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[hallowing]

@torontonian

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[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.

[chokuto]

[The response doesn't make him happy, even if it is logical, and selfless, and kind. The fact is still —]

It's not fair for you either. You shouldn't have to be alone. You shouldn't have to make peace with it.

[And his own resolve not to leave Cy to that fate only strengthens.]

Is there nothing that can be done?

[hallowing]

（ and that's the rub, isn't it? cy doesn't believe in fate or destiny — to accept that, he'd have to accept that it was the predetermined outcome of kulo vayn getting into his head that destroyed eleven worlds, that those people existed only to die en masse. and he'd have to accept, too, that out of all the billions of lifeforms in the world, he alone was fit to be ordained the god of war.

it may be fucking stupid, but the chaotic behaviour of the universe is something he can look at reasonably and logically from a mathematic promontory. one in a thousand quintillion is still a chance. fair? no, maybe it's not fair. but it's real, and there is no universal constant of fairness that rights itself on a long-enough timeline. everything moves towards entropy. order into disorder. ）

I know you can't stand the thought of me being by myself. （ that's said very softly, as cy shifts just enough that he can thread their fingers together, squeezing with a sort of tenderness that's firm and bracing besides. ） I love that about you. The gentleness, the empathy. You're truly a kind person. （ he brings sasuke's hand up over the boy's shoulder and kisses at his knuckles. ） Can we talk about this later?

[chokuto]

[It isn't so common for Cy to set a boundary, but when it does happen, Sasuke has noticed it is always central to the man's individual suffering — to his extended life, his existence leashed by the creature named Kulo Vayn entombed in his mind. And like the time before, when Cy would not let him intervene despite the efforts he'd gone to control himself — that self-executed drowning — Sasuke struggles not to push back. He wonders if Cy will defer and deflect it indefinitely, until Sasuke himself is too old and half his own life has passed before their eyes. Until it is too late.

But pushing invites the threat of Cy's distance or even abandonment if he goes too far, and he can't risk the only happiness he's ever had. It is like being pulled in two directions — but in that moment, it's easier to nod his head and accept it, swallow it, even if he doesn't want to. The softness of fatigue, the emotional responsibility of the eggs they've somehow fostered, takes precedence today.]

All right. [He turns his head, nuzzling against Cy's shoulder as best he can reach.] I love you.

[hallowing]

I know.

（ has he not demonstrated it at every turn, in every way?

one hand lifts, cupping the side of sasuke's head, corralling him for a kiss that's only slightly awkward. ）

I love you too. Get some rest. I'll keep an eye on the eggs for now, and I'll take a nap later. Comfy?

are we free

[chokuto]

Mm.

[He settles in after that kiss, readjusting their arms so the embrace is complete, easily sinking into the warmth of Cy's body and the reassurance of its solidity against his own. At some point, sleeping up against Cy had become — necessary, and to go without it for one night unfathomable. It takes little time for him to drift off like that, contented.]

revives this days later (text, 2 days post eggpocalypse??)

[hallowing]

u kno

these eggs are giving me ideas

[chokuto]

Do those ideas involve you bringing back something to eat while I'm watching over them?

[hallowing]

oh no they are markedly less wholesome than that*

*i have already picked u up fried rice w/shrimp and onigiri hopefully u like shrimp??

n e way.

unwholesome, lewd thoughts: what if i wanna stuff u full of (not these) eggs to simulate pregnancy tho 🥺🥺

[chokuto]

[He was about to answer that question, but — ??????]

You want to what?

What eggs? Where?

[hallowing]

fun eggs. not 'our precious magpie babies' eggs, but, u know. fun adult eggs designed exactly for this purpose.

there are dildos u can use that can lay them for lack of a better word. in an orifice of ur choice.

gotta be more careful w/the ass bc otherwise shit can get MAD lost up there

[chokuto]

Fun adult eggs. Are they alive?

A dildo... lays them? Inside of a person?

Have you done this before?

[hallowing]

nah. fantasy only!!

yea, there's a mechanism. u push eggs thru the dildo into a Bodily Orifice.

they're usually soft. u can get some in silicone that usually are attached w/a cord to one another so u can pull them out of wherever u stuck them

but there's also ones u can get that are gelatin that dissolve inside w/body heat.

[chokuto]

Oh.

[The telltale '...' appear and vanish, appear and vanish — for several moments.]

You want to simulate pregnancy by putting fake eggs into me with a dildo?

[hallowing]

yes???

[chokuto]

I'm not against it.

But... I'm not a bird.

[Why is this the only problem here??????]

[hallowing]

wait, ur NOT???

ALL THIS TIME U HAVEN'T BEEN A BIRD?

[chokuto]

I mean, do you still find it attractive? That it's not biologically possible for me to... carry eggs.

[hallowing]

yes

absolutely

look we agree that it's a bad idea to knock u up for realsies in this hellhole

but that doesn't mean i can't stuff ur orifices full of eggs and get all mushy on u abt the idea of u being a sexy sexy incubator for our theoretically eggy offspring

ja feel?

[chokuto]

[Perhaps if he weren't cuddled up with over two dozen magpie eggs in the makeshift nest they've manufactured, he might find the idea too strange to fathom. But — Cy has opened his mind to ideas and fantasies he hadn't known possible, and this is only one more like that. It doesn't really seem strange at all.]

How large are the eggs usually?

[He's asking practical questions now. Interest piqued.]

[hallowing]

（ has he mentioned yet that sasuke's willingness to be open to new things is one of the more arousing corollaries of trust? because. yeah. ）

we could make 'em whatever size u fancied. i mean obvs i'm not going to advocate stuffing smth the size of an ostrich egg all up in ya orifices, but. we could experiment w/some diff sizes.