chokuto: (pic#15621057)
🍅 ([personal profile] chokuto) wrote2023-12-31 09:13 am

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

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-06 01:43 am (UTC)(link)
you know what?

as far as shitholes at the end of the universe with weird rules, arbitrary caste systems and a penchant for kidnapping people from every walk of every life goes, he's actually seen worse. been worse. done worse, certainly, and that's without even mentioning all the shit he got up to at that one gambling den on some planet whose name was never important enough to engrave itself in his memory.

so he wanders around. strikes up conversations here and there, wherever people will talk to those of 'low ranks' (excuse them, what the fuck actually? in the realm of freaky sex bullshit he should be a king. it's terrifically insulting actually can he speak to the manager or does he need the haircut first haha asking for a friend...?) and mostly just sucking dick for cigarettes which is far from the least degrading thing he's done on a tuesday.

(or whatever day it is)

and now? now he's just wandering around not entirely like a feral cat scoping out a new territory. curiosity mingles with a complete lack of self preservation, and maybe that's the thing that steers him into the locker room. and, at the visible and immediate hostility from its sole current occupant:


Fuck, man, I don't think anybody's got that kind of time.

it's said in an easy drawl and accompanied by a broad wink as he flicks ash carelessly from the end of his cigarette in an elegant, practiced gesture.

But if I could boil it down to like, one thing, right now? Goddamn, make it a Big Mac.
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-06 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
his gaze follows the sloppy bandaging, the way the kid rises smoothly, despite evidence of exhaustion and anger. at first it's just a basic assessment, and then his attention gets pinioned by the scars, faded and silvery, topographical in their prevalence. defensive wounds stuttered along the strong bones of the forearms. evidence of things that clearly bit in hard and were then either dodged or parried afterwards against the ribs. he was left-handed, cy realizes, charting the constellation. most people, when pressed, will strike with their dominant hand and guard with the other.

the main and likely newest injury — the arm itself — doesn't so much as make him blink — he's seen worse evidence on younger bodies of that inexorable, almighty beast in its ravages. war has always been an inescapable thing even before it made its home in him.

but ultimately — violence has a way of leaving its mark on people, and he can taste it in the air just looking at this kid — the press of a breath sifted through a bloody sieve, throat ratcheted briefly closed as with a sob. deep in its prison, kulo vayn draws a shuddering breath, its interest felt like the sting of an incision through an anaesthetic haze. cy, for his part, only smiles.

the cigarette is snuffed out between his fingers, and he flicks it at a garbage can.

misses.


It's a type of food, depending on your definition of 'edible'. Ground up cow entrails served with processed pseudo-plastic and a single wilted piece of lettuce.

it's said around a yawn, as he slouches against the door frame, arms folded. the kid's jumpy, so while his natural inclination is to push and encroach on his space and freak him out a little — he finds it in himself to be indifferent. not kind — kind would be leaving, or letting him leave. instead, he only halfly blocks the door and grins just a little like a cheshire cat.

Just because I am a man of low-hanging innuendo — does that mean you're calling yourself 'Facilities'?

his delivery is coy and playful, head canted to one side as he says it. watching, as much because he's curious about the reactions he'll see as the ones he won't.
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-06 09:11 pm (UTC)(link)
it's rare that he's driven to discomfited distraction in someone's presence. the slam of that metal doesn't make him startle, but it sets his teeth on edge for a reason more deeply rooted in interest than anxiety. there is a yawning of something electric beneath his skin. blink-and-you-miss it, memories like a haze overlay the room, and he thinks about what his hand would look like closed over the delicate column of the boy's throat.

(you don't meet a lot of people like this. and he hasn't — not for centuries. kulo vayn only allowed three lives to slip through its hands, in a long millennia of horrors. all of them were warborne, too. the only people that fetid creature could care for were those capable of leaving ruin in their wake.)

but this kid is fucking young, unless he's some measure of immortal too. many of those scars have years and miles behind them. the certainty to his movements, the unflinching brusqueness of his tone — it tells a story. and cy, with an effort, reaches to coax sympathy into the space where sadism lives.


You think your interest matters to our gracious hosts?

it's said in the sort of pleasant tone one might comment on the weather, or ask about the dinner special at a restaurant, with an encompassing wave of one hand at their surroundings. it's a warning just the same — albeit not one about him.

his only answer to being told to move is to ... not do that at all, actually. selective hearing, thy name is.
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-06 10:06 pm (UTC)(link)
he laughs, the sound half a huff of exhalation and hardly amusement at all.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Fuck your way to the top, get a wish granted, whole nine yards. I've seen enough weird cosmic shit in my time not to begrudge people playing the game.

and also to guess that no wish comes without consequences, but that's a darker thought for a more cynical time. the sort of thing that comes out over something stronger than beer. and for now, he'll keep it to himself. see, games don't really matter to him much at all — much less the sort played with human lives.

