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[hallowing]

@torontonian

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[hallowing]

I understand.

（ he does, and he's explained why. he doesn't need to justify it now — he just leans between sasuke's legs, and kisses him very gently. ）

You've made incredible progress, and you are really not doing anything wrong. Trauma is the thief of joy — and sometimes what it steals is the joy in your own self. （ honestly, it's touching enough that he's kept trying. cy nuzzles at his cheek, presses his mouth to sasuke's throat over the collar. ） For now, let's try this.

（ one hand braces himself on the frame of the bed, and the other reaches between them and curls atop sasuke's hand. not trying to entirely take over for him, just — guiding him. as sasuke's fingers dip against his hole, cy is the one that gently pushes them inside and works at the back of his hand, his wrist in the thrust. almost like he's using sasuke's hand as the stand-in for a dildo, fucking into him slow. ）

You were so gentle with me, t'che verai. Tell me why you don't think you deserve that, too.

（ he knows why. but he wants sasuke to articulate it so they can face it, and tear it down. ）

talking about trauma during sex the cysuke way

[chokuto]

[The graze of Cy's cheek, punctuated by the press of a mouth, only serve to remind him of the snug band of leather and silk around his throat. He finds it — calming, almost anesthetic to any tension that rises in response to what is asked of him. It's difficult to speak on the subject; he knows it will only help, despite that.]

I've hurt people. Killed them. [The Chiskikani endearment delivers him to vulnerability, even as his eyes slip closed and he focuses on the sensation of Cy's warm hand cupped atop his own knuckles.] I knew what I was doing when I did it.

[Even amid the grief and rage, wielded like a knife turned on himself, he still committed those cruel acts. Yet that isn't all of it — he simply stops breathing for a minute, focused on the stretch of knuckles that pry his body open, feeling the ache of soreness in the muscle of his ass from earlier's foray momentarily forgotten in genjutsu. His head turns, seeking Cy's mouth in a slack, shivery slide of lips and tongue. Guided into a steady drag of fingers inside his hole, Sasuke loses the thread of thought for a moment and can't reclaim it until after. And then he says —]

... For a long time, I've carried this — guilt. That I was the only one left alive. I've hated myself for it.

[hallowing]

（ it's a sentiment he understands too well, and there's an ache in him for the fact it's something they share — when sasuke's eyes slip closed he kisses the lids in a soft shiver of movement, and then just leans their foreheads together. breath mingles, and it feels like swallowing the words uttered into the air. his hand on sasuke's stays whisper-soft, guiding him to a rhythm that's more sanctified than sexual, a coax of his hand inward and deep. ）

It's called 'survivor's guilt'. It's one of the possible symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. There's no clear reason why it affects some people and not others — but personally, I think that in a lot of cases it comes from an incredible sense of compassion and empathy. We're handling knives, okay? Stay with me.

（ another kiss is left against sasuke's cheek. there's a shift, an adjustment of his weight, letting some of it rest against sasuke's side so he can free up his hand to curl around his cock, mimical of those interior thrusts. he drapes a leg against sasuke's, the intimacy easy and close. ）

You lost everything. You had no support. You raised yourself alone. There was nothing to anchor you to kindness, but you kept it anyway. Surviving was not a sin. Sweetheart, you were a child. You've carried this pain far longer than you knew peace. When have you suffered enough? When have you given enough to the ghosts? You can't change the past. I'm sorry you've suffered, I'm sorry you've killed people, and hurt those you cared for, and been cruel — but it wasn't because you're a bad person, it was because no one in your life knew how to help the howling pain in you, and anger and cruelty became protective measures against a furtherance of loss and grief. You and I both know that if you met someone whose life echoed yours, you would be kind to them. So why not you?

[chokuto]

['Survivor's guilt' is an apt term, then, because it is his agony over that survival that seems to chew him up, spit him out — and as the metaphor of knives is risen, familiar now, he braces himself. It's almost easier with the distraction of his own body, ministration of both knuckles pushed in and Cy's warm hand on his cock. They are physical hooks that keep him from sinking too deep and low in his mind, rewiring the part of himself that wants to hide away from the experience of emotion, from the wellspring it hollows within him.

Sharing air, he leans closer into the shelter of where they touch, little breathy sounds loose on his lips.]

Cy, [a name that is a mold for the affection that now pours out of him, every crack and seam their togetherness has created.] Knowing you makes me want to... be kind. [To myself.] Even if it's hard. I'll keep trying.

