Chapter Text
AN: Special fangz (get it, coz Im goffik) 2 my gf (ew not in that way) nanami, bloodybread7:3 4 helpin me wif da story and spelling. MCR ROX!
Hi my name is Satoru Light’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have short ivory white hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my shoulder and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Anderson Cooper (AN: if u don’t know who he is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a sorcerer, and I go to a magic school called Jujutsu High in Tokyo where I’m in the third year (I’m nineteen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black (or like, a dark navy maybe? it’s kind of up to interpretation). I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eyeshadow. I was walking outside Jujutsu High, it was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.
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AN: IS it good? PLZ tell me fangz!
-:-
“Satoru?”
He remembers the white snow; cold and biting.
“Satoru?!”
He remembers the white sun; too dim and too low in the sky.
“Sato-”
He remembers -
Actually, not fucking much after that.
-:-
Satoru wakes to the soft rumble of jet engines and a splitting pain in his head. It’s a cacophonous duet; a silvery, scraping melody tarnished by rust. Like a - can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars-
“Hey, easy-”
“Fuck-”
The world lurches and Satoru almost pukes. A sharp spear of pain rams through his temple, like B.o.B. coming in with the rap verse - yo, I could use a dream or a genie or a wish-
Satoru could use an icepick lobotomy. Or general anesthesia. Or at least an ibuprofen. He clutches his head, hoping that the pressure will do something, anything. But his hands fall on a soft, thick, cloth, and oh, yeah, it’s dark, it’s so dark-
“Satoru-”
He curses, he scrabbles at the cloth, he flinches as tougher hands grab his, pulling them down.
“Calm down.”
Yuki. She’s a quiet hum over the engines, slipping beneath the pain in his head. She’s close, but she sounds too far - echoey, almost. She sounds… wrong.
“You’re fine.”
Satoru doesn’t feel fine. He feels kind of like a shooting star. And Hayley Williams probably didn’t know - when she wrote those lyrics - that shooting stars are just meteors burning up in the atmosphere, and it’s kinda fucked to wish that on airplanes, especially if they’re carrying people.
“Yuki-” he tries. It’s too much, immediately. The throb in his head spikes back up into something sharp, something stabbing- “Fuck.”
“Don’t move around so much.” A weight on his chest - her hand - pushes him back down into a seat that’s a little too stiff and too straight-backed. “And don’t move your head.”
Right. His head.
Did he hit his head?
He hit his head, didn’t he?
“...Okay,” Satoru says dumbly, settling back into the uncomfortable seat.“Are we-” Satoru almost pukes as the world lurches forward. A strap around his waist saves him from lurching with it - a seatbelt.
Ok, so they’re definitely on the plane - Yuki’s jet. But he doesn’t feel like he’s stuck in a kaleidoscope. He doesn’t feel like-
“Oh, shit,” Satoru gasps.
The world only comes back to him in pieces. Shattered, the way he left it. Like a jigsaw puzzle dumped out onto the floor. And he’s missing pieces now - six of them, to be precise.
“We’re going home,” Yuki explains gently - it sounds like she’s whispering, but at the volume you might whisper to, like, a deaf person. “Back to Tokyo,” she’s screaming through a megaphone, but Satoru can barely parse her words. “Shoko said she’d take a look at you.”
Satoru struggles to speak; he struggles even more to think. It should be easier, since he’s not drowning in vibrations - a million energy packets bouncing around in this tiny metal tin. But even with the Six Eyes MIA, Satoru feels woozy. His brain is underwater, bobbing up and down on the waves like a buoy. Or maybe like a dead fish.
“If she can’t fix it,” Yuki says, “we’ll go to-”
“She will.”
“...Yeah. She will.”
Satoru swallows awkwardly around the lump in his throat, which is something Shoko couldn’t fix even if she wanted to. It’s gonna be shit to return to Tokyo Jujutsu High and face the storm that’s been brewing there over the past months. But it’d be even more shit to go Kyoto and face a whole fucking typhoon.
It’s a funny thing, coming home - when home is where everyone hates you.
Maybe that’s part of why Satoru feels like he might throw up.
If hate is what makes a home, though, then at least Gojo Satoru is a card-carrying, multiple-deed-having homeowner. He’s got a primary residence - Tokyo Jujutsu Tech - but then he’s also got vacation homes at all three major clan estates, plus a timeshare at the Kyoto college campus. Maybe he’s even got something in Canada now, since they had to endure him for months. Gojo Satoru is, like, the Mr. Worldwide of being hated. Maybe all landlords are.
“Here.” Yuki gently touches his wrist. She unfolds his hand, which has been clenched into a fist since the plane lurched - maybe since he woke up. Yuki places two tiny… things in his palm. They’re light, and they’re oval.
“Take these. I’ve got water too.” Pills. Okay, sure. “They’ll put you to sleep. Well-” Two more join the first two. “They’d put most people to sleep.”
Satoru’s always been tricky like that, courtesy of the Six Eyes. They don’t like impurities in his bloodstream. They don’t care for soporifics, either. Anything that dulls his senses just puts him on high alert.
“It should help, at least,” Yuki says.
But fuck the Six Eyes.
Satoru swallows them dry, all four in one go.
There’s no supernatural bullshit stopping him now. So Satoru will take the milk of the poppy, he’ll drive a knife right into his unarmored heel. Wherever the Six Eyes have gone, they can stay a little longer.
“I’ll… Shit, Satoru.” She curses again under her breath. Satoru can’t quite make it out. “Yeah. I’ll wake you up when we get there.” Yuki places a water bottle in his hand, wrapping his numb fingers around the crinkly plastic. “Drink something. You need fluids.”
“Yeah. ‘Kay.” Satoru gulps down as much water as he can manage. Which isn’t much. His throat is scratchy, sore from where the dry pills raked down his esophagus. The water helps, but it’s something in his stomach, and he still feels like he’s going to puke. He clutches the bottle too hard, and lukewarm water spills over his hand.
“Shit…” he mumbles. The water bottle is taken from his hand, delicately. He can’t hear where it goes. A coaster somewhere, maybe. Or in one of those dumb, way-too-tight little basket nets on the side of his seat.
