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[hallowing]

@torontonian

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[hallowing]

( this is the sigh of a man who knows beyond all reason he will not be sleeping for at least a week. )

Yes, beloved. I'll whip up an incubator.

( he's so whipped, actually. )

[chokuto]

Come here.

[His right hand reaches, guiding Cy to lay closer beside him with nothing to separate that space except for the protected bundle of blanket forming the makeshift nest. He bumps their foreheads together gently.]

I don't think twenty-six eggs are enough to describe what I feel for you, but it's... nice. That there's this physical proof. [With genjutsu in mind, as well as their debrief in the shower — it's hard not to feel tender about it. The headbutt turns into a proper nuzzle.] If we take a nap, will they be all right? Or should I make another clone?

[There's that sleepy look in his eyes, guard lowered, comfortable in vulnerability.]

[hallowing]

（ — and another egg pops into existence. cy — heaves a sigh, and gentle sets it among the others. who knew that sasuke feeling soft over, as he said, 'physical proof' would result in his own tender feelings, so easily expressed. ）

I'll watch over them. You can rest.

（ he leans over the nest to give sasuke a long, lingering kiss, smoothing his hair back to redouble the gesture against his forehead. then he pulls the blankets up over them both so that the eggs are covered as well, to trap the heat of their bodies and radiate over them. ）

You should think about where you want a piercing.

[chokuto]

[There's a slight snicker when yet another egg appears, mouth twitching at the corner. A little smug, maybe.]

You're one egg ahead of me now. [what does this mean] I'm winning.

[He finds he isn't chilly at all beneath that blanket, even without clothes and fresh from a shower, curling in comfortably until only his head sticks out of the top, mismatched eyes watching Cy. He's settled on his left side — right arm tucked protectively around the edge of the makeshift nest.]

Do you have any suggestions?

[hallowing]

Hey, they don't have our names on them. Who's to say how many you dragged into existence while I was milking your gorgeous tits, huh?

( he curls up in a mirror of sasuke's position, reaching to clasp his right hand. )

I think I'd enjoy piercing you anywhere. Ears are traditional, nipples — permanently ( as opposed to their one-off in their first slave-adjacent larp, anyways — ) would be hot. People can do all kinds of dick piercings. Mm... belly button?

[chokuto]

[His face — flushes a little, self-awareness propagated both by Cy's explicit words about his bodily fluids as well as by a helpless flare of arousal in memory of the act. It's only his own fatigue that keeps his mind from wandering in another direction; his interest in Cy never seems to wane, after all.]

It couldn't have been that many. [Huff.] I feel like nipples might get in the way on a daily basis. They'd chafe on my clothing, wouldn't they?

[Sometimes practicality wins over horniness. Though, most likely he'd get used to even that.]

Not my... dick. [He's not that adventurous, sadly.] ... The other two sound all right. [In fact — the thought of his belly button, in light of genjutsu and their dwelling on the aspect of pregnancy, sticks bright in his mind.] I'll think about it. What jewelry would you choose?

[hallowing]

Hey, for some people the chafing is the point.

（ sasuke's lucky that their bedsheet full of tiny egg children is between them and thus preventing him from having cy reach across and tweak one of his nipples, alas. but the menace is clearly conveyed in a pointed look to said nipple. like, hello, sasuke's titties are gorgeous regardless of whether he's currently a d-cup or not??? ）

Something simple. Silver, maybe, because I like the way it looks on you. But the rest would be negotiable.

（ his look softens from 'would definitely be fucking you into the mattress if i had an ounce of energy rn' to 'gosh diddly darnit love is in the air', and cy tugs his arm up to press a kiss against his wrist. no, the affection will never cease. ）

I'd enjoy it. Having my mark on you. Something no one else would be aware of unless we let them in on the secret ourselves. Something you could touch whenever we're apart. Maybe I could get a bracelet or something to complement it.

