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[hallowing]

@torontonian

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[chokuto]

[The kiss becomes a half-dozen, an endless chain of intimacy in the seal of lips, anchoring him to the world until air is dire — and then Cy's mouth slips down his throat, and those touches are everywhere, holding him close in that smother of affection. For someone else, it might be too much. For a boy whose life is nothing but the starvation of that love, it's barely enough. He clumsily climbs to lay on top of Cy so every point of their bodies connect somewhere, desperate for physical proximity and wishing he had his other arm to complete the circle of an embrace.

Cy's words, first in French and then translated, have undone the remainder of his composure. He doesn't — make much noise, but the tears are drawn out of him in a seemingly endless flow with no stop. They paint silent tracks down his cheeks. He can't express how that statement resounds so deeply through him, how it becomes a permanent presence, how the Sharingan throbs in the socket of his right eye because he'll die just to keep this moment. Beyond time. He wants that.]

[hallowing]

（ he wipes those tears away with his thumbs, and pulls sasuke in to kiss his forehead.

then, brightly: ）

Hey, any idea what time it is?

（ he... does not keep track actually. ）

[chokuto]

You have a watch. On your wrist.

[You silly man. The words are a little hoarse, head lifting at the kiss to his brow. Sasuke turns his own arm and tilts the face of the device toward Cy, their fingers still intertwined.]

There.

[hallowing]

I wanted you to tell me, nerd. How close're we to midnight?

（ yes he is being stubborn about this, don't ask!! ）

[chokuto]

[Eyes a little wet, he scrubs at them with the back of his forearm, then turns to look at his wrist.]

Why midnight? [The look turns more scrutinizing.] We have about an hour.

[hallowing]

Fuck me, I can't even make a joke about turning into a pumpkin because you will absolutely take it literally.

（ another ice pack is summoned, and cy snaps the little ammonium nitrate pack to activate it and shakes it at sasuke, mock-menacingly. ）

Sit on this, please. Fifteen minutes. You're already going to be in for a world of hurt tomorrow, you keep squirming away from the ice pack I'm going to withhold any fun roughhousing for a month.

[chokuto]

What do pumpkins have to do with midnight?

[Yes, this is a literal interpretation. He looks at the ice pack once it is produced from thin air, frown marring his lips, but he does not shrink away. It's mostly an act; he'll be dutiful about sitting on the pack.]

It's cold. [Colder when he's not fresh off the spanking session.] A month seems excessive.

[hallowing]

It's a reference to an Earth fairytail. A girl gets blessed by a fairy godmother and goes to a fancy ball all dressed up, but her carriage is made out of a pumpkin, and the magic wears off at midnight. It's kinda been co-opted into pop culture to reference like, 'oh no, at x time I'll turn into a pumpkin, haha, better go!'

（ a pause. then: ）

I'm not going anywhere, just waiting for the clock to strike down. And hush about the cold and do what I say and you won't have to worry about a month.

[chokuto]

Whoever created that fairytail had a strange imagination. I would never look at a pumpkin and expect it to become transportation.

[Shinobi lore errs more on the side of grim and terrifying, probably.]

So something is going to happen at midnight. [The look is suspicious now, eyes narrowed to cat-slits.] Should I even ask?

[hallowing]

You can ask.

（ his expression does not bode well for an actual answer, though, shit-eating grin that it is. ）

[chokuto]

[Here he is, putting his hand in the trap anyway...]

What is happening at midnight?

[hallowing]

（ you fool, you've fallen for one of the classic blunders! ）

You'll have to wait and see.

（ and since sasuke is sitting on that ice pack, cy just adjusts until he can bracket him in a playful embrace, like a poor man's nonsexual lotus position with his legs thrown over sasuke's thighs and hooked at the ankles behind his back. this puts him in prime kissing distance, the threat of it omnipresent in how he leans forward to steal one in an affectionate nuzzle. ）

Let's play twenty questions. Spring or fall?

[chokuto]

Why twenty?

[I hope you are prepared for a life of explaining Earth references to him. Yet Sasuke is obedient to the new arrangement of limbs, even more for how it puts Cy directly in front of him — such that he is leaning for a kiss before it comes. Easy, reflexive affection.]

... Spring. [It's not even Persephone that sets his mind to this answer, although it certainly weighs it more heavily.] My village always looked like another world during that time of year.

Do I ask you one now?

[hallowing]

I actually have no idea why 'twenty'. It just works.

（ spring. he knows it's not only the delineation he made so little ago, but it warms him just the same. ）

Sure, go ahead.

[chokuto]

[He spends long enough thinking that the silence might seem uncomfortable to anyone else — but for them, it isn't. He just wants to ensure it's a question worth asking.]

What is the oldest song you can still remember?

[hallowing]

（ he hums a little, an old melodic refrain to put the music in the air between them, and then: ）

I don't remember what it's called. But it's a Chiskikani song.