“I’ll get you some electrolytes,” Yuki says, slightly muffled. Maybe over her shoulder, maybe as she walks away. Satoru doesn’t know why she gets quieter, only that she does.
It’s weird, not being able to see her. Even if Satoru’s pretty sure he can picture the look on her face - lips curled down, eyebrows scrunched together, and her eyes - supernaturally calm, dusty rose spinning out around a bottomless black hole.
That look is burned into his memory now, like a dead pixel on a screen. It’s a tiny black dot, a little scar that ruins the rest of the movie if you look too close. It’s a void, a black sink, a gravity well - pulling pulling pulling - at his mind, at his memories, at his peripheral vision.
It’s the look she gave him in Montreal.
-:-
It was in that weird time between late fall and early winter. Warm enough that Suguru hadn’t piled extra blankets over the bed yet, and there was still sunlight trickling in through the window well into the afternoon. It was a Saturday - Satoru remembers that, because his body was still sore from Friday missions, and because he’d slept in until almost eight. It was one of those days when Suguru stayed in bed past lunch. when Satoru bullied his way in, promising not to be too loud or too funny or too irresistible. It was one of those times when Suguru let him in.
So Satoru sits up against the headrest with his book, and Suguru lies down on his side with his earbuds in, and they manage to fit in the too-small space. Suguru’s back presses up against the wall so he can keep a centimeter or two between his face and Satoru’s awkwardly-folded legs. But every time he breathes, the distance oscillates. He gets a few millimeters closer, and then a few millimeters further away again. Not that Satoru’s thinking about that, not even in the back of his mind.
Satoru reads his favorite book, while Suguru listens to his favorite music. Well, Satoru doesn’t know if it’s his favorite - just that it’s his patent-pending Emo Pop Sadboy Shit. And it’s muffled through his earbuds, so Satoru can hear the punchy, slide-y guitar, but he can’t make out the words. He’s not doing great with words tight now. He tries to read, but the letters just swim in front of his eyes, because there’s TV snow pulling at the Six Eyes, saying ‘hey, look at me stare at me watch me until the colors repeat until they all turn white until you figure out a pattern-’
And he never does. Suguru’s cursed energy never looks quite the same. It’s a whirlpool, spinning and spinning with turbulent colors. It never repeats itself, it never settles into a pattern. Bright streaks pop up, surfacing like fish jumping out of the water, and then they dive back in, splashing back through Suguru’s sea of soft, white cursed energy. It’s infinite, and random - truly random, if the Six Eyes has never managed to figure out its sequence. But it wants to try, even if it’s futile. That’s why he can’t look away.
So Satoru stares, leaving the book forgotten in his lap - sepia tossed aside for the rainbow swirl of colors ebbing in Suguru’s chest. Satoru sticks his bookmark between the pages, somewhere left of center. He stares as the energy ebbs and blooms. He stares as colors swim up to the surface, blue and red and green and pink. He stares as Suguru’s chest rises, and all the curses within do too, rocking back and forth to Suguru’s soft, slumbering breaths.
And Satoru wonders what it might be like several worlds away.
He wonders what it might be like in Suguru’s dreams.
If it’s scary, or if it’s just strange. If they’re in sepia, or if they’re in full color. If he’s a main character, or a guest star, or if he’s even there at all.
If they’re anything like Satoru’s own.
-:-
His head’s not right when he wakes up.
Not that it ever really is, but normally that’s just ‘cause of the trauma and shit. Normally he’s perfectly fine, like, cognitively and shit. His morality’s fucked, but he’s good to go, like, capacity wise. But right now, Satoru can’t even think straight. He also can’t see.
“What happened?”
“We - he tried using reverse cursed technique, and-”
“It’s always fucking-”
“It blew back on him.”
“Why is it always fucking RCT with you?””
“Oh, shit. His eyes-”
“Can’t you just leave that to me?”
Sit up, sit up - Shoko says something like that. Satoru doesn’t really hear it - at least, not as real words. His whole body convulses, rejecting this sudden coup against gravity and its established rule over his body. Stronger, rougher hands than his pull him up off of the hard cot. Yuki.
Easy, easy - Yuki says something like that - breathe, breathe. Satoru doesn’t have a choice but to tilt upright. The world doesn’t feel right this way. But it hasn’t, not for a while. He heaves out shuddering breaths - Yuki’s hands on his back, Shoko’s hands on his chest.
His head spins.
“Easy.”
His chest shakes.
“His jujutsu is all fucked, his-it’s-”
His stomach turns over.
“-I can barely feel his cursed energy.”
His head still hurts a little.
“What? That can’t - I mean this is Satoru.”
“Yeah. I know. But it’s like…”
“...Like he’s not-?”
“No-”
“There’s something. He’s not… I don’t think it’s gone. He’s still a sorcerer. He still has the… the parts.”
And his heart still hurts a lot.
“But, it’s like…”
“It’s like he’s empty.”
“Burned out.”
Still works, though - see, that’s the thing.
“It’ll come back.”
Satoru kinda wishes it didn’t work.
“I think.”
‘Cause maybe it’d stop hurting, if he broke it for real.
-:-
So then Suguru’s eyes slide open, as soft as crushed velvet. And it’s all violet petals, light and sweet over Satoru’s brittle porcelain. Suguru’s gaze drags over him, slipping and catching in all his hairline cracks. Suguru measures the expanse of him, limitless - directionless as he spins out. And Satoru’s hands shake badly enough that he almost drops the book he hasn’t even been pretending to read.
Doesn’t matter anymore. He’s been caught red-handed. Whatever plausible deniability the book might’ve given him - it’s not enough to explain the way he’s been staring, greedy and unblinking and shameless and entitled and completely fucking gross.
Satoru’s breathing goes shallow, frantic-
And then Suguru smiles.
And then Satoru’s breathing stops.
Suguru’s lips curl at the edges, and he slowly meets Satoru’s trespassing eyes. Satoru’s dumb lips fall open into some dumb gape that might have been a precursor to talking - like, saying actual words. Ideally in a coherent sentence. It’s the first term in an undefined series, a math problem he hasn’t solved yet: how to sound like a real human being when he talks to Suguru. But right now, Satoru doesn’t even remember how to talk at all. He just uselessly coughs up air.
