shouldn't have inspired the warm jolt of arousal.

Cy's playful flirtation, then? It must be. The suggestion of sex is enough, even carrying the connotation of reproduction.]

Focus on eating first. [Another bite. Some of the icing is left on the fork; he surrenders to the impulse and cleans it off with his own tongue.] You mentioned before that you've had children. Right?

sorry about your life sasuke

[hallowing]

（ his expression settles into something just — a little sad. the way that pervasive melancholy can settle on a graveyard that's been reclaimed, overrun by time, the names all worn away. a beautiful place, but the cradle of someone's heartbreak once. ）

Yeah.

（ he exhales, and it's not entirely steady. his mouth turns up at one corner. ）

I had a little girl. Before — （ a vague gesture to his temple. sasuke will get his meaning. ） I don't remember much else. （ not her name. not her laugh. nothing but that one image that's almost like an afterburn into his memory. ） And then... here and there over the millennia. Some were mine, some were adopted or taken in. I don't really care about biology like that. I just love being a father. But it's hard to outlive them, so it's — not something I do deliberately very often.

😔 send him to horny jail

[chokuto]

[The fork is set into the box, both carefully taken from Cy's hands and put aside. Then he reaches for the man, palm smoothing over the back of a neck to draw him in and place a kiss at that upturned corner of a mouth. A sign of affection, freely given, in the face of what he recognizes as a wound.]

They were fortunate to have you as their father.

[And it's meant. The effusive care that Cy possesses — it could have only been a good life, to be loved by someone like him.]

... My father was very different from you. Uchiha Fugaku. It was him, and my mother, Mikoto. [Sasuke's eyes slip down.] And my older brother.

[He does not say Itachi's name.]

There were other children around me in those early years. My clan was numerous. It wasn't uncommon to walk the streets and encounter an aunt, or an uncle, or another relative. I enjoyed that.

(bonk)

[hallowing]

（ his brother's eyes, he'd said. cy doesn't miss, that he goes unnamed.

this, too, cleaves as a wound. as if sasuke has recognized the bleed of one in him, and sawed at himself to produce an intricate ribbon of sutures that he can use to lever the sides of cy's own ancient traumas closed. it's achingly sweet, selfless. and it makes him hurt all the more for the fact that it seems no one else in this boy's life has seen that side of him.

very gently, ）

Do you want to talk about it?

（ he knows some of it. can guess at the rest. and as with what he told sasuke, he knows — it'll make him hurt, it'll make him sad, it'll make him sorry. and he will carry it, whatever it is, until immortality sears the edges of his memory away, and softens the edges of old traumas, and sasuke's name is an iterant whisper clutched close against the coming dark.

he leans forward and presses a kiss against his forehead. ）

I'll listen if it's time.

[chokuto]

[He releases a thin stream of breath, leaning forward, setting his cheek against the curve of Cy's shoulder. His brow is warm where the impression of that kiss lingers on his skin.]

This wasn't supposed to be about me today.

[There is a part of him that wishes to expunge this at last between them, however it may be done — yet he remains hesitant, reluctant to tarnish this moment with the dark stain of his own history.]

[hallowing]

（ he presses his palms to sasuke's cheeks, thumbing at the strong lines of elegant curving bone there. ）

You're not the one making it about you.

（ sasuke's eternal desire not to take up time, or space, or affection. because he thinks those things haven't been earned, aren't deserved. it isn't like cy's ignorant to the fact that he's left sins in his wake — the space between what sasuke's said and what he's held back is subsumed by death, and loss, and blood — and there's enough of it on his hands alone that it stirs kulo vayn to wakefulness in his mind. ）

I know it's not a good story. But there's nothing you can put on me that I can't handle, for no reason beyond the fact it's been the thing to put you here in front of me.

[chokuto]

[If he was going to put this tale into anyone's hands by his own will, a wound so raw he's carried it with him his entire life — it would be Cy. In the Netherworld, he had so much less of a choice. He could not control what came out of his mouth when his mind was halved by darker thoughts; still, he feels the sore pain of those truths turned back against him like blades, punishing.