（ he leans in closer, crowding sasuke into the circle of his arms. the humming transmutes into words, soft and low. as always when he slips into his native tongue, there's a new quality nested in his voice — a little like a homecoming. the aural equivalent of crossing over the threshold of one's door to warm their hands over the hearth.

biito t'chen verai, t'che ku sanlevy sporaa zeko, anhka mirad cy, ankha mirae so. just the first few lines, murmured against sasuke's ear. ）

[chokuto]

[A Chiskikani song — he recognizes the language by rhythm and cadence, up and down the shape of words, but more than that by the way it makes him feel warmly cradled. Perhaps it is only because he associates it to the embrace Cy wraps him in, but he doesn't believe so.

Home is the sentiment it carries, more than anything.]

It's pretty. [His hand smooths over Cy's back, head tilted, listening.] I like your voice. What do the words mean?

[hallowing]

'Through your eyes I see the beauty of the world, the dawn, the night'.

（ he rubs his cheek against sasuke's like a cat, enjoying the grate of stubble on softer skin. ）

'T'che verai' was a common endearment on Chinoon back then. It means 'my eyes'. The one you'd surrender your sight to, and trust to guide you home.

[chokuto]

[At that he leans away, if only to reclaim enough room so their faces are brought close. His hand slips around and then lifts, gently tracing his thumb over the smooth contours of skin around Cy's eyes — into the slope of the nose, then back up, along the browline.]

T'che verai. [Tried, a little clumsy on his tongue.] My eyes.

[He's bold enough to kiss the backs of Cy's eyelids before relinquishing the touch.]

The eyes are important to my clan, as you must have noticed. They're the source of our power and unique to our bloodline. When we have children, we pass our eyes on to them.

[hallowing]

（ he bows beneath the contact, and when sasuke pulls back he does chase him the scant inches apart. ）

Yeah, that hasn't escaped me.

（ look, weird uchiha eyeball things — he at least takes them in stride. ）

They're beautiful — your eyes. I get they're dangerous too, with what you've told me. But they suit you.

[chokuto]

[It almost makes him self-conscious, to have his eyes complimented, for all that they mean to his bloodline and for all he's endured to obtain their power. The sorrow and grief, as well as the hard-won achievement. And, even deeper, the memento — Itachi's legacy carried in his body.]

One day I'll show you what I can do with them. [A quirk of lips, playful — just a flash of pride.] You've barely seen anything yet.

[hallowing]

I'll look forward to it, then.

（ he settles back, giving sasuke a solemn look. then: ）

If you were going to show me a place on your world, what would it be and why?

[chokuto]

Where my clan used to live. [Only, as Cy knows, it won't be there anymore.] I could show you through my eyes — how it used to look.

If it was in person... I'd take you to the forest beside the home I grew up in. I used to train there a lot. Sometimes with Itachi.

[The ice pack is losing some of its frigid shape; he shifts, adjusting his seat.]

Same question. If you were going to show me one place, where would it be and why?

[hallowing]

Can you do that without... （ a little bit of a flicker of motion towards his own temple. poking the insane divine pillar in his brain, basically. teach him about genjutsu please. ）

As for mine... Christ, well. I've already talked to you about Mon Mahara, so I'll try something different. There's a world that doesn't have a name because as far as I know there's never been anyone there to name it. It's turned away from the sun, and has no rotation — so half the planet is basically baked to a crisp, and the other half is in permanent darkness. But there are thermal vents close to the surface that make it liveable anyhow — and it's...

（ he exhales, eyes closed. imagining it. ）

When I say 'darkness', I just mean an absence of sunlight. But the sky is almost alive. Have you ever seen, ah... shit, what's the word for you. 'Hokkyokukou'? Aurora borealis? It's a constant ribbon of colour from pole to pole. You feel like you could wrap yourself in it. There's no sentient life there, mostly just animals. They've never seen people before, so they're playful and curious, they're mostly herbivores that I came across, they feed on moss and underground tubers. And there are frequent storms, so... there are a lot of places where lightning's struck the earth and created glass out of the silicate soil. There's towering structures built out of it, entirely natural. You can smell the ozone in the air for days before and days after a storm. It's a wild place. I think you'd like it.

[chokuto]

I could. If you wanted me to — it wouldn't reach anything deeper in your mind.

[He watches Cy in the telling of that other world, admiring Cy's face in the privacy of that moment while his eyes are closed, those handsome features so familiar now.

It's easy to imagine what Cy describes, an untouched wilderness beneath colorful streamers of light, animals living out simple lives, flashes of lightning brilliant in the eternally dark sky.]

... I think that I would like it too. [It sits on his tongue: We should go. Yet it's left unmanifested, because that freedom isn't theirs now, may never be if they remain trapped in this prison only to be separated into other, alternate dimensions. He doesn't let his thoughts dwell there.] I've never seen those lights, but they exist far in the north of my own world, a place called Snow Country. I've heard stories. That those lights are the spirits of children waiting to be born. Or another, that any child conceived beneath them will be born with fortune. They're a symbol of good luck.