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[chokuto]

UN: 火
𝐓𝐄𝐗𝐓 / 𝐀𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐎 / 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎 / 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 / 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐋𝐎𝐖
𝟖♣ ( 𝑬𝑰𝑮𝑯𝑻 𝒐𝒇 𝑪𝑳𝑼𝑩𝑺 )

Comments

[chokuto]

The portraits in the elevators. You must have noticed.

[They're possessed, he doesn't say. If he looks at Cy, it's only when he is sure the man isn't looking at him first — a very careful glance from the corners of eyes, veiled by lashes, seeming to seek... something. Not finding it, so another glance away.]

I encountered the one that demanded punishment for sins committed. I knew the person who was in there with me, so I told him to do this, that I would bear the punishment because I knew how to protect myself from permanent damage. It's not his fault.

[He has no idea that Cy was in the same situation with someone else — or that Cy used the same method, only with the advantage of an immortal body.]

[hallowing]

（ he goes to his knees beside the bed, putting him a little lower than sasuke now, and with his right hand braced against the boy's back he leans in to kiss those tender bruises. this is done softly, the way one performs ritual. just as he insists on cleaning him after sex, so too does he offer these ministrations now.

when he's finished, he just loops his arms around him, shifted halfly forward across sasuke's crossed legs, forehead pressed just above his sternum. ）

Don't keep something like this from me again, please.

（ there's no anger in his voice. but there is a dappled glimmer of hurt, of resignation — not so much that sasuke kept it from him, but because he'd made the conscious decision to endure the discomfort alone. ）

[chokuto]

[Sasuke's head remains lifted even as he's embraced, looking at the wall, trying not to — collapse forward with the want and craving for touch. All of the mental preparation he's done has amounted to nothing; the hurt fills him like a glass.]

What was I supposed to say? You were leaving to be with someone else.

[So there it is, lashing out of him, as raw a wound as it was when they had this conversation three days ago — or worse for its festering. He keeps his body still, but the effort required is noticeable in tension, muscles pulled like taut ropes.]

It would have looked pathetic.

[Don't go, a plea in the confession. I need you. But he didn't need Cy, or so he'd told himself, because he's licked his own wounds enough times alone to have it down to an art.]

[hallowing]

To who?

（ because sasuke should know by now that cy wouldn't have found it so. ）

[chokuto]

[He doesn't answer the question — it may as well be rhetorical, for all that he understands Cy is trying to make a point. Yes, it would have been pathetic to his own eyes.]

I wasn't going to hide it from you. I knew you'd see when you returned.

[hallowing]

Sasuke.

（ it's said gently, as he peels himself back enough that a lift of both hands allows him to cup the boy's cheeks and look up at him. his brow is furrowed, but the genesis of the expression is not so easily parsed. ）

If you'd told me, I would've changed my plans, or found another way, or done something else. Finding out like this is hurtful, because I wasn't given the chance to demonstrate that care.

[chokuto]

You said you needed to protect someone.

[And sleep with them. Yet the thought is a spur in his mind, unfairly buried, gritted down with effort. He doesn't fight the hands on his face, but his eyes remain reluctant to rise, afraid of seeing either disappointment or anger on Cy's face. Evidently he's made a mistake — and the guilt burrows deeper than even the jealousy. This will be it; Cy will decide he's too much.]

I knew that for me it wasn't as serious. It could wait.

[hallowing]

（ his thumbs brush sasuke's cheekbones with unerring gentleness. ）

Look at me.

（ it's balanced between order and entreaty, the sort of statement cy makes when he wants to be listened to, but won't hang the moon on it. ）

[chokuto]

[He does, quietly, lift those mismatched eyes to look at Cy's face — his own expression sore and hesitant, unsure what to expect and languishing somewhere in that uncertainty.]

[hallowing]

（ he lets the contact sit between them for the slow, hourglass drip of seconds transmuted into sand, and then he tugs sasuke down and kisses him, nothing more than a chaste press of his mouth. ）

Do you still want to come to my room?

[chokuto]

[His mind is screaming: Say something. The kiss eases some of that anxiety, a reassurance set against his mouth in the brief gravity of physical affection.]

Do you still want me to? [A swallow; an attempt to amend the surge of vulnerability.] I can't tell what you're thinking.

[hallowing]

I wouldn't ask if I didn't.

（ as to the rest — he can't always help those moments when he becomes like still water, when the fabric wears thin between what he is and how he seems. humanity, worn long enough, becomes threadbare. ）

I'll explain what I'm thinking in a bit.

[chokuto]

[And Sasuke can't help how it makes him feel, in that moment — an opaque pane unbearably familiar for how it closes between them, unknowable. He thinks of his brother again.

Yet the kiss, and the words, stabilize a composure that threatens to scatter in the wind. Sasuke nods, nudging the book he was reading away to make space on the bed — Vis-a-vis: Beginning French — and then spreads out his shirt. Carefully, he picks up Cy's purchased foods and wraps them in the fabric, a makeshift bag to allow easier transportation. He looks back toward Cy, expecting that this journey will be done through the void.]

Okay.

