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Satoru asks them again, standing at the front of his brand new living room with his hands in his pockets, a feverish look in his eyes. “Do it, throw something at me.” He demands again, shaking in excitement.
Shoko looks at him, then back at Satoru with a shrug. She pulls a chapstick out of her pockets and throws it, along with a pen, and they both bounce off harmlessly. Suguru throws his eraser at him, and even that doesn’t hit.
“I did it.” Satoru starts, giddy, walking to them.
“How are you keeping it up that long?” Shoko asks, concerned. Suguru doesn’t hear the answer to her question, only sees the remnants of the fight with Toji on his neck, rubbed against his vision hard.
This will make sure it never happens again. By the electric current through Satoru, it’s exactly what it’s for right now. Suguru moves forward to grab his shoulder, congratulate him, make sure it’s him currently in the living room that’s here and not the Satoru dragged back from the brink of death by the skin of his teeth.
He reaches for him, and is forcibly stopped in midair.
Suguru looks up at Satoru talking to Shoko distractedly, and he turns infinity off after noticing him. His hand lands on his shoulder, all the energy in the clap gone. Now, there’s nothing that’ll ever touch him without him knowing. In their line of work, there’s nothing better.
“Won’t be stabbed now.” Satoru says, victorious, lightning bolts in his eyes. Unreachable.
*
Satoru finds him before he leaves the building, fluttering in front of him, a misplaced butterfly between him and the pouring rain outside. He hadn’t been in the meeting with Yaga, but he shows up to walk with Suguru like he had been.
He talks, and talks, hovering outside the reach of the umbrellas barrier, dry and spotless. His hands cut through the rain as he speaks, laughs. “Did they tell you anything good?” He asks, as if he wasn’t called to the meeting too.
Suguru shakes his head. “They asked where you were.”
“Did you tell them?”
“I didn’t know where you were.”
Satoru laughs like that’s the joke. Suguru wants to tug his sleeve and pull him under his awning, but there’s no use to it, not now that Satoru can block even rain drops without effort.
“I’ve been here.” He says, but it’s not entirely true. He’s not in Suguru’s hands.
*
Satoru twirls a pen around his fingers, skipping over knobbled knuckles, between the skin on the inside of his long digits. He tips the end of it between his lips, bites it between his two front teeth. He runs another hand through his hair, making it stick up with static.
They’re sitting in Satoru’s bedroom with paperwork in the middle, but Suguru hasn’t read anything in the past hour or two. He’s busy reading the lines on Satoru’s face, the ridges of the skin on his hand.
His own fingers burn with the memory of a touch. Clouds part when Satoru looks up at him, eyes too bright.
“Are you done? You haven’t moved in a while.” He asks, licking dry lips. Suguru’s stuck on the texture, barely hears the words.
“No.” He says, his breath at the base of his throat. He coughs it out into his hands, left over debris of his wishes and wants. It’s a little irrational to be jealous of a pen.
Satoru frowns, tilts his head back, balances the pen on his upper lip. “I don’t want to do this.” He complains, the pen staying still despite the bounce of his lip.
If this were just a few months ago, Suguru could lean forward, squish Satoru’s cheeks in one hand like he so wants to now. Satoru pouts, and it could just be so easy to.
Instead, he doesn’t risk being shaken off, oil off of ice.
*
Wind stirs beside them on their way home, bags full in their elbows, chill on their cheeks. Suguru tightens his jacket closer to himself, Suguru takes a breath and lets the cold pass through him.
Once, Suguru would’ve stepped forward and closed the lapels of his coat with a few choice words for him. Today, he watches Satoru attempt to take the cold and condense it under willpower.
“It’s so cold today.” He says out loud, his breath hanging in the air. Aside from the deep breaths he takes, Suguru wouldn’t be able to tell he’s cold. He’s crystalline. Suguru fears he’ll land a hand on him and it’ll be hard, or worse, he won’t ever reach something solid at all.
Smoke trickles out of Suguru’s mouth. He turns around and Satoru’s looking at him with an expectation, looking at him clearly. It spears him where he stands.
“Isn’t it cold today?” Satoru asks again, a brow raised, a dare and a demand rolled into one. Do it, his eyes beg him, diamond dust plumed lashes and unbreakable.
He doesn’t but it has to be obvious, it has to be written on his face for Satoru to read as he does.
“You should probably close your jacket then.” Suguru says to him, adjusts his bags and walks faster to the subway station ahead.
