(closed) everything you feel, and everything you think

[chokuto]

WHO: Uchiha Sasuke & others.
WHERE: Around Stygia.
WHEN: Month of October.
WHAT: Catch-call for event prompts / other scenarios.
WARNINGS: None atm, will updated if needed.


[ ooc — plotting comment for the event here, comment for the general CR meme here. flexible to do things outside of the event as well!]

Comments

why do you hurt me

[chokuto]

[The admission douses the flame of his ire as efficiently as sudden rain. Sasuke is quiet, drawn into himself with the viciousness of stark self-reflection, heel taking him one step back. There is room and air to breathe between them now. In digestion of that sentiment, he himself is a child again, reduced to the barest threads of memory. Don't leave me. Don't go, Laurent had begged him in the feverish dark that time. I need my brother.

He had begged, too, although in different words. He remembers curling up on the floorboards with the ferocious weight of grief, as loss tore a hole straight through him. Could there have been a different world like the one Laurent describes? He looks at it from another point of view — but in the end, the reversal doesn't change anything about the emotion. Laurent lost his brother the same as him regardless of the circumstances. He has no way of knowing that honesty isn't deeply, privately personal. He did not genuinely believe Laurent would answer. He would not tell a stranger about what he feels for Itachi — would not even tell those who do know him, not with any willingness — so what Laurent says to him is raw and vulnerable enough to silence his murky, choleric thoughts.

Sasuke turns his head away. His left eye, previously red, changes to inert charcoal black.]

So you took his place. [Royalty is a concept he knows abstractly. There would have been an ascension, similar to the oldest sons inheriting the responsibility of fathers within clans.] ... The shadow isn't a separate voice in my mind. It doesn't speak to me, but I can tell when it's there. There are others who might not notice the difference. I don't know how it is for them. Or for you.

[He's had practice with these impulses, violence laid out in his wake like a bad dream. The next confession comes loosely; and only because of the drug. He feels almost empty, almost numb, even burning in his skin.]

I had a brother. His name was Itachi.

angsty babies gotta angst

[wrists]

Took his place. [ he repeats it with a cold amusement. no one could ever take auguste's place, least of all him — the weaker brother, less liked, more prone to petty cruelty, a mouth made for silver-tongued manipulation in the face of auguste's golden nobility. that laurent would ascend at all was unheard of, with king aleron in good health and auguste primed for the throne. then laurent had lost both, suddenly thrust into the viper's pit with no preparation or protection. ] I am to ascend, yes, with my dear uncle holding the seat for me until I come of age. Just a few months now. But then I came here.

[ here, to face a different set of horrors. laurent has turned his mind to uncovering the secrets of stygia so that he doesn't have to think on all that he's left behind — not that it had been much, considering he has no friends or allies to speak of. but his uncle holds the throne. his men are alone. damen. before a set of complicated emotions can rise to shift him off balance, he neatly seals away all thoughts of his slave, squeezing his heart mercilessly into submission. auguste goes next.

and without either of them to lean on, laurent looks at sasuke and feels a spike of anger. that too, he tries to suppress. he often wishes to feel nothing, and to no avail. but he has the distinct impression that his vulnerabilities have been manipulated, and he itches for his sword. ]

And how did he die? [ laurent looks at him now not as an aching child but as the icy prince that his men know to give wide berth to. ] An honorable death?

[chokuto]

[Perhaps it would have gone differently if Laurent hadn't turned those eyes on him, two blue points of ice, and asked that question. He resents the bare underbelly of his own words in the moment, how his tongue has betrayed him. Common knowledge to those who would know the Uchiha name — but that doesn't matter here. His clan is nothing in the Netherworld except a dark memory in his mind.

So Laurent's bladed retaliation meets his own, lashing cold with hurt.]

I don't know what that word means to you. Honorable. Aren't you attributing your own experience to someone else? It's different. You couldn't understand even if I tried to explain.

[Later, he'll regret it. In his atonement, it should be his desire to find equal ground with others, to be the one reaching across the gap, but it's against his nature. His Shadow — his own self — is too tightly wound around this grief.]

What do you want? If it's violence, then continue to provoke me and I'll provide it.

[wrists]

[ honorable. what does it mean to him? the word holds a bitter taste, sitting on his tongue like old blood long soured. laurent does not pretend to be honorable, but he knows intimately what it looks like — and the cost of such a gilded, foolish notion. ]

Auguste was slain because of his honor. [ this feels like a betrayal, to speak of his brother with scorn when his love should outweigh all the bitterness he feels for him. but with years to ruminate on his death, to wish if only he was a little less good, his hurt has grown an acidic, resentful edge. ] In single combat, he disarmed his opponent. And then gave him a chance to pick up his sword. Was your brother foolish with honor as well?

[ laurent sucks in a breath, his eyes glittering, merciless. auguste could have killed damen then. he hadn't. because of honor. and damen — who rode with his armies, who sat night after night with him to give him every tactical advantage, who saved his life despite his hatred — no, prince damianos had not —

worse than the swell of anger that crests over him is the hurt that threatens to shatter his entire being. hadn't he put all thoughts of his slave away? he reorients himself on sasuke's shifting eyes. ]

You refused to allow me to fetch your friend because you don't wish for him to see you like this. Which way would disappoint him? Seeing you altered with the substances you consumed, or seeing you reduced to your violent nature over a mere question?

[chokuto]

[Laurent's description is unlike any he's known in the world of shinobi. There is no honor is conflict; there is only the fealty of a mission. There is only loyalty to the country of one's origin. Would Laurent's brother have felt the same devotion to the land he was meant to one day lead? Yet against an opponent, on the decisive battlefield where every advantage should instead be extorted, he had allowed equality. He had allowed a fissure of weakness.

It brings another person to mind, vivid as Laurent goes on speaking, sharp-tongued and icy-eyed.]

I won't speak further of my brother. [His own inhale catches in his chest. Stop talking. And yet—] His death is one I will regret for the rest of my life, if we are not already beyond living.

You are the one who seems determined to turn this onto me. My nature. You don't know who I am. What of your own mind? Are your thoughts speaking of things you don't wish to hear? Are they about him? [Auguste.]