Chapter Text
Two bodies drop from a tall distance above the earth. One toppled onto the other in a heap between grime and dust when they hit the lawn of Jujutsu High’s track field. The grass below them is alight with flaming embers and the steaming of concrete rubble. The combination threatens to ignite their equally cursed bodies.
Suguru hears a whisper- no, a broken reverse incantation being spoken as the heavenly ropes around his ankles and wrists loosen, finally freeing his dexterity. Despite it, there’s already a grip on his biceps, pulling him away from the hundred candle wicks of burning debris beneath him. Suguru is heaved into a firm chest that holds him, it tries to relieve his quaking frame. But Suguru feels too weird, too volatile.
His world spins off the axis. He salivates like a dog from his gums.
Suguru frees himself from the warm grasp by only a few inches to keel over and dry heave phlegm from the emptiness of his stomach onto the grass where his newly planted palms struggle to keep him stable. The gooeyness of the stringy mucus clings to the corners of his mouth as it drips to the ground.
He gasps and spits twice trying to rid the unwelcome taste in his mouth. Suguru begins to wipe away the drool with a robe sleeve when a pause takes over, gaining him an awareness of his surroundings. Namely, the person who’s underneath him. The one who cradled him after the fall. The only person who attentively pulls his low ribbon-bound ponytail off his shoulder and away from his seasick face. A level of care not lost in the moment.
“Infinity makes you feel a little lightheaded the first time, doesn’t it?”
Blown black pupils pin upward through thick midnight lashes to see a beautiful face covered in deep reddened burns and soot. Hair that was so pristinely white is ash-ridden, scorched really, and shortened on most layers. Stunning globes of warm crystalline blues look dull, drained of their heavenly powers. There are red streaks of veins sprawling in the whites of those kind eyes, too.
And if they aren’t dead, Suguru figures he must be dreaming.
“I love you too, by the way,” Satoru proclaims in a huff, head lulling to the side from loss of strength.
Satoru looks limp. Unwell, even. Like maybe he’d accidentally skipped out on the death part of this despite the blood covering his pale face and neck. Nevertheless defiant in how his body quaked with every short breath that left the shallow parting of his maroon-stained lips.
Suguru has to be dreaming.
“I’m… S-Satoru, you’re…” Suguru stumbles through the sentence before pushing off the pads of his palms and snatching the slightly taller man into a deep hug. It brings Suguru closer to the ground where Satoru lies. The robes of white slowly soak up the puddling of blood from where the fabric lays across Satoru’s beaten body. “You’re alive?!” Suguru fears to ask, yet Satoru chuckles in response.
The Gojo clan sorcerer breathes heartily amid a short cough and struggles to connect the syllables of laughter like he’s just finished a triathlon. “We’re alive, but you have to go,” The words come more airy and loose this time, deluded really. Like he’s not even sure if he believes himself when he speaks. After all, somehow they ended up here. Outside the old auditorium hall and miles of earth's mantle above the others. “Where do you want to go? I’ll send you,” Satoru asks a little belatedly as his eyes come to a calm close as if he were flipping through a brochure with a myriad of vacation destinations behind his eyelids.
“Wha-? Satoru,” Suguru props himself on his elbows above the other man, taking a good look at the damage his other half has sustained. The bleeding cuts on those nimble porcelain hands and scorch marks on his typically tidy clothes. There are rips and gashes and slices just about everywhere on Satoru’s toned, lanky frame. The smear of still-wet blood on his lips from his nosebleed- his chin and neck decorated the same from the overflow of what’s likely a burst internal organ. The horror leaves Suguru with more questions than answers. “What did you do…? How…?”
Beautifully lacy, blood-tarnished lashes batted upward, “I used your prosthetic arm as an amplifier. It was the only way I could transport us both here without touching you.” Satoru sleepily sighs and licks his lips like he’s drying up by just saying a few words. “I can’t believe it worked…”
Suguru raises the sleeve of his robe and begins to wipe away the smearing of blood and ash with care. Satoru lets him. The sleeves of his robe increasingly turn muddy from the cleanup. Satoru hisses a little when Suguru grazes one of his many deep burn marks.
But Satoru continues talking- nevertheless making understanding out of the unknown, “I only recently learned that a doubly imbued tool could kill you, for better or worse I guess. But in the same vein, I figured it could protect you if I exercised control over it…”
Suguru pauses his clean-up and searches such a stunning face for any trace of lies. “You maniac,” Suguru scolds, almond eyes narrowing.