*
There’s eyes on him constantly afterwards.
Satoru walks around him, hovering close by, baiting and baiting. He lifts his arms when stretching, his stomach out, the planes of his ribcage looking pliable. He slides down the sofa when they watch movies together, legs almost landing in Suguru’s lap.
He drops his hand closer to his on the table between them, just getting coffee together. He comes up behind Suguru, nearly rests his chin on his shoulder too many times to count.
Through it all, he watches with every ounce of himself. Suguru can’t help but wonder what he sees when he’s like that, when the tension is palpable in how he hasn’t reached for him in forever.
Suguru reaches for his hand laid out on the table between them, casual, then drops it down on the stack of tissues instead. It’s the easy way out if he ignores the hardening of Satoru’s expression.
He’s not the one parading around, telling him to touch him, not with the risk of being bounced off. Even humidity doesn’t touch Satoru Gojo, it’s unthinkable he would let Suguru do a single thing.
*
They dangle their arms off the terrace, the night wrapping them in comfort of city sounds. Suguru’s apartment isn’t anywhere near the elders. It was on Satoru’s insistence, something about needing a place to go to that doesn’t have to do with work.
Suguru hadn’t understood it at the time. They’re shamans, it’s in every minute of every day, ingrained in him and unlikely to ever separate. What does a few more minutes of commute matter if you’re always on?
Satoru leans forward on the railing, his ice cream dripping down onto the empty sidewalk. Suguru gets it now, actually being on. The railing holds Satoru safely and Suguru wishes he could do the same.
“Your ice cream’s melting.” Suguru points at him, interrupting his chatter for a split second.
“Oh.” He looks down at it, then shoves half of it into his mouth, smearing vanilla and fudge swirls on his lips. He eats it down quickly, humming as he does. Within moments, it’s gone, just smudges on the corners of his lips. “I forgot about it.” He smiles at Suguru, bright.
The smudges are still there as Satoru continues complaining about his day. He wants to wipe it off. Brush his thumb against it, pick it off, kiss it off of him. It would taste sweet above all else.
The thought shocks him enough that he leans on the railing and just nods to Satoru’s talking, half his attention elsewhere. “You have ice cream on your mouth.” He points out, again, when Satoru pauses and pouts in his story.
“Where?” Satoru asks, standing up straight. He steps back from the railing and towards Suguru.
“Here.” He says, brushing his own mouth. Satoru stares at him, and there’s tension mounting his frame, and Suguru feels like he missed a step walking down the stairs.
“No, show me.”
“I’m showing you.”
Satoru walks up to him, so close that his eyes stun him where he is with their demands. “Wipe it off.”
Suguru can’t feel his hands. Heat and the want to touch him takes over, past the cuff of fear of rejection. He raises them, gasps when he meets skin and not a barrier. Satoru watches him carefully as he wipes the little bit of melted ice cream off onto his thumb, feeling the warm skin and the gentle plush of his lips.
Satoru raises his brows at him. No doubt there’s something he’s reading off Suguru’s face but he can’t control it, can’t even begin to consider what he might be showing when he can’t get over the fact of Satoru turning off infinity and leaving himself defenseless just for Suguru to touch him. The strongest doing just that makes him reel, dizzy with authorization.
Suguru cups his face with the rest of his fingers, leaving the excuse of smeared dessert behind. Satoru tilts his head, takes the thumb between his lips, licks it with the tip of his tongue. He kisses it and lets it go, smiling wider the more Suguru heats with it.
“Was that so hard?” He teases.
Suguru grips his cheek hard, pulls him in for a firm kiss, shocking both of them. Nothing in his head but having Satoru in his hands again, this time differently, this time without any hesitation. Suguru runs his hand to the back of Satoru’s head, through his hair, back again to his neck. His other arm wraps around him, and they were never this close before infinity, but Suguru wants and needs to make sure of it.
He kisses him breathless, pressing the past few months into it. When he steps back, Satoru’s mouth’s dropped open, his eyes wide over the rim of his sunglasses.
“If you wanted, then why didn’t you say anything?” Suguru rubs his fingertips over the baby hairs on his nape.
“You didn’t either.”
“You’re the one with a barrier.” Suguru reminds him, then kisses him again, tasting fudge swirls off of him. “You’re the one who never asks permission to touch me.”
Satoru frowns at him, holds him against the railing. “But it’s you.” He says, and doesn’t let him go.
*