chokuto

It affects us.

And that's okay.

Feelings deserve recognition and validation, whether their genesis is a positive or negative thing, and it doesn't bother me to work through them with you.

You've lost people you care for. It's normal to be possessive of someone when they come into your life after that kind of trauma. It's not bad or wrong, it just is. And it won't go away if you just ignore it or pretend you don't feel that way.

It's on me to be respectful of those feelings and it's on you to communicate them — which you're doing right now. We're doing everything right, okay?

[Those words lay him open — the reassurances, the unity in a problem they face together, the acceptance and understanding. If they're doing everything right, is it supposed to feel like this? The emotional pain is like its own weapon, sinking deep in his chest and cutting open corners of his mind he's tried to seal himself against. To protect, out of awareness of that danger. To cauterize against that flow of unending feeling.]

I don't know that this is normal. I told you why. It's different for me. It's so much stronger.

[Why would Cy choose to be with someone like him, especially in a place like this?]

Knife handling. But when I hold the knife I just bleed from it and it won't stop.

You've never felt anyone else's emotions. How do you know what's stronger or not? You're intense, I'll grant you — but the idea that your entire clan was perennially just one bad breakup away from going on the warpath seems like hateful propaganda made up because someone didn't understand the way trauma can intersect with mental illness to me.

Mental illness can absolutely be hereditary. You can be genetically prone to depression, or bipolar disorder, or addictive tendencies, or a hundred other mental or mood disorders. And trust me, I'm not minimizing its impact. It sucks, and it's hard, and it makes life a lot harder and more complicated than it needs to be. And sometimes you look at other people and you're resentful that it looks easy for them, like, man, how fucking dare that person be happy? That's normal too. But there is nothing that's not treatable, not manageable. Not every disorder or illness can be overcome, but they can be lived with if you get the support you need for it — and what everybody needs is going to be different.

But from what you've told me, it seems like your entire civilization has been constantly at war for — what, centuries? That sort of trauma is compounded, learned behaviours about grief and loss and pain passed down to children who haven't experienced those things for themselves but had to learn the weight of them anyway. Parents who are violent or neglectful because it's the only way they learned how to cope with their own feelings creates children who are violent and neglected. Those circumstances aren't ideal for anyone to grow up with a healthy understanding of emotion, especially if you're inclined to strong occurrences of it.

But it doesn't mean there's anything inherently wrong with you, or broken, or bad.

Sometimes you have to break a bone to set it straight. Sometimes you need to lance a wound to cut out an infection. It's okay to bleed — the important thing is to let the people you trust help bandage you up afterwards.

Over time, you'll bleed less. And then one day you'll wake up and something that would've left a gaping wound in you will have barely bruised, and you'll realize that's what came from handling knives. It could take you a month. It could take you a decade. You could still be struggling with this at the end of your life.

And that's okay. I told you, trying's the important part. If you're better than you were yesterday, that's good enough. And you're already doing that.

The rest is — fucking ephemera.

Just trust me, and breathe through it.

[There is so much to read, and comprehend, and even as he struggles through the words he does not know if it is enough. The hateful propaganda — it's something the members of his own clan might have said, once upon a time. But it has been echoed so much, and it is so intrinsically attached to the foundation of their kekkei genkai, Sasuke cannot disregard it with ease. Learned, then.

Some of the terms Cy uses he does not recognize, but the context is encapsulated by everything else. A disorder, a mental illness. Resentment. Grief. Loss. How Cy manages to piece apart his entire life so succinctly perhaps pays testament to how long he's lived under the shadow of war. War that has touched Sasuke's entire life — and the lives of his ancestors, over and over, to every gory end.

He finds an irrational need to defend his parents, but he presses it down.

Most of all, Cy holds that reassurance out to him like some tender, bruised offering, a hand extended — and he knows how it would feel to take it. He knows Cy's hands well, how warm they are, how smooth and deft, fingers laced in his own like neat stitching.

Trust me, and breathe. Consciously he finds that he's been holding his breath; he takes a lungful of air before he responds.]

It's a lot to put on you.

[Me.]

When I imagine you with someone else, doing with them what you've done with me, I don't enjoy it. It's painful. I wonder if this means anything to you. I wonder if you will find another person who you prefer. I know it isn't rational, because you've been with others before me and that won't stop after I'm gone. But the feeling is there.

[See — he's trying to talk about it.]