（ he'd have consented to a piercing as well if, you know, his body did that sort of thing. ）

[chokuto]

[Why are you looking at his nipples like that? Scandalous. Though clearly the warmth of his own gaze reciprocates Cy's feelings, fingers uncurling as his wrist is taken to stroke along Cy's jaw, cupping at his chin gently.]

I'd enjoy that too. Something permanent. Something that would heal, but that I'd carry with me everywhere, no matter where I am.

[There's a softer, subtle undertone of that solemn recognition — that they don't exactly have control over their presence in this dimension. And while he can't steer too far into the thought, because with it comes a slippery slope of dread and anxiety, this soothes it a little. A piece of Cy he can keep forever.

He's quiet, then, thoughtful.]

I suppose I'm going to ruin the surprise completely at this point, but... I wanted to make you a ring myself.

[hallowing]

（ he eyes the egg pile as if daring them to produce another one — hah, he's totally beating the system now, fuckers. ）

Okay, first of all, that's the sweetest thing I've ever heard. Secondly, if you have some sort of ninja power that can make rings, I'm just done. Your world is weird.

（ it's so weird. @kishimoto, he just? wants to talk?? ）

[chokuto]

Ah. I'd make the jewel, not the whole ring.

[Yes, Cy is getting a jewel in his ring, what are gender stereotypes? He is literally doesn't know them in this case.]

But yes, it is a ninja power. [Heh.] I can craft earth — manipulating it as I can with fire, but I wouldn't call this a particular skill of mine. I'm just confident I can manage something small.

[Now he looks a little... timid.]

Rings aren't necessarily part of my culture, though. I know they're supposed to be a symbol of that bond between two people, so I was considering it... and if you're interested, then I'd like to do it.

[hallowing]

Oh, well, in that case — I'll make the ring, you can make the gem. Can it be purple?

（ like, what's the spectrum we're working with here??? but he asks, mostly because he wants it to match the collar, but also the soft lilac shade of sasuke's left eye. he doesn't voice that innate desire for similarity, but he does lift a hand to skirt his thumb along the strong bone of his brow thoughtfully.

timidity begone. cy grins at him, warmed by the sentiment. ）

Sasuke, you could be offering me flaming shit on a stick, and as long as it was a symbol of love to you, I'd love it. Make me a jewel and I'll figure out the rest. We can design it together. Can you do metals too? I could work from a raw lump.

（ surprising literally no one, yes, he has in fact made jewellery before.

look, when ten thousand years old you are, bored of every fucking job on a terrifying number of planets you too will be. ）

[chokuto]

It can probably be purple.

[He sounds thoughtful, not quite making the connection between the selection of that color and anything related to him. It does match the collar, which makes sense. Perhaps Cy is especially fond of purple.]

I don't know. I'll have to try it out and do a few tests first. I've never done this before. Theoretically, metal should be possible too — and I'd like doing that with you. Making the ring together.

[It would be meaningful. Not that it isn't already, but... it just seems right. He reaches up, stroking along Cy's arm in an affectionate caress.]

But then if you're going to give me piercings, you'll also need to make the jewelry for that as well.

[hallowing]

Something in the 'lilac' variety.

（ yes he's not letting you get away with that ignorance, oop. he settles back in his place, that parenthetical curl around his side of the egg nest. idly, he starts the process of turning them, one at a time. ）

I'll teach you how to do it. No guarantees that metal is the only thing I'll be hammering, though.

（ look, sasuke brought this on himself by imprinting on the first hot man who sucked his dick, okay??? ）

[chokuto]

Do you like that color for some reason?

[Sometimes your boyfriend-turned-fiancé is Head Empty No Thoughts. He doesn't make the connection at all. Though he does reach to help Cy in the process of turning their eggs, instinctively following the man's lead.]

... [snort.] You shouldn't get distracted when you're handling delicate tools.

[??? Flirting? He's still not good at it.]

[hallowing]

Sasuke.