Satoru breathes a little slower now as he relaxes the back of his heavy head into the dewy grass, unphased by the other sorcerer’s disbelief. The sweat on his pearly yet dingy skin glistens under the soft light of the moon, and Suguru realizes that Satoru’s job here is done. That Suguru himself is going to be responsible for getting them both out of here before anyone discovers where they’ve gone.
“Hey, Satoru,” Suguru beckons softly while rubbing a thumb pad across his partner’s forehead. It pushes away a thin layer of soot. He cards Satoru’s hair over his scalp in a calm stroke, and some of the hairs come loose and fall out completely even with the softened caress. “I need to get us past the school gates in order to call upon my flying curse. If I do it here, it’ll set off the alarms. We gotta move now though, so I’ll help you walk, okay?”
Satoru’s eyes are closed again. His breaths arrive shallow, additionally slow.
“Hey… Satoru,” Suguru’s fingers tremble as Satoru’s posture melts into his solid hold.
Satoru blinks from behind his lids, “My ribs hurt. And I think the fall broke my leg… or my hip, I can’t tell,” he cringes, attempting to apologetically smile through the pain. “You should go, I’ll be fine.”
Suguru’s pupils eclipse his irises. He’s propelled into pulling the limp man off the ground and into the fullness of his chest. Far more than a leg or hip broken by the way Satoru snarls and bites into Suguru’s fabric-covered shoulder from the agony. Suguru pets his lover’s back particularly gently until Satoru’s teeth release the hold. Satoru’s face falls into Suguru’s collarbone and this allows Suguru to get his hands into a secure position around that failing, gorgeously muscled body. “Satoru, stay with me. Is your RCT working?”
Satoru nods as he’s hoisted over Suguru’s shoulder with a grunt. Unaware and uncaring when Suguru gets him into the fireman’s carry position. Satoru is a mere sack of potatoes within Suguru’s protective hold, and it’s then that Suguru feels the warmth of a wetness grace his shoulders and back. Satoru’s open wounds slowly bleed against the remaining pristine whites of the robes that cover Suguru’s flesh.
Suguru palms at Satoru’s neck and face to get him comfortable on his shoulder. He kisses into a damp temple of ash-ridden ivory as he nearly begs, “Toru, stay awake for me, okay?”
With the nimbleness of an athlete, Suguru gets them away from the wide open space of the field. Yet, by the time they manage to meet the labyrinth of the school’s grounds, Suguru is reaching deep into his personal trauma of memories to find his way out of Jujutsu High.
With every pressing foot to the cobblestone, Suguru encounters a heavy resistance. As if the ghosts of the past are slithering through the cracks to grab at his ankles, clawing at his loosening bandages, and attempting to rip him back down to the hell from which they came. The threat consumes every hasty step as the men slide through corridors chock full of painful history and slip into tight alleyways brimming with what-ifs.
Suguru is far from aware, but he’s an emulation of none other than Atlas himself. He is living proof of war far lost to the ever-powerful Jujutsu society as he carries the heavens of Satoru’s weeping blood on his literal shoulders. Though at least in their realer-than-mythological version, Satoru whispers corrections when Suguru doubts the steps he takes, and Suguru cheks on Satoru’s pulse when the man on his back becomes intelligible.
But it’s when a certain set of poorly repaired stonework comes into view that Suguru pauses their trek full stop. Something like Deja Vu seeps into his mind. A delusion? Or something he’d long forgotten? Suguru couldn’t put a finger on it. But there were half-ass cleaned blood stains that left discoloration on the concrete, and a shotty layer of caulk between cracked bricking. The scene like a memoir that Suguru could only read from a distance.
The combination of familiarity and fatedness kept Suguru in place.
Suguru shuts his eyelids. In brevity, he recalls the split moment of nightmare before he awoke on that decrepit stage to a lovely essence of cursed energy and those darling blue hues.
Suguru has to blink the tragedy away, “Satoru, what happened here?”
Without opening those dulled aqua eyes to peek at their location, Satoru responds in a voice that’s nearly foreign to them both, “This is where I found you.” Satoru’s foggy consciousness swarmed with the familiarity of the few minutes that Suguru would never remember. “You’d told me I was late, and I almost really was.”
Suguru’s palms wrapped around Satoru’s leg and arm to hold the injured man closer to his body.
But here they were now, only fifty-some feet away from the exit of Jujutsu High. A short distance that would’ve released Suguru from the chains of the society. A small proximity to freedom that would allow him to return to his family after the war on Christmas Eve.
Yet, he didn’t make it. That much Satoru made sure of.
Satoru as responsible for the faux pas as much as Suguru himself.