[hallowing]

（ it's a fair enough assumption to make, and once sasuke tidies things up, gathers the food and belongings, cy stands up, tugs sasuke likewise to his feet and in against him. one hand cups the back of his head, fingers feathering in his hair as much in a gesture of comfort as one meant to block his vision, and then the shift happens. the cold, the ash, the taste of that frigid air like something long burnt — and then they're in his room. cy takes the parcel of treats from sasuke and sets it down, and then pulls his own shirt off over his head so they're roughly equal amounts of unclothed. from there, he settles into his bed and reaches for sasuke to follow him. ）

[chokuto]

[Once they've appeared in Cy's room and his vision is returned to him, Sasuke watches as the man partially undresses and climbs onto the bed. It feels like an act he's seen a hundred times by now — yet he's stilled, briefly, with reluctance less that has to do with his own want than a lingering anticipation for the other shoe to drop.

It's an easy choice either way. He climbs onto the bed, gingerly lowering a bruised and battered body onto Cy's other side, and waits to be spoken to.]

[hallowing]

（ the physicality is the important thing. sasuke joins him on the bed, and he — makes space, because it's easy to make space, because sasuke fits against him the way water hugs a shoreline. he lets his hand skim across his side, up over his shoulder. ）

I'm not angry. This isn't going to be a larger issue, and you haven't done anything that has changed my mind about you. We're a team. We'll work this out.

（ that's the first, important thing. ）

Do you understand why I'm hurt?

（ not angry, not annoyed, not disappointed. hurt. because it is an offering of vulnerability, something ripped open and bled raw — and because he knows that will make sasuke pay more attention to the root of the issue than he would if he simply felt chastised. ）

[chokuto]

[That touch is grounding, and now engaged he sinks into it, a little desperate for the seal of skin on skin as they tuck in together. He allows his head to rest on Cy's shoulder, exhale fluttering breath that stirs the dark fringe of his own hair.]

I don't... know for sure. You said that you wanted me to tell you sooner.

[Is that why? Because he didn't report his condition to Cy before the man left? Yet — the soreness turns over in him, bruised, and he doesn't think he can piece it together so readily with words.]

I wasn't trying to hurt you.

[hallowing]

I know. I didn't think you were.

（ sasuke is wilfully cruel to only one person that way: himself. cy has no doubt that he had imposed the silence on himself as penance for the dark twist of jealousy and shame that would have arisen from cy's statements. the hurt was incidental, more a casualty of sasuke's own volatile emotions than a reflection on sasuke's feelings for him.

he shifts, leaning down so he can press his mouth to sasuke's hair. ）

Why did you decide to keep it from me? Let's start there.

[chokuto]

[He lets his right arm stretch out, tentatively sliding around Cy's body in a partial embrace, but he stops halfway to a twinge of pain from bruised ribs. A slow, small breath.]

I didn't believe it was a serious issue. I've been injured much worse before.

[— it isn't the full truth, so Sasuke tries, pushing himself toward that honesty even as it feels closer to a trap laid out beneath his feet.]

... It would have seemed like I was trying to make you stay.

[hallowing]

Do you want to know what it would have felt like to me? If you'd asked?

（ at the hitch of that breath, cy lets his hand slip to the broken ribs, letting his hand rest against that spot. it's not quite as stabilizing as if they taped it up, but the weight will keep the fractured edges of the bone from grating together. ）

[chokuto]

[He doesn't trust himself to speak, so he only nods, because he wants to know — of course he wants to know. The spot Cy touches is warm; he can't tell if it's from the damage beneath or from the natural heat of Cy's usual body temperature.]

[hallowing]

It would've felt like someone that I care about, who I already know is used to handling these sorts of things alone, trusted me in a vulnerable moment. I wouldn't have thought it was manipulation, or something pathetic. It's okay to need me, or want company, or to be selfish with my time.

（ his other hand seeks sasuke's out, and just curls around his fingers, holding him. ）

I would've found a way to make it work for you. I would've wanted to.

[chokuto]

[He tries not to take too quick of a breath; it helps to have Cy's palm there over the injury, steadying him, keeping bone in place. But the force of the emotion is intense — it runs over him like a river, face tucked further down into the sanctity of Cy's shoulder, inhaling the scent of his skin, indulging in the warmth. Three days isn't a long time, but he missed this. Every night.]

It didn't feel right to ask for that. You said someone was in danger. [Fingers fold tight over Cy's own, knuckles whitened from the pressure.] ... And you were going to be with them for a while.

[Excavating this admission, stark and obvious as it is already, is hard.]

I was jealous. I didn't want to be, but I was.

[hallowing]

It wasn't up to you to make that decision without me. Whether it was wrong or right. Part of having a partnership with someone is talking these things out.

（ he strokes at the back of sasuke's knuckles with his thumb, not minding the strength of the grip. it's just a soft, grounding reminder that the words aren't said in anger, that his reaction isn't going to be punitive, that there won't be a withdrawal of withholding of affection as a retaliation. ）

It's okay to be jealous. That's a human emotion, it's going to be something we have to deal with from time to time just because of how this place is set up. I know it sucks to stand it, but it's better talked about than buried.

[chokuto]

[Some of the tension eases out of him like poison leached from a wound — all for the sake of putting voice behind thoughts that have piled up the last few days.]

I'm sorry. [This in a ragged exhale, but it's meant.] It's new to me. A partnership.

[As Cy knows.]

I can't say this is the only time I'll make a mistake like this. I don't want to, but — it's all I've known. So, if you change your mind, about being with me... I'd understand that too.