So it is better, now, where he is safe in Cy's presence. Yet Sasuke hesitates a little longer, his arm slipping around the man's waist as he tucks his head further into an overwarm throat. His voice is halting, but low and set.]

I'm accustomed to everyone knowing my past. It was no secret in my world due to its infamy. I could not go anywhere without being recognized for who I was, and what had happened to my clan.

But the truth was withheld for most of my life and revealed only once it was too late. [A steadying breath, inhaling the familiar scent of Cy's skin.] My village schemed to eradicate my clan. The Uchiha were incredibly powerful, as I've already told you, and incredibly feared because of that power. There was a faction among them, who — after facing years of prejudice, isolation, segregation from the village leaders — had decided to perform a coup d'état. My father spearheaded this plan. He was the Police Chief and clan head, so everyone respected to him, listened to him, and rallied behind him.

The village, having learned what my clan was planning, enlisted... my older brother as their agent to be used against my father. I didn't know what was going on. It confused me when the two of them began to grow apart. I was desperate for their attention and their affection, but I was in the dark, because I was only a child.

[His right hand smooths over Cy's back in a wandering pattern, as if soothing himself with the act more than he means to soothe Cy.]

In the end, my brother was given an ultimatum. Either he must stop his own clan or the leaders would do it themselves, which would destabilize the village. My brother knew this. You know my world is a volatile place; something like that would bring war to us almost certainly. So he massacred the clan under their direction. But he did not kill me — because he couldn't.

[It gets stuck in his throat, then. He loved me.]

I was eight. He didn't tell me. I thought he'd killed them out of heartlessness. I spent most of my life hating him, trying to kill him for the sake of revenge. And I succeeded.

[hallowing]

（ the political machinations that surround war, or peace, or the precipice between the two are not esoteric to him. sasuke unfolds his history like the bloody furl of a battle standard, and cy can read between the lines. the things he doesn't say. his older brother must have been a child too, which makes it ache all the more. what an ugly fucking story.

he'd guessed at some of it. pieces slotted together like a puzzle box, from the few things sasuke laid bare, let slip. the way he had reacted to certain things, how he had resisted warmth and affection so incredibly at first and then became so desperately dependent upon it. a boy who had everyone he loved ripped away by such a tender age would be drawn to an immortal who can't be called to death's heel like a dog. cy had proved it to him the first moment they'd met — that time could not touch him, nor blades bite.

sasuke pets him like a worry stone, and cy shifts from his knees to either side of the boy's thighs, arranging his legs in a circle around his hips, crossed at the ankles behind sasuke's back. he holds him, and let the words drip like blood in the air between them, like infection excised. he strokes his hair, and imagines — ten years ago. it feels like so little time, barely a blink to him, but it's different when it's almost half your life. and he lived with it, the grief, the rage, the hate, for so long...

he wonders if it was deliberate. if his brother kept the truth from him as some form of — what, penance? but it must have been love, to hear sasuke tell it now. an awful, twisted version of it, a cruel one, but nevertheless. child soldiers never really have the chance to see what it looks like when it's not tarnished and tattered and torn, too much of their lives become informed by pain.

sasuke falls silent, and cy shifts to kiss at his hair. it's become a gesture of plain, uncomplicated affection between them.

the miracle here is not that he survived. it's that he is still capable of kindness, after everything. ）

Thank you for telling me. （ that, too, has become almost a ritual. the soft appreciation for pain shared and shouldered. cy finds the line of sasuke's jaw with one hand and gently eases him back from where he's tucked in against him, presses a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. ） Do you need anything from me right now?

（ there are no apologies to say, no platitudes to level, that do anything but make the focus his own hurt at the hearing. so he won't concern himself with their expression, only with being present, and listening. ）

[chokuto]

[He accommodates the change of position easily, adjusting his arm around Cy's hips as they settle, leaning with greed into the circle of that embrace.]