[He's begun to learn that difficulty between them does not mean the end; there's a foundation that will weather and support against failures and mistakes. So he shifts the leg hooked underneath one of Cy's, and lifts his hips, their hands driving another inexorable push against his ass to open it up.]

I know we just spoke about what we were going to do, but — now I want you inside of me.

[hallowing]

Nothing we ever talk about's a hard blueprint, sweetheart. We can do that.

（ and it means something, that sasuke would choose something gentler than what they'd discussed earlier. it's not as if he has an aversion to treating him roughly — quite the opposite, in fact, especially now that they're exploring their limits in concert.

but he can't deny the way that those gentler moments feel a little bit like letting the light into a darkened room, either.

cy kisses him again, drawn out and tender, and then: ）

Tell me when you're ready. I wanna try a different position.

[chokuto]

[The kiss leaves eyes half-open, lashes a low sweep, hair pushed back from his face to expose the soft, adoring expression that is turned onto Cy. He has passed the point of hiding himself from Cy — even when the difficult emotion they challenge together has him in its grip. I love you will never stop being true.

If living with this guilt and rage and loss all over again would deliver him to Cy, he'd do it. He'd suffer every hurt.

With a slight shift, he pulls his wrist back, sliding fingers out of his body and unashamedly lacing them together with Cy's own in a loose, slippery hold.]

I'm ready. What position?

[hallowing]

It's called the lotus position. We've done variants before but not this specific one.

（ he leaves their fingers tightly wound together, but his free hand hooks on the d-ring of sasuke's collar and tugs him forward. cy arranges himself in the middle of the bed, thighs slightly splayed apart, and draws sasuke right atop them. ）

Some people say it's the most romantic way to have sex. Sit, wrap your legs around me, ankles crossed.

（ it's a foregone conclusion that he's already hard, lbr. so it's easy, to let briefly go of that collar to scrounge around for the bottle of lube and slick himself liberally — and then a touch to sasuke's thigh to get him to flex his thighs and lift upwards and then back, to settle against the head of cy's cock. he teases the boy's hole with a heavy drag of his dick and then pushes just the head inward, feeling the stretch and sudden give of the muscle there. being nested inside him like this has never felt anything less than perfect, but it's — sweeter, now. ）

Hold there for a sec, and then I want you to take me all the way in in one smooth shot. And then I wanna get real mushy about being inside you, just so you know what you signed up for getting away from the choking on my dick scenario.

（ and why he asked sasuke to wait like that, tantalized and wanting, becomes very clear after a moment — cy's hand slips back around between them and lifts. he hooks his index finger back in the collar's ring, and then tugs him in for a kiss. the message is clear: he's going to hold the collar all the way through. ）

Bear down for me, t'che verai.

[chokuto]

[It's an easy act to slide into Cy's lap, only bare skin between them. He obeys by folding long legs around Cy's waist and locking them at the ankle, luxuriating in the lean, hard body beneath him, how it makes the flow of time stop to be in these arms, how quickly all of the difficult trials of his life fade to static in his ears. He's not remotely nervous — but there is a little hitch of air, a dimensional shift in the intimacy they share.

Magnified, of course, by how casually Cy tugs him by the collar around his throat. The kiss seals that intention between them, and Sasuke feels arousal run through him like water, taking him beneath its flow.]

I want to do that another time. [A breathless statement, given as he feels himself settle, the crown of Cy's dick dragging a wet smear of lubricant in the cleft of his sore ass. Then the tight squeeze as the head breaches his hole just barely. He circles his hips, enjoying the burn of first penetration without shifting any deeper.] I want to do so much with you. I didn't know that it could be possible — to want the future so badly. I want to do this a hundred times. A thousand. Forever.

[With Cy's hand on the collar, with that warm endearment stuffing his head like cotton, Sasuke does as he's told. A slow, deliberate push takes Cy's cock to the root, chasing shocks of pleasure up his spine — his head rolls on shoulders but cannot lean for being held in place by the ownership of that band around his throat. His mouth falls slack around a reverberation of sound, low and quiet but full, aching at the throb at having Cy's dick buried so deep inside of him.]