（ good lord, man. it's a good thing you're pretty. cy catches one of his hands as they turn the eggs carefully, and threads their fingers together. he will address the flirting momentarily, but first: ）

Sweetheart. What colour is your Rinnegan?

[chokuto]

[Oh.]

I forgot. Not that I forgot the color, I just didn't — think of that. You're the one always looking at it, so... [Help.

His relationship to the Rinnegan is already complicated, and whether he's consciously aware of it or not, there's a reason he sweeps his grown-out bands to the left side of his face most of the time.]

It's meaningful to you?

[hallowing]

It's part of you.

（ and he's aware of... some of those complications, to be sure. that comment about it being his brother's eyes haven't left his mind — but he can still choose to find it beautiful. ）

Of course it's meaningful.

[chokuto]

[He looks thoughtful for a moment, pulling Cy's hand close enough to press against his own cheek in an affectionate gesture.]

I never told you how I got it — the Rinnegan. It's different than my normal Sharingan.

[If there's anyone he would share this with, it is Cy. The only other people who know where there in person, or are now dead again.]

Do you want to know?

[hallowing]

If you're comfortable sharing it, yes.

（ he knows sasuke wouldn't offer otherwise, but also — there needs to be that freedom there, to refuse if he happens to change his mind. ）

[chokuto]

It was toward the end of the war. [Saying this, he realizes that perhaps some explanation is necessary.] It was called the Fourth Great Shinobi War, because it involved the leaders of every major shinobi village. We were fighting against one of my clan's ancestors... Uchiha Madara.

[Obito who? Fuck that guy.]

Anyway, I learned that I was a direct descendent of this man. No, to be more specific — reincarnation is possible in my world. I don't know if it's the case everywhere, but I discovered I was a reincarnation of Madara. And that this line of ancestry extended to the very first individual to introduce chakra into the world, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki. She came from somewhere else. A clan from another planet. The chakra itself was... from something called a God Tree, a tree that grew from the blood-soaked soil of that era of endless war, and then produced Chakra Fruit.

[Lore drop feat. themes of war. Perhaps this is why he's never found it strange when Cy speaks of a greater universe.]

She had fraternal twins, Hagoromo and Hamura, who were like gods back then. They're considered the genesis of shinobi, and Hagoromo is my original ancestor. He had a son, named Indra, who possessed the Rinnegan. [is Cy mathladygif yet] ... Hagoromo appeared briefly during the Fourth War, and he granted me some of his chakra, which is what awakened that same power in me as well.

[He squeezes Cy's hand, looking down at the eggs.]

I've never spoken to anyone about this before. It's a lot.

[hallowing]

（ he listens quietly, and to anyone else it might seem that his attention is far away — gaze alit on some fixed, distant point. yet sasuke, who's spent enough time around him to be well-aware that his default is eerie eldritch thing rather than person, will probably recognize his expression for what it is: a redirection of energy and focus from coming across as normal to listening attentively.

as sasuke speaks, cy just worries his thumb against the side of their entwined hands. it dovetails in with the details he's done his best to hold onto, and some that slipped out of his fingers and were dragged painstakingly back.

(naruto — the boy, his friend. that name comes and goes.) ）

It is a lot.

（ reincarnation... doesn't surprise him, actually — perhaps there's some combined inheritance of war there, partly responsible for drawing kv's eye to him. not that sasuke's own life was much disparate from it either, but successively — hm.

cy's gaze shifts back to him, still flat. a curious cant to his head seems all he can manage in the moment, and even that isn't quite... right, being more rehearsed than smoothly done. ）

So, Indra founded your clan?

[chokuto]

He did.

[It's difficult to tell Cy's thoughts from that reaction, or that lack of one, but more than anything...]

Sometimes I don't know whether my actions are my own, or whether they come from — someone else. Whoever I used to be. Am I one person? Am I more than one, and if so, are my choices determined to always be destructive?