Lot of willing bodies, ay fam, hook a fella up, etc. But I'm just the teensiest he lifts a hand, fingers pinched to indicate a modicum of space between them. teensiest bit pissed about the duress part, though.
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-08 12:55 am (UTC)(link)
and he just. laughs. shakes his head, and exhales a steady and exaggerated whew in a stage whisper, the sort of thing an actor would do onstage to express exasperation with an overbearing spouse for audience ears only.

'My anger is pointless' but your lack of docility isn't, huh? Duly noted.

there's no offense here, just a wry amusement that masks a very real and sudden anger that his congenial comment about being pissed can't even touch. not at the kid — but at what's inferred by that matter-of-fact statement about how being willing is a luxury. it's couched in the sort of blunt resignation that people use when they're trying not to lose their minds over casual, everyday horrors that accompany — well, kidnapping and sexual extortion, to start.

you know, for some people? getting whisked away to some paradisical 'hunger games but make it horny' (and maybe?? less murdery??) is probably high on their fantasy kink list. fuck, he's already seen a few people who are surprisingly DTF regardless of circumstance (do they not teach kids to ask questions these days? asking for a friend) and that's fine, those aren't the ones he'd be worried about anyway.

but whoever's pulling the strings and hauling in kids like this fully deserves a kick in the dick, actually. metaphoric dick or otherwise.


You got a name, Mr. Brightside?
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-08 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
on a normal world, amidst normal people, he clings to a veneer of a like life. just a guy. unageing, unchanging, undying, normal. he's been running for almost ten millennia now, never staying in the same place too long. avoiding worlds with the sort of advanced tech that could track him or put a stop to his comingling with the locals. it's not like he refuses to tell people what he is as a matter of principle — if he's close to someone, if he cares, he'll tell them. it's better than just walking out one night when someone gets a little too suspicious about why he doesn't look a day older or why he never seems to cut himself shaving or any of the other million little tells he knows he has.

but a place like this? with no vested interest in keeping his mouth shut, cy's largely ambivalent to the fallout that might ensue.

he watches the kid turn and head back to the locker like he's pacing in a cage, and tilts his chin up faintly.


I'm not really one for hoping. haha, anyway And besides, we're already familiar...ish. We're having the most fun we can with our clothes on, according to the brochure.

he points meaningfully to his watch. look, there's a whole paragraph about clothed, nonsexual conversation.

Okay but now I just gotta ask. You can tell I'm a 'Whatever, TBA, Mysterious Entities Gone Wild' over here, but you're still that confident you're the dangerous one?
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-08 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
alexa, play hazard to myself by p!nk.

Oh, no thank you on battle-adjacent bullshit. This a broad gesture to the length of his own body with one hand is a firmly no-bueno-combat pacifistic principality. If the next words out of your mouth have any intention of being some weird philosophizing treatise on how a pacifist is just someone who hasn't been pushed far enough, fair warning, I will chuck you in the cold end of the pool.

it's said with a cheeky little salute, just to top it all off.

I've hurt people before too. You wanna compare notes?
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-08 02:32 am (UTC)(link)
you're welcome.

Ah, danger's all relative. Any human with a sharp stick can be dangerous if they've got sufficient motivation.

notably, not a yes. also not a no. why is he like this??

but he does push himself out of the doorway and schlep over to the adjacent bench near where the kid is doing his best to occupy his hands and time Pointedly Elsewhere. he moves like a dancer — purposeful and confident in the occupation of his body, nothing wasted. at least until he opts to sprawl across the bench rather languidly, long spidery legs crossed at the ankle on the floor. a tripping hazard, if the kid isn't careful when he turns around.


And I think you mean 'fortunately for you.' You have, in the course of five minutes, warned me you'd be a danger to me, and followed that up with a blithe announcement that you've hurt people. Oh no! Between the two of us, you're clearly way more worried about it than I am.

he leans back on his hands. smiles. it is somewhere between the knife's edge of congenial and cruel.

So what if I could offer you perfect certainty I can't be hurt?
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-08 02:58 am (UTC)(link)
( another time, another place, he might feel badly about getting the kid pinioned by what's clearly a desperate, morbid curiosity. but that time is not now and that place is not here beneath the unflattering florescent gleam of locker room lights. )

I did say offer. Usually that's part and parcel with proving.

( just gonna keep pointing out your inconsistencies because That's What Heroes Do. )

A'ight. Pick a weapon.

( neutered as his powers are, summoning weapons is always more an instinct. he can feel the pull of them in one of the training rooms not too far from them — aching to be put to use. )
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-08 03:32 am (UTC)(link)
give him a second, this requires some Math. the distance away, the volume of air in the room, the specks of gathered dust. his eyes close briefly, brow furrowed, and then he pulls. tendrils of some manner of energy, void-touched, flickering between a black so deep it seems like an impossible trick of the light and an electric violet, as illuminated as its spectral opposite is chthonic.

the weapon manifests in one hand, and the magic — because he's never bothered to call it anything else — falls away. one tantō, as dramatically ordered. the blade is in the osoraku style, the tapered point cut to a vicious edge.

he draws it without flourish, and sets the wooden scabbard to one side. he can feel it sing beneath his hand like a homecoming chorus, and there is a quiet sort of ease with which it fits across his palm. like it was made for him. there's a twist of annoyed revulsion that follows — it's not overwhelming, fuck knows he's had a long time to really dig into the meat and potatoes of exposure therapy, here, but it's something he's frankly still glad he gets. the day he picks up a weapon and doesn't instantly hate it is going to be a fucking dark day for all things mortal in the universe.

he scratches an itch with the tip of the blade, just above one ear.