In my culture, if you are with someone, it's only the two of you. And you marry to have children. You already know that, but I didn't realize it would be difficult to see it done another way. How easily those here are able to go from one person to another.

You aren't putting anything on me I haven't opened my hands to take. I'm here because I want to be here. Your asshole isn't that magical.

（ look, a bit of levity is sometimes warranted. ）

What was it you said? 'My attention isn't that shallow'?

（ okay, he's pretty damn close for a guy with memory issues, give him some credit. ）

I care about your feelings. It doesn't matter where they come from. I was serious before, Sasuke — you wanna be my one and only, sweetheart, bring it on. There's nothing I need from others that comes at your expense.

[Once again, he's unprepared for the way Cy makes him feel. That rushing, effusive, overwhelming warmth that threatens to take him down in its wave.]

Can I see you?

Or can we talk? On these devices. I want to hear you.

Where are you? I can teleport.

Main lobby. I'll be back at my room in a few minutes.

[He'd started to head back there after Cy's post punched him in the feefees.]

Okay.

Meet you there.

（ and, true to his word, he'll be sitting cross-legged on sasuke's bed whenever he shows up. as one does. ）

[The door unlatches upon identification of his Watch, and Sasuke appears, slipping into that small space quietly. Only the small yellow bulb by the bed is lit, but it's enough illumination to see the whole room given its cramped size — and his heart beats a little quicker finding Cy on his bed in the wake of what they've been discussing.

A step over, and he sits too, not fully beside Cy. But still near.]

Sorry. I know you were busy with that post.

I'm pretty sure squabbling with people on the internet can wait.

（ he's been on earth to see the advent of the world wide web, okay? he's seen things you couldn't imagine, glittering c-beams off the shoulder of orion, etc etc. he doesn't try to bridge the space in any overt physical sense, but he does hold out a hand in case sasuke would find comfort in the small physicality of the act. ）

You okay?

[The day he turns down Cy's hand outheld to him, something will be gravely wrong.

He lays down his own over top of it, fingers threading in that comfortable pattern even as his eyes slip down to the floor, averted for the gravity of this conversation.]

Did you mean what you said? If I asked — if I wanted it only to be me.

[Disbelief and distrust are scars in him, badly healed over, so he needs to affirm this with a certainty that will feel real first.]

（ he laces their fingers together, but by that same stroke lifts their joined hands and uses it to tip sasuke's chin towards him. he ducks his head enough to make eye contact, and holds it. ）

If you ask, if you want, if you need it — it'll just be you and me.

（ his tone's solemn, but sure. ）

[It takes time for the response to surface, but he does will himself to meet Cy's eyes — his own expression lined with uncertainty, downcast.]

If we were somewhere else, [in a low voice, fingers tightening over Cy's] then yes. I'd want that.

[To put this into speech is terrifying, as if he's set some fragile, glass-edged part of himself out into the open to be shattered by a blow. Yet the simple proximity of Cy's body helps the burden, the words said to him over the course of their time together like a balm to soothe the ache.]

But we're here. It's too dangerous, for both of us. This place is unpredictable. So... I'm not going to set that restriction. I just don't how I'll be able to handle the way it makes me feel.

（ he lifts their hands up, and kisses sasuke's knuckles gently without breaking eye contact. ）

Then let's find a middle ground. Something you can handle for now. And we can revisit it down the road to make sure it's working for us.

（ why do you think he's so horny for communication, actually? ）

Besides, the whole jealousy thing is kinda a turn-on. Don't get me wrong, I know it's an unpleasant emotion to experience, but sometimes it's nice to know somebody wants you all to themselves.

[It's hard to remain in the gnarl of his own emotions for long. Speaking with Cy has an anesthetic effect on him — as if the act of their communication gently, carefully drains the injury of its pain.]

I felt a little like that when we were taking a shower. I wanted you to be... unwilling to share me with someone else.

[Using the anchor of their joined hands, he pushes himself in closer, so that his thigh brushes up against Cy's folded legs.]

What do you suggest?

Trust me, I don't want to share you with anyone else.

（ that, too, has the deep bite of sincerity to it. the way his intonation hooks beneath the ribs and carves a channel there. ）

Just because I can manage my jealousy doesn't mean I don't feel it either. It just means I've had the practice.