[hallowing]

（ perhaps, if sasuke hadn't said that — the most this would have been is a slow, loving fuck while they made eye contact over cy's grasp on the collar. sweet words, soft nothings, lovebites and longing laid bare in the scorching heat of their touch.

but this boy, with all the trauma tangled up in him — who regards his own life as nothing else but a tool to further the future vision of one he loves back home — says that so casually, and cy just.

looks at him for a moment, warmth and fondness and love and surprise all emblazoned so plainly on his face — and then he drops his hand away from the collar and wraps sasuke up in his arms so tightly it will restrict his oxygen by accident rather than design. his knees bend, a slight shift of his legs positionally speaking, that puts sasuke into his cross-legged lap. and he just. holds him. breathing against the crook of his neck. there's a faint tremble to his shoulders that speaks of the depth of emotional resonance ringing through him now, and the kiss he presses against the join between the slope of sasuke's trapezius muscle and the plush edge of the collar is sweet rather than sensual.

i want the future so badly.

jesus fucking christ. ）

Okay. （ comes the quiet murmur, because it's really all he can bring himself to say. ） Okay.

[chokuto]

[The crush of that embrace wrings out breath like water from a sodden sponge, but he doesn't care, he'll let Cy hold him in any way, to any line of discomfort — and it feels good to be wrapped within the tight, powerful security of these strong arms. Sasuke slips his own up and around broad shoulders, ensuring that he can cradle the back of Cy's head with one palm so knuckles card through dark hair gently.]

Will you remind me how to say it in French? [He can feel Cy's heart, this close, thudding at a slow and steady rhythm. It is like it sits within his own chest.] I love you.

[Never would he have thought the words could come to him like this for someone else, put into the air and made tangible without the burden of fear, but Cy convinces him that anything is possible.]

[hallowing]

（ there's a soft murmur against his throat — je t'aime, murmured like a curl of smoke that subsumes the senses, and then cy kisses the point just below his ear, against his hair, his cheek — migrating back to sasuke's mouth. he licks into it, enjoying the way the boy yields to him — and draws away with a bite to his bottom lip. ）

Hey. I don't like to leave things unsaid. （ as if anyone would suspect him of such a fucking thing given the sheer volume of words that fall out of his mouth tbh.

though he hasn't quite returned to the original distance between them, he has hooked two fingers back against that collar. there's a tug — pay attention. ） No one else gets this. Personal collars like this represent a bond. It's a pledge.

[chokuto]

[Those kisses underlaid with spoken sentiment threaten to veer his concentration off-track, so that when Cy tugs on the collar, dark lashes flicker with the bleary awareness that he'd closed his eyes. He gazes at the other man — trusting. Even the slightest shift of weight reveals where he's sitting Cy's cock, but that only adds to the unhurried intimacy. There is no reason to rush. They have the night, and tomorrow, and the next day after that.]

You said it was about ownership. Is that what you mean by a pledge?

[He doesn't have any doubt about what his answer would be, if asked if he would give himself to Cy — in every sense — but he wants to understand this better.]

What kind of bond?

[hallowing]

Mm. People interpret it a few different ways.

（ there's a slight upwards flex of his hips, and then another kiss claimed at the corner of sasuke's mouth. ）

I like to think of it as commitment, devotion, protection and trust.

[chokuto]

[The movement earns a sharp breath, and his legs constrict in their circle around Cy's hips, body tightening in a reflexive squeeze where they're joined.]

Then, yes. You know I don't take such a bond lightly — but I want to be able to give that to you.

[A tilt to press their foreheads together.]

You're the only one for me.

[hallowing]

（ tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé. he knows too well what he's set in motion. perhaps selfishly. and yet — in the moment, with sasuke curled into him, the hot join of their bodies, the naked trust in those miscoloured eyes — and he's not sorry for having done it.

he presses a kiss against the bridge of sasuke's nose. ）

Bet it's 'cause I'm hot.

（ annnnd we're back to cheeky and playful, oop. ）

[chokuto]

[That balance is gratefully necessary when he so often slips into more serious, dire threads of thinking, even if it is difficult to think much at all with the way they hold each other. There's something so casually intimate about feeling Cy inside of him with no urgency to move — to rush to the end of pleasure.]

I don't think you need me to tell you that. [Cy's physical confidence and easy sexuality have both been apparent to him since the beginning.] But yes. If I had met you somewhere else, where the demands of this place weren't required of us, I would have felt the same attraction. Only I wouldn't have known what that feeling was.

[It's hard to imagine, though he tries.]

I wouldn't have been able to leave you alone.

[hallowing]

（ his hands drop against sasuke's hips, fingers slotting in against the reddening bruises of his ass to lift him up just a little, and pull him back down. the slow, obscene slide of his cock inside him — his partner, his submissive — feels so fucking good it makes him ache. ）

Awh, you would've been so cute.