Suguru snorts.
“You’re such a fucking freak...”
Ice lances through Satoru’s chest. But then Suguru yawns, and his pretty lips close back into a real smile, bigger and warmer than before. And the ice melts a little. Just a little.
Suguru lifts himself up on his elbows. His bare torso rises up from the sheets, catching all the golden, afternoon sun in its creases. Long black hair swirls down around his shoulders, tangling over his triceps. Suguru leans towards him, and Satoru chokes on whatever air is left in his lungs. Suguru’s cursed energy billows out, warm and white as steam, tickling over Satoru’s trembling throat. He chokes on that too.
“Were you just… watching me? For, like,” he glances at the clock on his bedside table, “an hour?”
It is freaky. Satoru is a freak. But he’s trying not to be. He’s learning - he can figure it out, he just needs time -
“Sorry-” Satoru manages to gasp, despite the vacuum in his lungs. “I’m sorry.”
Lessons in Normal: you’re not supposed to just sit and watch people sleep. That is certified freak shit. And Satoru knows that it’s certified freak shit. It’s just - it’s easy to forget, because Suguru is so easy to get sucked into. His cursed energy swirls like a galaxy, sparkling and spinning for a million million years, endless and infinite. He’d blame the Six Eyes, but he knows that the real offender is trapped somewhere in his ribcage. And arresting it won’t do anyone any favors, unless Shoko wants to learn how to do an EKG.
“I wasn’t, uh-” Satoru stutters, “Well, I was watching you sleep. But not, like. Not because-” he chokes, “Not like that, I promise. I wasn’t like, y’know-”
“Hey, chill.”
“Your cursed energy is just-” Satoru rambles, pushing out as many words as he can before his throat collapses in on itself. “It’s just really pretty. Um-” he chokes, “Like, pretty interesting - I meant interesting. Especially when you’re asleep, because you don’t control it as well, and, uh-” he coughs, “And it’s really colorful, unlike mine, ‘cause-”
“Satoru,” Suguru interrupts. He puts his hand on Satoru’s thigh, squeezing gently. “I don’t give a shit if you watch me, okay?”
“Oh.” Satoru gulps. “...Okay?” The pressure on his throat lessens, just a little. It’s easier to speak. It’s not any easier to find the words. “Then…”
“It just…” Suguru shrugs, “Seems boring, that’s all.”
“You’re not boring,” Satoru says a little too quickly.
“You know uh,” Suguru scratches the back of his neck. His jaw flexes awkwardly, chewing on the words like taffy - sticky and lemony. “You know you really don’t have to stay, right? I don’t-”
“I don’t mind staying.”
“-mind if you leave.”
“...I wanna be here with you,” Satoru says, “Whenever you need me, I’m - I’m right here, okay?”
Suguru’s smile twists into something complicated, something unreadable. His cursed energy shifts, green and blue trickling out from his wrist.
“You don’t have to babysit me, Satoru. Seriously, I promise I’m not gonna-” he shakes his head, “I’ll be fine.”
“I know, I know,” Satoru insists, “It’s not that, Suguru. I know - I wasn’t saying-” Satoru blindly fumbles for better words. He comes up with a mismatched set. “I just like - with you - um, being-”
“...What?” Amusement flickers over Suguru’s lips. And he leans in, close, too close- “Was that actually Japanese or just gibberish?”
Satoru feels Suguru’s body heat ping against his skin, wild and buzzing and alive.
“I just-” Satoru stammers. Suddenly, the neck of his t-shirt feels so tight it may as well be a turtleneck. “I like-”
-watching you sleeping and watching you breathing and watching how your cursed energy changes colors when you’re dreaming about something you’ll never remember and I’ll never know-
“I-I-”
-and fuck he can’t say that-
“I like being in the same room as you,” Satoru blurts.
-and FUCK he is bad at this-
Suguru laughs.
“...Okay,” he shakes his head. “Yeah, sure.” His voice is rough, still a little raspy from sleep, but his smile shines like smooth, polished sea glass.
“I mean, you can stay, obviously.” Suguru dips, moving like silk - silent and graceful. He lays his head in Satoru’s lap, rolling over so he can look up into Satoru’s dumb, gaping face.
“As long as you’re good with being a pillow.”
-:-
“Hey.”
Suguru.
It’s Suguru’s voice.
Maybe his real one, maybe just the one in Satoru’s dreams. He’s not sure, and he’s not sure that he cares. Satoru rolls over onto his side, vaguely pointing his face in the direction of the door. His ribs scream like they’re gonna give out, but Satoru’s mattress isn’t nearly firm enough for that. It’s barely firm enough for him to sleep on.
“...It’s me,” Suguru says.
Like Satoru wouldn’t recognize his voice from a single syllable.
“Shoko… said I should come see you,” he continues, soft and… and strange. “She said you’d, uh… probably be lucid."
But every sound is echoey now, bouncing around inside his head. And now there’s no supernatural detector to capture the signal. He doesn’t have half the coordinates he’d need to triangulate Suguru’s location, and he feels so far away.
“I... Uh, I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“No, I-” Satoru weakly pushes himself up, and fuck, his head still hurts.
“It’s ok,” Satoru says through gritted teeth. He takes it one elbow at a time, fumbling for the headboard. “It’s fine,” he says, hauling himself upright. “I was awake.”
It’s half lie, half truth. Satoru’s not sure if he’s sleeping, or just super fucking out of it. He doesn’t feel particularly rested. He feels kind of like he got hit by a car, or maybe by a fucking sleigh. Trampled by a herd of reindeer, left for dead in a snowdrift two meters deep. And now that his pummeled body is thawed, it’s starting to rot. Merry Christmas, kids.
“I uh - Shoko sent me with stuff. For you-” Suguru trips over his words - “For uh - the Six Eyes shit.”
“Oh, yeah, uh… Okay.”
“Can I-” Suguru hesitates, “Is it alright if I come in?”
Can he-
When’s the last time-
He never had to ask.