“We’re almost there,” Suguru’s chest tightens with grief though his body strengthens as if he’d been given the blessing of raw adrenaline. Because Satoru saved him back then. Suguru couldn’t let the mourning of a fate that never happened ruin his determination now. He has to do his part, return the eternal favor and get them the fuck out of here.
Suguru only looked back once before crossing the threshold to the school’s barrier. His heart climbs his throat when he sees the ghost of a crouched silhouette sobbing, holding a rain-wetted bouquet of blue and white flowers between clenched fingers near the dismantled stonework floor of that alley.
Suguru hoped it was the last time he’d ever see it again.
Beyond the barrier, Suguru calls upon his flying curse.
A rather large dragonfly steps out from a wall of darkness, its wings a little bent and torn. It’s a headless creature, capable of devastation all on its own but relying only on the sight of its master for navigation to kill.
“Satoru, this one’s not as smooth of a ride as Rainbow Dragon.” Suguru coaches, lifting Satoru onto the cursed bug to sit near the missing head and then hopping up behind him. The man in bloodied white robes wraps himself around his passenger. Their fingers lace, Satoru’s blistered reds underneath Suguru’s calloused tan. Suguru presses the weight of his palms over them, intentionally moving them from Satoru’s chest to his lower torso to keep his beloved in place before take-off. Yet Suguru can feel the ashen-haired man’s rib cage reconstructing itself from under his protective digits, reverse cursed technique whirring on low to keep its master barely alive. “So, please hold onto me.”
Satoru does more than that. He nuzzles into Suguru’s neck from the side, slumping a little lower within Suguru’s grasp so he can rest his face on Suguru’s cheek and gauged ear. The smear of Satoru’s own blood lifts from Suguru’s clothing and wets the nape of his pale neck. So tired, Satoru dreams awake, but I’m glad he’s here. Satoru can feel the cotton fabric of Suguru’s borrowed traditional robes through the tatters of his destroyed teacher’s uniform, it comforts him. “I think we need to leave Japan, can this thing handle that?” He muffles drowsily into Suguru’s neck.
The dragonfly takes its notice as Suguru commands it with his curse manipulation technique. The curse’s wings begin to flutter and hover before picking up distance from the ground as it ascends into the coolness of night air. “It can,” Suguru confirms, squeezing his hands over Satoru’s to keep their bodies close. “But I have to make a stop first, and then we can go wherever we want.”
Satoru’s hazy blues peek upward at the strong, tenacious crow's feet by those fox-like eyes.
“A stop…?”
____
The dragonfly curse lands atop a building nearer the countryside. Closer to where Satoru had driven Suguru many months ago. Exactly where Suguru had been living his life for the last ten years.
Satoru recognized it as he would. He’d been here plenty of times by now. Just… without Suguru.
And without Suguru knowing. Nights where he’d take to the sky because his soul itched to see what his old friend was up to. He’d float a few miles overhead and beam down his six-eyed gaze to track the footsteps of a very important, incredibly wanted cult leader with black hair and dark gojo-kesa robes.
Suguru’s temple of worship was average in size, with no grand additions since the last time Satoru had spied on it some years ago. But admittedly, he’d never been this close. Certainly had never stepped onto its roof like this nor entered the building through its roof access door.
“You look a little better, but your abrasions aren’t healing great…” Suguru says as he leads the two of them down flights of stairs and through hallways, still somewhat holding onto Satoru just in case his tired frame collapses.
“It took longer than I expected for my reverse curse technique to kick in, I think,” Satoru ponders aloud, voice still a little hoarse from the iron taste of blood tickling the rawness of his throat. He believes the transportation he pulled off may have permanently damaged part of his lungs or heart. No matter, Suguru didn’t need to know.
Suguru side-eyes him, reads the doubt on that ever-truthful face, “Satoru, you hurt yourself pretty badly, didn’t you? Let’s stop for now so you can rest-”
“It’s not important,” Satoru corrects, leaning into the other man for balance as his continually healing hip and leg falter.
Suguru scoffs, raven eyes alight, “My ass.”
“You’re here for the girls, right? You need to see them. I’ll rest on the flight when we’re done here.”
Suguru’s stormy stare eases despite wanting to scold the other. Just how much is Satoru willing to sacrifice? His power with the school, his health… for me?