（ he doesn't mind that it happened this way. it's equal parts sad and adorable to imagine sasuke being moon-eyed and frustrated at himself over it, making excuses to leave conversations but also to be nebulously around for them to kick off in the first place. he would've caught on quick, but — certainly, the impetus of the casino has made things easier. a certain social (ha) lubrication. ）

Just following me around trying to get me to fight you, huh?

[chokuto]

[The lazy thrust briefly severs his concentration, so that he sees only stars behind flickered eyelids at the drag of Cy's cock inside of him, angled almost well enough to tease a tender prostate. Almost. He tries shifting in Cy's warm lap, chasing pressure in a circle of hips rather than moving up and off.

Cy isn't so far off the mark with the depiction. Not knowing the source of his frustration and chasing instead what he would view at Cy's presence of power, he'd attempt to channel himself physically through combat. Anything for Cy's attention.]

That would be — pathetic of me. [It's unconsciously easy to be derisive toward this imagined self.] Not cute.

[hallowing]

（ he leans in close, hooks a finger in between the collar and sasuke's throat and silences him with a kiss. it starts slow and gains heat, and then cy nips at him when he draws back enough to speak. ）

Shh. It doesn't cost you anything to be kind to yourself, Sasuke. Not who you were, not who you are, not who you might have been. Be nice.

（ he'll literally dom you into it. literally. ）

There's no version of you that doesn't deserve my attention, respect, or love.

[chokuto]

[The way it might actually be effective to be dommed into self-love...]

Sorry. [The apology is reactive. He is trying — but habits are not changed overnight.] I wasn't thinking when I spoke.

[A bit chastised, though soothed by the kiss that leaves him unable to look anywhere but at Cy's mouth. When he swallows, he can feel where Cy's finger is wedged between his throat and the collar, and he leans slightly away, testing the resistance where he's held.]

I don't want to imagine any version of myself that isn't with you.

[hallowing]

（ the apology is accepted with another, gentler kiss pressed against the corner of his mouth like a punctuation mark to the statement. ）

It's okay. It takes time to learn how to give yourself the grace you'd offer anyone else. Easy to judge ourselves by our darkest thoughts and others by their kindest actions, you know?

（ another slow, sweet rock to his hips. he's not trying to drive sasuke wild on purpose, it's more just — the intimacy and connection is a fulcrum to the nature of their conversation. something to cleave to when the mind strays. ）

Not that I don't dig the sentiment — because I do — but I'd prefer to think there are other people who could make you happy out there in the universe, too. You'll break my heart otherwise, huh?

[chokuto]

[Darkest thoughts.

Is that what comes to him when Cy says there are other people out in the universe who could make him happy? That adamant, livid no resonates in his mind alongside a needle of dread and uncertainty, wondering whether Cy feels what he feels. If he did, why would he make such the suggestion of other people? But then it's unfair, because Cy is accustomed to moving on from dead lovers. Of course this would not be so intense for him. Of course he wouldn't feel as deeply. Sasuke is the one who is cursed to be this way. Cy is right, because he's found those others for himself over the course of thousands of years. Sasuke is one of many, a temporary blip across eternity.

... He stops, takes a shuddering breath — because it almost seems like the influence of the suit has acted upon him with how his mind spirals in an unwarranted direction. It does help to have Cy inside of him, brought back to the physical moment and reminded of that closeness. The difficulty shows on his face, brow forming a pinched line.]

Yeah.

[He doesn't know what he's answering, but it feels right to make some sound of acknowledgment before he squeezes his legs tighter around Cy's waist and tries to — release his mind altogether, rocking hips, attempting to fuck himself down onto Cy's cock with more dedicated urgency.]

[hallowing]

（ he sees it. of course he sees it. and his free hand drops to sasuke's hips, stilling him.

another soft kiss captures his lips, and cy licks into his mouth with unhurried ownership. dragging it out, until — ）

Hey, before we continue. You wanna talk about what just set you off there?

[chokuto]

[He licks his lips after that kiss, eyes downcast. No and nothing happened are the first impulsive answers — but he can't lie to Cy. It would be so blatant.]

I don't think you would like it.

[They weren't charitable thoughts, and he's reluctant to bring them into a conversation, as if it will make them real. Yet they've had enough discussions for Sasuke to be less resistant.]

It wasn't rational.

[hallowing]

I don't have to like it.

( it's said gently, and he slips his left hand up along the strong muscles of sasuke's back, digging in wherever he finds it knotted with tension. )

And it doesn't have to be rational. What's up?