No. I don't think so. [Anything like — pity, or sorrow expressed, would not feel right. He's borne so much of it over the last ten years. He's worn it like another skin, another identity fashioned across himself. The past is the past; he has to accept this or he will never be able to move on. And he tells himself the he has accepted everything, even when it comes to haunt him in his sleep, or in a misplaced memory dredged up against his will. Even when this place threatens to twist him backwards in time.] I'm glad that you know now.

[Perhaps this won't be the end of it, but at least it steps him in the direction he wants to go in that honesty shared between them. A piece of vulnerability surrendered to Cy. He doesn't regret it.]

His name was Itachi — my brother.

[hallowing]

（ why did these people name their son 'weasel' tho. cy actually considers asking. and then, like the weird offhand comment sasuke once made about his eyes, he simply files it away. ）

Itachi. （ he presses his forehead to sasuke's, gently. ） Okay. I'll remember that, too. As long as I can.

[chokuto]

[It means so much to him that Cy would try to hold onto these pieces of his life — it feels special, significant. A kindness like none other he's received. That feeling grips Sasuke tightly, and he closes his eyes as they lean into each other, allowing himself to dwell in that moment for as long as it lasts. To let the moment that came before it, drenched by his family history, fade.

He wants to tell Cy how much he means to him. He can't seem to find the words.]

You should finish your cake.

[hallowing]

（ in answer, he simply opens his mouth like a bird. chirp chirp, motherfucker. ）

[chokuto]

[Obligingly, Sasuke will feed him as much of the cake as is wanted in careful bites.]

What were you planning to do the rest of today?

[hallowing]

Well, （ it's said around a mouthful of cake. god, he is so gross and obnoxious. this is the man you told your sad life story to, sasuke? this bitch??? please love yourself. ） I didn't really have any plans.

（ clearly, that has changed. ）

But hey, this hot ass twunk I'm dating insisted on being stupidly thoughtful on a fertility festival holiday I was kiiiiiinda thinking about just fucking him until we're both so dehydrated we need to learn how to breathe underwater to recoup ourselves. I don't know, maybe I'll ask him.

（ the fork is held aloft again, and he closes his mouth over it, slides backwards while making very clear eye contact. ）

Wanna fuck the day away, ma petite flamme?

[chokuto]

[Sasuke does not see gross and obnoxious — he sees only charming and silly. The lightness after what he's just shared, and the return to normalcy, are more appreciated than he can express.

'Twunk'...? Never mind, his brain is effectively clotheslined by the rest of that, eyes fastened with attentiveness to the seal of a mouth over fork tines. If he were a cat, his pupils might have dilated as if at the flick of a feather wand.]

You've said that phrase before. [His voice is lower, intent.] It's French, isn't it? What does it mean?

[Not a direct answer to Cy's question, except that he's leaning in, hand slipping beneath the hem of a shirt to caress bare warm skin, nosing up against the cut of a jawline.]

[hallowing]

'My little flame'.

（ it's said with a bit of a laugh, gusted out on a breath that smells of the cake he's being so diligently fed. and since sasuke bailed on the fork in favour of diving beneath his shirt like a baseball player stealing third, he has to pull it free himself, and gesture with it. ）

From the kanji.

[chokuto]

[Oh. The intensity in his eyes doesn't diminish, only magnified by the sentiment that translation carries — the way it hooks in his chest, snags, and threatens a debilitating bout of emotion. A careful breath readies him against it.]

I want you to teach me French. [A slow and thoughtful stroke of his palm up, mapping every step of Cy's spine.] And Chiskikani.

[He'll be a dedicated student to everything that Cy shares with him.]

But first, I want to spend the day as you suggested. [Leaning in, he steals a brief taste of sugar and strawberry from Cy's lips in a kiss. He could stand to eat sweets if it was like this.] Will you fuck me?