“Yeah…” Satoru mumbles, his voice hums a little, like he’s vibrating in resonance - like his chest is as hollow as it suddenly feels. “Of course,” Satoru adds, and: “Duh.”
“Well,” Footsteps - blurry and light and barely loud enough to hear. If he had the Six Eyes…
Well, he fucking doesn’t.
“I didn’t wanna assume…” Suguru says, soft and stilted and… empty.
“...Anything, I guess.” Like he might be hollow too.
There’s a weight, and the far end of the mattress dips down. Satoru straightens - as much as he can. He turns vaguely towards the spot where Suguru must be sitting.
“How long have I been…” Satoru falters.
How long has he been what, exactly? Asleep? In Tokyo? Blind?
“...It’s been a few days since you got here,” Suguru starts, gentle like he’s not sure if the words will break him. But a few days isn’t so bad. It’s not as bad as it could be. It doesn’t seem so bad at all, really. He figured he’d be hungrier. Satoru nods, instantly cringing as his head throbs.
“Hey,” Suguru scolds, “Careful.”
“I know, I just-” Satoru stops himself from shaking his head. He shrugs instead, which still hurts, but less. “Habit.”
“Bad habit,” Suguru huffs. A little smile tugs Satoru’s lips up.
“Yes, Geto-sensei.” He ducks his head in a tiny, slightly head-hurting bow. “Noted.”
“...How are you feeling?” Suguru asks, his voice still plagued by that strange note. Satoru gets the funny feeling that he’s not smiling too.
“I’m okay,” Satoru says, swallowing down the strangeness. “What about you?”
“I’m fine,” Suguru says.
And he usually says that, and usually it’s a lie, and usually Satoru can tell, because he can see Suguru’s face or how his body tenses up or if colors streaking through his cursed energy turn red-
“You cut your hair.”
“What?”
“It’s shorter now,” Suguru says simply. Like - like they’re just talking. About the weather - partially cloudy, maybe a bit of wind. “Just the bottom?” Suguru says, and he’s closer now - Satoru can hear it, even without the Six Eyes. And he leans in, and Satoru feels his body heat almost-
“...It’s so short.”
“Yeah” Satoru splutters, feeling his own skin heat up. “It’s-”
“Can I touch it?”
“-it’s better for hats.”
Satoru feels like he can’t breathe. He squeaks: “Yeah, sure, yeah.”
He tilts his head. Suguru’s fingers brush up against his undercut. It’s gentle, gentle, and-
And then it’s gone.
“It’s soft,” Suguru says, too quiet.
Satoru’s heart lurches into his stomach. What’s wrong, what’s wrong-
“It looks good,” Suguru murmurs.
“Thanks, I-”
“Um, I have-”
“Sorry,” Satoru mumbles. And-
And Satoru feels so fucking lost. He fucking hates it. Hates not being able to see Suguru, or anyone else. At the best of times, Satoru feels like an alien. He doesn’t speak the human language, and he’s not even great at mimicking the way it sounds. It’s so foreign he can barely understand it. And blind, he can’t even try to lip-read.
“No,” Suguru insists, “You go.”
“It wasn’t important.” Satoru says with a wince. It’s not like he “Just - just a dumb joke. It was stupid.”
Suguru snorts. “That’s never stopped you before.” And for the first time, he sounds... Almost normal.
Not quite, but close.
And Satoru can picture it - well, he can try: the small, lazy smile playing at the corner of Suguru’s lips. Maybe a little smaller than normal. The false annoyance in his eyes. Maybe a little less false than he’d like. The reluctant agreement to be the straight man. Maybe in more ways than one.
“I was gonna say-” Satoru tries to smile. He probably misses the mark. “I was gonna say, ‘Thanks, I grew it myself.’ But it’s funnier if you say that about, like, your dick.”
Satoru hears him chuckle, but it’s echoey, faraway. Like he’s standing at the end of an empty hallway. Like there’s meters between them, not centimeters. Like there’s something between them, something that’s somehow both heavy and hollow.
“Because you actually grow hair,” Satoru adds, just to fill the odd silence, “So like-”
There’s just -
“-that’d be funnier.”
Something wrong.
“I have pills,” Suguru says, before Satoru can ask what’s wrong. Before he can even figure out how to ask. “And water, too.” Suguru adds. “Doctor’s orders. And I have a sleep mask, if you want, instead of the bandages.”
Satoru nods dumbly. He immediately regrets it.
“Ow, fuck-”
“Hey,” Suguru’s hand lands on his shoulder - a soft, muted weight. Satoru doesn’t even flinch from the suddenness of it. He steadies Satoru, he sets him upright. “Don’t do that, dumbass,” he whispers, soft soft soft.
“Yeah, yeah,” Satoru mumbles. “I know.”
Suguru gently uncurls Satoru’s bony fingers and places a little pile of pills into his hand.
“These are-”
Satoru cups his hand, bringing the pills to his mouth, and swallows them all down dry.
“...sleeping pills,” he finishes. Suguru sighs. “Here,” he presses a light plastic bottle into Satoru’s hand. Water. “Shoko told me to make sure you finish the bottle, so. Drink up.”
“Okay, mom.” Satoru says. He attempts to roll his eyes, even though a.) Suguru couldn’t even see if he did, and b.) shit ow that fucking hurts. He takes a sip first. It’s sweet, probably laced with electrolytes. He can’t feel them going into his bloodstream like normal, but he can taste the fake mixed-berry flavor. Satoru chugs the bottle, crushing it with a mini Blue when it’s empty, like always, except fuck-
Satoru drops the bottle, clutching his left hand. It feels like fire racing up his veins, vaporizing his blood, leaving only ash in his hollowed-out flesh.
Why the fuck does everything hurt?
Satoru’s never been hurt by his own jujutsu - even heaven is turning against him now.
“Ow-”
“Woah,” Suguru says. “Hey-” He feels movement on the bed, Suguru shifts his weight, and -
Nothing.
Satoru’s not sure what he’s waiting for.
He just knows it doesn’t come.