See, here's the rub. If I stab myself somewhere, you're going to convince yourself it was a trick. Sleight of hand. Maybe I'm some grand illusionist fucking with your head. So, first thing's first he flips the tantō in his hand, rests the blade against his forearm and offers it out hilt first to the kid. You gotta make sure it's not a fake blade. Then you can pick a place, somewhere fatal. I'll do the stabbing, thanks, I don't need your weird guilt complex on my conscience. You can just stand there and look pretty.

he pulls a face, a sort of grimace.

And let it be known for the record that I am like, in no way into this. Masochism really isn't my vibe, which you'll understand the hilarity of in like thirty seconds.
hallowing: (Default)

cw: whatever the fuck this thread is actually???

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-08 04:44 am (UTC)(link)
Nuh-uh. Hands to yourself. I just wanted you to see it's real.

yes, he bats sasuke's hand fully away after the spot is chosen. shoo. he knows the angle, and needs no guidance. the tantō is lowered, briefly anticlimactic, as he rests it across his knees and peels his shirt off overhead. no point getting it bloody — fine apparel is apparently reserved for the higher-than-gutter rankings.

as he folds it, neat and tidy. sets it aside.


On the infinitesimally small chance this actually punches my ticket, you probably want an ounce of plausible deniability to your name.

he winks, and then in one smooth motion draws the blade back up left-handed. lets the tip of it rest briefly against his skin, and on the exhale it's thrust abruptly home. there's no hesitation to it, no fear — he may as well have just been sliding the blade back in its saya for all the ceremony he gives the act.

not the most dramatic way he's shown off his immortality. that involved an exploding starship, once upon a time. but this isn't not up there, either.

the blade parts and pierces and severs all the yucky human bits, connective tissue, cartilaginous costal and the arterial cradle of the aorta. he nicks a rib, which is annoying mostly because it sends shockwaves of pain up his sternum that go beyond just ow, stabbed, sort of a low thrumming vibrato of pain.

but he can feel his body's rejection of the injury almost immediately. the way it starts to heal around the blade, immortal offense at the intrusion.

cy lets it go (what, it's not going anywhere, he's gonna sword-in-the-stone this bitch) and then just does a little waggle of his fingers this kid will absolutely not understand as 'jazz hands'.


Look, ma, no hands.

hey, the kid didn't ask him to puncture a lung.
hallowing: (Default)

I HAVE NO IDEA ACTUALLY BUT JUST (CW FOREVER)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-08 05:26 am (UTC)(link)
touchy little fucker. though he has the benefit of foresight here — he's willing to guess this is a rare moment for someone who looks like he'd rather eat a porcupine backwards than yield to anyone.

sasuke might find he runs hot, beneath that touch. hotter than a human, though not entirely beyond the tolerances of possibility. elevated body temperature like a constant glut of fever in a body that was never made to last as long as it has. he doesn't know if he was like that before iantha worked her magic. before she called dreaming into reality, and reality into dreams, and made him both prison and prisoner.


Yeah, it sucks. It sort of heals around the blade. Means it hurts just as much coming as going. You do not want to guess what decapitation feels like.

although, despite that caveat, he doesn't actually pull it out the old fashioned way, he just calls it back to his hand. the wound, barely bleeding, seals itself over with no evidence of violent passage save the sunset smear of blood beneath the kid's hand. but cy hasn't actually shooed him away this time, taking no issue with letting him poke and prod to his clearly traumatized little heart's content.

So, do the magic eyeballs say I pass muster?

look, the weird purple eye he initially assumed was some sort of stupid cosplay contact aside, he literally watched your other eye get weird red whorls. they are magic until further notice, thank u.
hallowing: (Default)

[personal profile] hallowing 2024-01-08 06:06 am (UTC)(link)
he catches the towel, one corner of it winds around his wrist and makes a damp smack against his wrist. it gets used to wipe the blade first, which he sheathes, and then the messy smear across his chest. his thumb fans out against the cotton fabric as it pinks with the stain, and then he shakes his head and balls it up. it gets tossed to the nearest bin.

Oh, I was plenty confident in the outcome, don't you fret. I've been at this a while. It was an 'infinitesimal' in the mathematic sense. 'An indefinitely small quantity, a value approaching zero'.

look he has been a math nerd for as long as he can literally remember, no he will not apologize.

Name's Cy. Cyram if ya nasty.

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