[Were Indra and Madara good people? Should it matter if they were? Should he consider their crimes against his own?

There's a sigh, gaze straying back to Cy's neutral expression.]

Sorry. Back when I found out, I didn't care. But I've had time to think. It's confusing.

[hallowing]

（ he sits up, dislodging the blanket as he does so he can scoot to the headboard of the bed and pull sasuke with him. he tugs him in between his legs so that sasuke can lay against him, wrapping his arms around him to reach for the egg bundle. with sasuke's help, they drag it between his legs and he fluffs the blanket back over them before he rests his cheek against the boy's dark hair. ）

I don't think you're asking yourself the right question.

（ the gods at severmeretha, after all, also reincarnate. it just takes the heat death of the universe to do it. cy turns to kiss idly at his head, then: ）

No one knows whether or not their actions are their own, or if they're driven by something else. The answer is, they're always driven by something else. No one in the history of the universe has ever made a decision that's completely without external influence. We are what our society, what our culture, what our families, what our lives make us. And those things impact what we decide, who we love, who we hate, the hills we'll die on, and the yokes we'll live beneath.

（ one hand skims against sasuke's chest, settling against his sternum. ）

We're all beholden to something. Someone. If being a reincarnation has some impact over what you do — sure. But you're also a shinobi that grew up in a culture shaped by war. You're also an Uchiha, shaped by how others treated you, by what you lost. Are you destructive, or are you hurt with no way to express yourself except with pain?

（ another kiss, this time pressed down against his trapezius muscle. ）

You're you. Whether it's the genetic inheritance of the Uchiha that shaped you, the trauma of what you've endured, or a soul that lives inside you, the only thing that matters is that you're the only version of yourself that exists right now, in this moment. You're the only one that's here with me, that's going to marry me. And I know you've changed, you've grown since I met you. You make me so proud, and so humbled by how far you've come. In the end, every person alive is just a form of energy that's borrowed from the universe. We all give it back, at the end of everything. So if right now, your energy is named Uchiha Sasuke, and it's been put into your body, and it's lived with your scars — then all those other lives can fucking suck it. It doesn't matter. Only the experiences you've had matter. Only the man you choose to be matters.

[chokuto]

[Sasuke is pliant to the rearrangement, pulled against Cy and into the cradle of the man's natural body warmth, nest settled between his legs. The blanket traps heat beneath it, fostering a shelter in their embrace that he sinks into with a sense of... safety. That's how Cy makes him feel when they're together. Safe, secure, and protected — against the past, the future, and all of his own darker thoughts in the present.

And he listens as attentively as he always does. Somewhere in the gentle exoneration of those worries and fears, he finds that he's started crying. It's not unfamiliar by now, but it still startles him; he doesn't feel particularly sad. But the emotion is acute — and from it, a few more eggs pop into existence, almost unnoticed in the growing pile they've accumulated.]

I believe you.

[A soft murmur. Truthfully, it helps. Cy has a way of working him through the worst shadows of his mind with such deftness and skill that it's uncanny, although he knows now that a great part of that is the breadth of Cy's existence across time, and what he's endured himself. Sasuke lifts his arm, caging it over the man's and wrapping both around his body to tighten the embrace.]

But I want to be with you longer than the present. [Forever. He's used that word before.] I've thought about it. If... that means a reincarnation of my soul, then at least it's possible. You won't be alone, even if I'm different.

[hallowing]

It wouldn't be the same.

（ he says that very softly, with another gentle kiss to his cheek, tasting salt. ）

And it would be unfair, to put that person in a cage of expectations, and to love the shadow of you in them. I couldn't do that to someone. （ there's not a lot he wouldn't give, to have one more conversation with tak. but even if he found him, some ten thousand years later, an impossible thing in the fabric of space, time and physics — he would hate every moment that was shared, was loved, was lost. ） I don't mind being alone, you know. I made peace with that a long time ago.