“Um…” He feels Suguru’s weight shift again, farther away. “You probably shouldn’t be using jujutsu. Shoko said…” Suguru pauses. “Well, Shoko said she didn’t know if you’d be able to. But… I don’t think you should push it. It-” his voice goes stiff, odd, “You might - might not be… in control of it right now. You could - it could be dangerous.”
He knows that. Satoru knows that, obviously. When you make little black holes for a living, you get real familiar with ‘collateral damage’. And drywall repair.
But he’s not out of control. He needs to recalibrate, probably, but he’s not shooting from the hip here. Control is… Satoru’s good at control. With jujutsu, anyway.
“Here,” Suguru says, interrupting, “I have a sleep mask, if you want. I can - I thought the bandages might bother you.” Suguru passes a piece of cloth into his hands. His voice softens, smoothing down some of its sharp, odd edges. “I thought this might be softer.”
It’s satin - that’s Satoru’s guess. It feels soft and smooth, a little slippery. Without the Six Eyes, it’s hard to identify. There are no stray fibers tugging at his senses like thorns. It’s definitely softer than the bandages, though. And those are starting to get damp with sweat.
“Um, yeah,” Satoru murmurs, “Thanks.” He reaches blindly for the back of his head, trying to find where the bandage wrap starts or ends.
“Oh, I can - I can help take those off,” Suguru offers, “If you want.”
“Yeah,” Satoru agrees, “That would, uh, that would be nice.”
He ducks his head so that Suguru can find wherever Shoko neatly tucked in the end. He finds it pretty quickly, and Satoru feels the bindings loosen. It comes off in long strips. Bit by bit, the pressure on his eyes lessens, until he feels weightless. Satoru tenses, prepared to be assaulted by the dull bedroom light. He takes a breath, and then he slowly opens his eyes. And…
There’s nothing.
“...Oh,” Suguru whispers.
Nothing at all.
Just blackness.
Blackness, not darkness. It’s not the absence of light, but the absence of any signal at all. The connection is severed, or at least blocked.
“...Huh,” Satoru murmurs, “Cool… That’s, uh… That’s cool.”
“You can’t see, can you?”
“Nope,” Satoru says, popping the P. Which is impressive, given how badly his lips are wobbling.
“It’ll come back,” Suguru says. “If your jujutsu is back, it’s all gonna come back. That’s what Shoko said. Or - something like that. I don’t know. But you can’t push it, okay? You need to take it slow.” He squeezes Satoru’s shoulders, his touch muted through whatever cotton t-shirt Satoru’s been sweating through for days.
“Okay,” Satoru mumbles dumbly.
“Promise me you won’t push yourself?” Suguru asks. And for a moment, all the strangeness is stripped away, and his voice is just - worry, worry and - and something else beneath that. A fire - one that doesn’t burn.
“Yeah,” Satoru says, barely catching himself before he fucks up and nods again. “I promise.”
“Good,” Suguru says, relieved. He pulls away. The little fire goes out.
“How, uh…” Satoru chokes back a stupid little sob. His lips still wobble. “So, h-how do I look?”
Suguru snorts. “Don’t worry, you’re still pretty.”
Pretty… He doesn’t mean it. He can’t mean it. He doesn’t even sound like he means it, not really - he sounds sarcastic, more than anything - but-
But Satoru feels his heart skip a beat anyway.
“Your eyes are…different.”
“Oh.” Satoru bites his lip. “Are they-”
“I’m sure they’ll go back,” Suguru says quickly. “It’s just-”
“Are they like, fucked up?”
“No,” Suguru says, “No. I mean, kind of, but not like - scarred or anything. They’re just… not blue anymore. They’re grey. Or - silver, I guess.”
“Oh,” he says again. It makes sense. He doesn’t have the Six Eyes, so he doesn’t have their pretty magical glow anymore either. Without his jujutsu, he’s just… colorless.
“I should-
“Do you-” Satoru stops, “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Suguru says.
“I’m sorry. I just - I can’t see you, so,” Satoru blubbers, “I keep interrupting-”
“Satoru.” Suguru says gently, “Seriously, it’s fine. Do I what?”
Satoru takes a deep breath, and it feels too big to hold. Like a gust of wind, rushing through some shrine in the mountains; one that’s been abandoned, one where the stone paths are blotted out by mildew and moss, one where the wooden gate has rotted through.
“...Do you hate me now?” Satoru asks, too small to hold the gale in his chest. Maybe as small as he’s ever been in his whole life.
Suguru doesn’t answer, not for a long, long moment. Long enough that Satoru feels even smaller. Any smaller, and he’d be sub-atomic.
It’s okay if he does.
Hate him, Satoru means. It’s okay if Suguru hates him. It’d be understandable. Satoru wouldn’t hold it against him.
Maybe Satoru should tell him it’s okay. Maybe-
“...I’ll never hate you, Satoru. You know that.”
But he should. He really should. Satoru knows that. And maybe Suguru knows it too, now.
“Oh, don’t cry, Satoru,” Suguru whispers.
S-stupid-
“I’m not-” Satoru protests. It’s not until he feels Suguru’s thumb brush the tears away that he accepts that he’s crying. Small tears, silent tears. He can barely feel them on his face. His eyes burn, but they’ve been burning for a week at least; now it’s basically just embers left in his eye sockets.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Suguru says, and - and oh-
Suguru’s hand cups his cheek, so gentle with him even when he’s horrible and stupid and weak. It’s nothing but soft warmth and sturdy mass, like a weighted blanket, like Shelly curling up for a nap on his chest. There’s no cursed energy, no frenetic ions, no jagged, rough edges scraping at his skin. There’s no burning, no freezing, no static, no stinging, just-
Just touch.
Just normal, human touch.
This is what normal feels like, isn’t it? Simple, uncomplicated, warm.
This is what normal people have. This is what they get all the time. If they want. If Satoru was normal, he’s not sure if he’d ever want anything else. He’s not sure if he’d ever be able to stop touching Suguru - if Suguru let him. He’s not normal, though, so he can’t have this, and that only makes him want it so, so much more. He wants simple, even if it’s a lie. He wants uncomplicated, even if it’s impossible. And he wants warmth, even if he doesn’t deserve it, even if it burns him, as long as it doesn’t burn Suguru too.