（ knives, as it happens, are a speciality of his. ）

There's a few ways we could approach it. Rules about certain acts, or certain people. Some partners keep a veto list, like — 'that person's fine, that person's a no', and they discuss things first. Some people specify no kissing, or no penetrative acts. Some people set aside certain days to spend in each other's company, or it's a 'go out and do whatever but be home by a certain time' thing. What do you think would work for you?

[Perhaps it shouldn't, but there's a comfort to know it isn't only him, that Cy feels the same even though he may have had more practice mastering the worst of it. And there is also a deeper, primal satisfaction — out of place, maybe, in this conversation that is approaching a healthy compromise — to have Cy's admission. It is one he will hold protectively close to his chest.]

I don't know that I can choose specifics. [It's so black and white to him. The whole act, or nothing.] I'll consider it.

There's no one who comes to mind yet that I wouldn't want you to engage. [Hm.] There is one other man here who I've kissed. It was before you and I met — Rokurou Rangetsu. I was also under the influence of something I consumed from the environment.

[Comparing what he feels for Cy, it's easier to put into perspective. It's more emotional.]

... You said it before, the acts of kindness and giving time. I don't want to share those things with anyone else. Or... the space we have together when we're alone. Our rooms. Is that possible?

I think we should probably have a blanket agreement that anything that happens under the influence of the crazy shit here doesn't count. The aphro, or whatever. That wouldn't be fair to either of us — we already know it fucks people up, all that would do is add a sense of shame and guilt.

（ but he nods, filing the name away. he'll ask about the guy at some point, but there's no place for it in the flexion of conversation now. ）

Yeah, of course. Room's off limits. The time and acts of service are yours. I also won't tell people some of the shit I've told you about my life — about Tak, or my first name. I want you to hold those things. Doesn't rule out people finding that shit out another way, but they won't hear it from me of my own volition.

[A nod. It helps to talk this out — to set these boundaries. He didn't think that it would.]

You're right. Those situations aren't something we're consenting to, in any case.

[Which is an uncomfortable reality, but it also shows that Sasuke has paid attention to the necessity of consent. How important it is to Cy. And it touches him deeply, that Cy would trust him with those pieces of himself, carefully safeguarded against the world.]

Is there anything you don't want me to share or do with someone else?

（ he thinks about it, which perhaps drives home just how seriously he's taking it. slow, concentric circles are smoothed out against his wrist, increasing in size until it's more a soft swipe of parenthesis across the veins and then narrowed back down again to a smaller circle. ）

I can think of a couple small things. You're allowed to veto them if they don't work for you. But when we were on that date （ yes it was a date sorry you have to deal with it now ） and I was handfeeding you, that's the sort of intimate thing it would probably bother me if you did it with someone else.

（ look, having sasuke lick cream off his fingers was probably the first overtly sexual thing the boy had ever done of his own free will in his life, and he kinda wants ownership of that. the second, though... ）

If you want anyone else to fuck you up the ass, that's fine （ crass again, his favourite way of speaking — ） but I wanna fuck you first. Thoughts?

[It's okay, he knew it was a date the minute Cy asked him.

The specific intimacy of the handfeeding earns another nod, a little distracted by the leisurely stroke of a wrist, as he always is when Cy touches him. That second stipulation, though — a frown curves his mouth, and he's unable to conceal how Cy's crudeness affects him. Color rises, unfortunately noticeable on a pale complexion.]

How would that work? If I was going to do it with someone else, [which honestly has not occurred to him, still reeling from their experience together —] would I come to see you first?

Yeah. I mean, spur of the moment shit or aphro notwithstanding, but if it's something you're planning for.

（ look, he knows that sasuke is probably not going to run out and throw himself ass first at the nearest guy. but it's a nice compromise, as these things go. ）

[A brow arches, and he leans, nudging one shoulder against Cy's.]

Okay. What's your reasoning for that? You explained the handfeeding.

（ excuse him while he chokes on a laugh. no, the laugh is not at sasuke (well, not at what he said) so much as pre-emptive knowledge of how he's going to take what cy has to say. ）

Oh my god. I took your virginity! The boldly untresspassed sanctity of your whole-ass anal cavity belongs to me, Sasuke.

（ he is so shameless it actually hurts, and as he says it he just hauls sasuke in closer and then chucks him down on the bed so he can lean over him, pinning his hand to the shoddy, shitty mattress with a slight thump of not entirely gentle command. ）

It's an ownership thing. I want you to think of me when other men are inside you. No easier way to have that happen than if I've recently marked my territory, huh?

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