The two sorcerers wind around another set of stairs and eventually face a large wooden double door. Suguru adjusts his grip on the waist he’s holding, “This will lead us to where my family should be. Larue was to move the girls out of my house if I didn’t return alive. So…”
“So I’ll stay here, do what you have to do, Suguru. I’ll wait for you.” Satoru tilts his head onto Suguru’s shoulder as he says it, almost snuggling the man like a jealous cat before peeling away from the hold that kept him safe and upright. Wobbly footsteps lead Satoru toward the wall of the hallway, where he leans instead. His arms cross over his chest and he smiles with a ray of pretty teeth despite how dirty his hair, face, and clothes remain. “Go on,” the man encourages.
But the door opens before Suguru has a chance to do so himself.
“Geto?!” Miguel blurts out, clearly in disbelief over the sorcerer that stands before him. Like the great protector Miguel is, he’s wielding his cursed tool in hand. Seemingly on the hunch that something, or someone, had entered their sacred space. “You’re alive?!” He gapes like a fish, but before he can pull the long-dead sorcerer into a hug of relief, his energy is alight. Because although The Suguru Geto, curse user extraordinaire, stands before him, the condition that The Suguru Geto, their family member and friend, presents in is unforgivable.
For one, Suguru is adorned in robes of foreign origin, and they’re blood-soaked from his shoulders to his chest. There are bandages wrapped around the skin on Suguru’s ankles and one of his arms and- were those metal fingers?! Miguel didn’t even consider the scars on Suguru’s face, his hardened brown eyes too pinned with blame on one very unwelcome guest. Miguel’s body chooses fight instead of flight as he pushes past Suguru to get nose-to-nose with the person he harbors the most fury with. “Why the fuck are you here?!”
“Miguel, he’s with me-”
“Miguel? Did you find someone out there- holy shit, Geto??” Larue enters the room from behind the ajar door, cautious walk molding into a sprint when he sees their should-be-deceased commander in faith.
Satoru is tired, but not shy, “Wanna go for round two, Miguel? I’m a bit strapped for time but I’ll make it quick.”
Miguel winds back to punch the sharp-tongued man, Suguru fits himself between them quickly, snapping Miguel’s wrist mid-air before it can land the strike.
Larue is entering the breadth of the hall now, awestruck.
“Miguel, I’m asking you to listen.” Suguru scolds as Miguel’s fist weakens- the attacking man steps back a pace. Satoru is looking smug and Suguru’s unsure if Miguel is going to wind up for another chance to strike the Gojo heir down. “He’s the reason I’m alive right now, he’s the reason I’m here at all,” Suguru snaps. “I apologize for not coming back sooner, but I didn’t really have a choice. Will you listen to me now?” Suguru is more conscious of putting distance between Miguel and Satoru this time, walking chest forward into Miguel to back him away.
Larue, bless him, is still so amazed that Suguru is alive that he endorses his leader without hesitation. “Miguel, Geto is here.” He confirms as if repeating it will help the proof sink in for both of them. “What happened? Are you staying?” Larue questions, and it catches Miguel’s attention long enough for him to forfeit his animosity.
“Afraid not,” Suguru sighs answering half the question, a little heated from the encounter himself. “Neither of us are,” he continues, clearly looking over his shoulder to Satoru. Suguru catches that childish grin slip from his partner’s face like he’s been caught red-handed. The midnight haired sorcerer exhales, a little less on edge. “And we can’t stay long either. But I had to make it back here first- to see you two, to see them…”
Larue’s lightly colored eyes trace over Suguru like he’s a wax replica come to life. Mind sipping from the cup of reality, his heart enamored. Still incredulous that Suguru stands before him. “Come,” he says, pushing the door open wide as if to invite the rightful ruler of this very land back to his throne. “The girls are tucked in, but we should wake them now if you don’t have much time.”
Miguel seethes and Satoru anxiously bites into his lip.
Suguru nods his head before bowing respectfully and enters. Hs pseudo-children emerge into the space at precisely the same moment.
“Papa Geto?!” From the middle of the small meeting room, Nanako speaks as she grabs Mimiko’s nightshirt with an iron fist. Mimiko wipes the sleep away from her enlarging chestnut-toned eyes.
Nanako’s thin blonde lashes bat over her cheeks, almost fluttering as her lids widen to grasp the father figure she’s missed so torturously. Mimiko stands frozen- Nanako’s hand grasping her sister’s sleepwear like a vice.
“Nanako… Mimiko…,” Seeing the girls brings more emotions to the forefront than Suguru would like to admit. His eyes swell with tears and he can’t understand why his vision became so blurry this fast. Suguru kneels to his princesses, careful to not frighten them as his presence once did by the train station.
But the girls thwart all hesitation and push each other out of the way to race toward him, neither first nor last, both swept up into strong arms, human and non, to convey the swelling feeling infecting Suguru’s broken heart.