He wants-
“Can you-”
Would you kiss me? Just once.
Even if you hate me
Just so I can feel what it’s like. For normal people. For you.
I know I don’t deserve it.
But please?
Please, please-
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-
“I should go.”
His hand draws back, and all his warmth along with it.
“W-wait-”
Satoru shoves his own hand on top of Suguru’s, clumsily pinning it in place, back to his cheek. It’s rough and warm, more calloused than he remembers. And there’s nothing he remembers better - or more often, at least - than the feel of Suguru’s hands on his bare skin.
But Suguru won’t love him under duress. Satoru knows that, somewhere in the back of his mind. Suguru’s hand slips out from under his own, like sand through the neck of an hourglass. And it feels like the very last grains, seconds before his world flips upside down.
“You need to rest, Satoru.”
Suguru delicately slips the mask over the crown of Satoru’s head, then fixes it so it isn’t crooked over his eyes. The weak elastic band hugs his head, not too tight. The satin is soft. Not irritating, not scratchy, and not luxuriously silky either. Just. Soft. Normal soft. Satoru feels the mattress shift as Suguru dips back into his space, silent the whole time.
“I should - I’ll go.”
“Suguru-” his voice trembles.
Suguru’s ruffles through the shaggy hair on the top of his head, the part he didn’t trim down to fit under a double-layered winter beanie.
“Get some sleep, Satoru.”
“...Okay.”
Satoru drops back into the pillows, letting the sleep mask soak up his tears.
“I’ll, uh…”
Suguru’s already halfway to the door or so. It’s hard to tell. His footsteps are too soft. He knows how to be silent when he wants to - for missions and stuff. It’s just that that stuff doesn’t work on the Six Eyes. But it works on Just Satoru, apparently, when he’s blind and deaf and colorless.
“I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah,” Satoru mumbles, “See ya.”
Satoru smushes his face into the pillows until he hears the door slide open. Seconds later, he hears it slide shut.
-:-
“Read to me.”
Satoru’s not sure if he can read anymore.
He probably can’t even see straight.
Because Geto Suguru, sleepy, smiling, splayed over his lap - that feels like it must be a hallucination.
It feels unreal, like a dream you don’t want to wake up from. It feels… hazardous, like carrying in all the groceries in one go, your hands so full of soda bottles and paper towels that something’s bound to drop. It feels delicate, fragile, breakable, like a nervous animal that you don’t want to spook. Like a rabbit, or a squirrel, or a baby deer - breathing hard and fast and watching you with sideways-pointed eyes, and the second you move, it just bolts.
Except Suguru’s breathing is slow and happy, and his eyes are pointed right into Satoru’s, like he’s the only thing in Suguru’s entire field of view.
But just in case, Satoru doesn’t make any sudden moves.
“...What?” he says, slowly (intentionally) and dumbly (unintentionally - he’s just like that).
Suguru sighs and grabs his book from where Satoru buried it in the comforter - an unmarked grave. It’s thick (or as Satoru would say, “thiccc with three Cs”), because it's a small format paperback, so they need a lot more width, y’know? And hardcovers are unwieldy, and Satoru doesn’t need his words printed in a huge font with ridiculous margins, and Satoru has a lot of books, and not a lot of space.
“Read to me,” Suguru pushes the book into his useless, numb fingers. “Unless you don’t want to.”
“I thought - but you - you like listening to music, right? When you’re - on bad days, I mean.”
And Satoru’s voice isn’t particularly musical. It’s a little - it’s been called grating, by some. Sometimes. Some have called it that. (Shoko. Who isn’t exactly charitable, but she is honest)
“Sometimes,” Suguru says, shrugging in a way that moves his perfect, bronzed shoulders over Satoru’s thighs. His hair spills out over Satoru’s legs in dark, inky tendrils. Shiny, polished onyx against Satoru’s cloudy quartz skin. “Not always,” he says. “Figured I’d change it up.”
“...You don’t even like fantasy,” Satoru mumbles.
“I like listening to you, though.”
He-
“Well…” Suguru purses his lips.
He likes-
“Sometimes,” he caveats, rolling his eyes.
And Satoru’s just supposed to pretend like his heart isn’t trying to leap out of his throat?
“Satoru? Are you still in there?”
Because it is. In fact, Satoru’s heart is going for Olympic gold in gymnastics. It gets a running start, pounding out of his chest. And then it vaults all the way up into his mouth. And his brain, it seems, is trying to medal in diving.
“I’m in your mom,” Satoru blurts out.
Yep. That’s it. That’s what comes out. Which is marginally better than if he choked to death on his own tongue. It’s a shitty joke, and probably distasteful because Suguru hasn’t seen his mom in three years (at least three, probably more). But Satoru’s mom is dead, so it’d be even more fucked up the other way around.
Satoru starts: “I mean-”
“Were you, like, actually dropped on your head as a kid?” Suguru laughs.
And it’s okay, it’s okay, because for some reason, Suguru always gives him a 10 - even if he doesn’t stick the landing. Maybe because he’s doping with the Six Eyes, or maybe because the judging committee has been paid off.
“I mean, yeah, I’ll - I’ll read to you,” Satoru says, “If you want me to. But you can’t laugh. Like-” he blushes, “Like, even if you don’t like it. Because - I mean, I know you don’t really like fantasy, but… This one’s good. It’s um…”
“It’s your favorite,” Suguru lets out an amused little snort. “I know.”
Wait-
Why does he know that; how does he know that-
“I won’t laugh, promise.”
“Wait, but-” Satoru huffs, “Why do you think it’s my favorite?”
“Apart from-” he gestures at Satoru’s entirety, “-all that?” Suguru shrugs. “I’ve seen you read it, like, at least three times.”
Six times, actually. This is his seventh. He’s reread the sequel, too - but only four times. And the third one hasn’t come out yet.
But Suguru doesn’t know that.
And Suguru shouldn’t know any of that because Suguru doesn’t read at all so it’s weird that he’s paid attention to what Satoru is reading or what he’s holding or that he recognizes the cover or even the name-
“Maybe I just-” Satoru splutters, “Maybe I never finished it. ‘Cause I hated it so much. I had to like, stop and start a ton.”
“You never quit a book. You always finish reading them, even if you hate them.”
Satoru stares down at him, picking apart his words and his face and looking for any hint that Suguru might actually laugh, even if he says he won’t - and… Suguru doesn’t even squirm under his gaze.
“And you don’t reread a lot of books,” Suguru adds, softer.
“...Yeah,” Satoru mumbles. “I mean, you’re right. It’s my favorite.”
Because it’s fantasy - it’s good fantasy - and Satoru loves fantasy. He loves the worldbuilding - how in fantasy, he can spend a little time in a universe totally unlike their own. And he loves magic, especially when it’s different from his own sorcery.
Satoru loves it most when magic doesn’t look anything like jujutsu at all.
When it’s pretty, and intuitive, and the rules are actually consistent.
When you can understand anything - and control it - as long as you know its name.
“I-I have to start from the beginning, though,” Satoru says, sucking in a nervous breath. “Um. Otherwise you’re not gonna understand anything.”
Suguru chuckles. “You know I’m probably gonna fall asleep, right?”
It’s also his favorite ‘cause like, the protagonist is sort of… different. He’s not big and strong, he doesn’t have a magic greatsword or magic armor or a dead wife. He’s kind of just… a guy. He’s a bard - a storyteller - just some kid with a lute. He’s not a child of prophecy, or the defiant son of a king, or a girl with a bow (which is fine, there’s just a lot of girls with bows in fantasy). He’s just a kid who sees a lot, and thinks a lot, and that’s all he needs to know magic; to control it.
He hasn’t done it all yet. He hasn’t gotten the girl, and he hasn’t learned the name of everything. But he will, Satoru bets, in book three. And maybe - in his own life - Satoru’s still in book two. Maybe he’s still in the prologue.
“Well,” Satoru reasons, “You’re definitely going to fall asleep if you don’t know what’s going on. So…”
Suguru smiles, slow as honey, and Satoru’s heart gets stuck in it - sticky, sweet, and warm. “Whatever,” he sighs, “Knock yourself out.”
So Satoru fumblingly flips to the first page. Not the real first page, because that’s book reviews, and then there’s acknowledgements after that. Satoru’s hands shake as he flips to the important first page - the first page of the story. His lips shake too - as he starts, as he stutters, as he says-
“I-it was n-night again. Um,” Satoru clears his throat. “The Waystone Inn l-lay in silence…”
Suguru’s eyes slip shut, and his cursed energy blooms into the space between them, mingling with Satoru’s own. It’s intoxicating. Potent fumes, frantic energy, and a thousand colors. And then, of course, there’s Suguru’s head in his lap - eyes closed, throat bared, showing all the sides of himself he’s hidden behind walls Satoru didn’t even know if he could peek through, let alone tear down.
But he’s gotten so far, and it’s just - it’s precious, it’s delicate, and Satoru doesn’t know how long he can hold this without breaking it. Because the thing is, he’s only ever been good at breaking things. Because his hands tend to shake sometimes, when he gets nervous. Not that that really explains why he’s so prone to breaking people. Or parts of people. But he is. At least, he must be, with his track record.
Satoru doesn’t want to break this. He doesn’t want Suguru to leave. So he holds his breath, and he tries to stay still, and he swallows it up. He swallows Suguru’s energy until it fills his lungs. He swallows until it starts to choke him. He swallows until he feels light headed.
He swallows until it’s nothing but silence and nothing but stillness. Because it seems like any sound might shatter them like glass, and any shift might send them tumbling down from their low earth orbit. So Satoru stays silent and he stays still, because maybe-
Maybe-
Maybe if he just stays still for the rest of his life then Suguru will stay still too.
“...Wow, is that the whole book?”
Suguru’s eyes slide open - violet, shimmery and soft. He’s brave enough to speak, and delicate enough to not break something like them without meaning to. Suguru stares up at him, and he smirks.
“Well, I can see why you’ve reread it so many times.”
“Shut up,” Satoru huffs, his chest still shaky and overfilled with helium. He flicks Suguru’s temple. “It’s just…” He feels the heat rise into his cheeks. And Suguru probably sees it, because his smile softens.
“Satoru,” Suguru says gently. “I’m not gonna laugh at you.” His cursed energy swirls pink, and it tastes like soapy lavender. “Except when you deserve it.”
And everything slows, everything stills. And everything goes silent, even the ringing in his ears, the buzzing on his skin.
But the silence doesn’t feel deafening.
With Suguru, it just feels like silence.
“Besides…” Suguru’s eyes crinkle at the edges as he grins at Satoru. “I’ll probably fall asleep first.”
“Shut up.” Satoru huffs. He sucks up Suguru’s cursed energy, and his smile, and the light in his eyes. And he swallows it.
And though it’s a little shallow, he starts to breathe.
And though it’s a little shaky, he starts to speak.
“The Waystone Inn lay in silence,” Satoru begins again, “and it was a silence of three parts.”
-:-
Satoru isn’t sure how long he sleeps for. It doesn’t feel like that long when he finally wakes up lucid enough to think about it. But his arms go wobbly when he tries to push himself up. His throat feels like the sandstorm-ravaged desert. And his eyes feel like they’re glued shut under the scratchy sleep mask.
The Six Eyes are back, though.
Ohhh yeah. They’re back alright, and they don’t seem particularly happy to be here. Satoru knows that as soon as he wakes up, because everywhere - everything that touches him feels like concrete scraping against his skin. He tears the sleep mask off, tossing it away from the bed. He instantly recoils. As uncomfortable as the rough satin was, it was his only shield, and now -
“Fuck-”
The light from the windows is bright enough to blind him, even though it can’t be past - he checks the clock - it’s only seven in the morning. The sunlight, blue-tinted and dim, is still cruel enough to sear the Six Eyes. He fumbles to close his blackout curtains - which - he thought he’d left them shut, before he left. He doesn’t remember, though. He remembers most of that night very fucking clearly. But everything after he decided to cut and run has turned to mush. He wasn’t thinking straight. He sure was thinking, though. Say one thing about Gojo Satoru, he’s always thinking. Not that it’s really helped him much.
He falls back into the sheets, blocking his burned eyes with his hands. He counts to six, then sixty, then six-hundred.
It’s tempting to just… stay in his bed until he rots. Satoru already feels like a dead man walking. Maybe he should just save them all the trouble and do some method acting. He’s sure Shoko wouldn’t be too upset. Suguru… Maybe, but he’d get over it, right?
…Nah
They deserve a punching bag, at least.
Satoru takes a deep breath, and pushes himself up again. His whole body aches. His atrophied muscles scream out, condemning him for his lethargy. It’s fine. He needed the rest. Three months in the great northern wilderness gave him enough muscle to lose. He hasn’t melted into goop yet. Well, not all of him. His heart’s been a little less than solid for a while now.
Slowly, painfully, Satoru rolls out of bed. He’s strong enough to stand, but his steps are clumsy. He ends up mostly dragging himself along the wall. He dresses, slowly, picking out a boring, stiff uniform from the hanging row of boring, stiff uniforms. He doesn’t hate the uniform, but it feels a little bit like putting on an old snakeskin; too dry and too tight. His button down closes over his torso, but it pulls a little bit at the top of his chest. And the shoulders feel too small. And Satoru feels-
He feels wrong.
Everything feels wrong.
It has since he woke up. The air feels wrong, like it’s too thick, even for Tokyo’s usual humidity. His room feels wrong, like it’s someone else’s. But it’s not like anyone’s dressed the place up; it’s not even like it looks any different. Satoru’s room looks like it belongs to a ghost - but it always has. Maybe it’s finally haunted for real.
Satoru finally emerges like a bear awakening from his long hibernation. Not a polar bear, though - apparently those don’t actually hibernate. Which makes sense, because - having been there himself - Satoru can attest that it’s kinda always winter up that far north. If you go to sleep and it’s cold, and then you wake up and it’s still cold - like, what’s the point?
So Satoru emerges like a brown or black or grizzly bear (which, by the way, don’t technically hibernate either - it’s torpor, which is similar but not technically-), shaking off what feels like months of sleep. The birds are chirping, and the air isn’t too cold. Slowly, the sunlight has turned from blue to pink to gold. His eyes still burn, but his tinted sunglasses are enough to keep them from disintegrating, so, that’s going to have to be good enough. It’s spring - all of the markers are there. But spring is supposed to feel bright and warm and lively. And all Satoru feels is dread.
Cold, heavy, creeping up his spine. Satoru feels dread crawling on his skin, a thousand spiderlike limbs skittering over his cursed senses. He feels too twitchy, too nervous, too alert-
It’s just - he’s probably just getting used to civilization again. There weren’t a lot of people in the arctic - not a lot of cursed energy, either. And beyond sorcery, the woods were quiet; blankets of snow deadened the sound. Even the sky was mostly blank - just white and grey, no color at all.
But the dread builds, and it builds, and it keeps building. It pricks at Satoru like little shocks of static. And it chokes him, like a cloud of cursed smog. It’s not - he can’t even - if it is a special grade curse or some shit, he’s probably gonna die. Satoru hasn’t tried using Limitless yet, but if it’s still busted, then he’s probably about to get rolled.
Eh.
Satoru’s never been particularly good with self-preservation. And right now, he can’t find a lot of himself that he’d like to preserve. So Satoru follows the prickly cursed energy, half-hoping it leads him right off a cliff. It does, sort of. It leads him down the hallway, past the kitchen, right to the training grounds. And there, perched on the railing, cradling a cigarette and a cup of black coffee - that’s where he finds it.
That’s where he finds Suguru.
That’s where he finds the wrong.
His cursed energy is fucked. Slimy, twisty tendrils of it swirl around him - curling, coiling, choking him out. They flash with static energy, crackling as they arc right into his skin. It’s crazy Suguru’s not screaming; it’s fucking insane he’s not even flinching.
And his energy, the pretty, shiny, milky opalescence he’s always carried in his chest - it’s just… black.
It’s all void now. Endlessly deep, not even a hint of color. It’s dangerous, prickly, and it pulls at Satoru in like a black hole, stringing him into mindless spaghetti. It’ll hurt if he touches it - Satoru knows that for sure, even without testing the theory. The way it looks - oily, electric - it makes the Six Eyes squeeze shut. But he forces them open, he forces them to look.
It’s hard, at first, to find Suguru under the miasma. He’s not the right shape - not the one Satoru expects. He’s smaller - is he smaller? Is it just his posture? Is it a trick of the light - or a trick of his cursed energy - or did Satoru actually not fucking remember him right?
Because he doesn’t look right. Suguru’s high-collared jacket swallows him whole. It’s more than a little loose - the shoulders are way too big on him now. They slump down at the edge, hollow where they used to be filled out perfectly. Even with the jacket hiding his shape, Satoru can tell that he looks thin. Suguru’s cheeks are sunken in, pale and dull under bruised, baggy eyes. And his lips, wrapped around a stub of a cigarette, are red and chapped. His hair is down - Suguru never fucking wears his hair down, not unless Satoru’s stolen all his hair ties. The inky, black strands fall well past his shoulders, dull and tangled. He doesn’t look anything like the Geto Suguru he left in December. But he does look like…
“Suguru…”
Like the Geto Suguru he met at 15.
Like the Geto Suguru suffocating in his own sorcery.
Like the Geto Suguru he was too clumsy to hold, too undesirable to keep, too fidgety to fuck, too defective to love, too slow to help, too fucking incompetent to save-
“Oh.”
Suguru turns. Sees him. Smiles - no - he doesn’t smile, his lips just twitch. And then, instantly, the void bursts. It feels like glass shards slicing his tongue open. It’s strong, so strong Satoru almost doubles over. It burns like liquor, and it tastes like ash, like smoke, like iron. Sharp little bolts of cursed energy arc off of him, spitting out like knives. And Suguru stares at him, into him - no trace of color in his eyes - no lilac petals, no syrupy violet, no glint of amethyst. Just black.
And hate hate hate-
“Hey, Satoru.”