“I love you, Lord Geto,” the blonde sobs.
“I love you, Geto Papa,” the brunette cries.
“We love you, we love you, we love you.”
The girls babble every beloved nickname they can conjure into Suguru’s stained robes and his obsidian hair as he hugs them tight. Suguru feels weak. He’s startled by how much they’ve grown and how their voices have slightly matured. His face is too warm, completely overwhelmed by their loving presence when he fits his cheeks between their ears. Suguru holds their delicate heads with his big hands and effortlessly admits to them in sniffling whispers- “I missed you so much, I love you so, so, so much.”
Satoru’s heart squeezes, a recognition clawing at his gut. It feels like jealousy, but that’s just the wolf in sheep's clothing that prevents him from admitting his guilt. After all, he’d kept Suguru from doing something even remotely close to this for months on end.
Overwhelmed, Satoru takes a single step forward into the room.
“You can’t go in there,” Miguel states, still fuming under his cooling demeanor.
“Wasn’t going to,” Satoru defiantly sticks his tongue out.
Larue begrudgingly plops onto one of the couches. He may be stuck with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum arguing, but he’s thankful that Suguru is back- that Suguru is alive. Even if the visit only lasts for a few fleeting moments in the middle of the night.
Miguel hasn’t moved more than two feet from Satoru yet, watching the man like a hawk as if any sudden move would provoke an altercation. “If you think for one fucking second that the air you breathe is free, I will cut you down where you stand.” Miguel chides, voice deep and unshaken.
In the past week, Satoru faced the very harrowing reality of his worst nightmare manifesting. Losing Suguru was no mild feat. To then be captured like an animal and kept in a solitary confinement of sorts within the Prison Realm, which led him to virtually exterminate himself to keep Suguru alive. It would be best to believe his composure with Miguel may be short-lived. “As if it isn’t apparent, I’m not here to fight,” Satoru confirms, still mostly reeling from his trials and tribulations, getting dangerously close to a breaking point. “But I’m also feeling rather provoked these days. If it weren’t for that man over there, I would have decimated you by now.”
Larue rolls his eyes.
Miguel lurches to shove Satoru at the shoulders. Satoru uncaring to use his infinity, allows him.
“Guys,” Larue chirps, irritated.
But Miguel is already in Satoru’s face again, and he’s livid, “To think he’s been with you since he disappeared disgusts me.”
A single thin dirty silver brow cocks upward, “I’ve done what you couldn’t. To think you and your group allowed him to announce war in the first place shows a lot of awareness on your part,” Satoru snickered, still casually holding the conversation like he should be phased by Miguel’s stance.
“You motherfucker-” Miguel growled, wound back for the second time, and decked Satoru square in the jaw. The crack of the impact had Larue’s mouth hanging open, Miguel shaking out his hand, and Satoru laughing.
“Miguel,” Suguru hissed, baring his teeth like a mighty serpent. He’s standing now, a girl glued to each hip, Mimiko and Nanako still teary from being reunited with their pseudo-father.
Miguel turns on a heel, “You’ve been with him all this time. What were you thinking, Geto?!” He begs for an answer- for something to make this make sense.
Turns out, the girls weren’t his only family who felt abandoned, neglected, and hurt.
“I don’t need your forgiveness, but it would behoove you to lend me your understanding,” Though Suguru still wears a snarl, he speaks with composure as he approaches, the girls holding onto his clothing as he walks. When he finally reaches the men, he closes in on Satoru. A strong thumb and forefinger tilt Satoru’s chin to the side so he can assess the damage. Beneath his fingers, bone and teeth move back into place. Satoru’s reversed cursed technique slowly acts to take care of the breakage of marrow and gum.
Though Satoru lets his partner touch him, he faintly cringes from the thumping pain as he heals his jaw.
Suguru’s iron stare leaks its view to Miguel and then Larue, and back to Miguel. The cult leader, back on his rightful throne knows what Miguel has done is severely reprehensible, but he can’t fault the man when Suguru himself is the one who owes an explanation to them all. “It’s my fault-”
“It’s my fault,” Satoru speaks up, cutting off the other. Nimble fingers are gaining their porcelain color back since they’ve taken ample time to heal from the burns and callouses- and Satoru uses them to remove Suguru’s gentle hand. Satoru rubs the skin where he was just assaulted. “I kept him a secret from you, from everyone. I can imagine that’s hard to stomach. But I’m not sorry for it,” Satoru remains steadfast, even when the girls meet his gaze in astonishment. “Do you really think your family would’ve been able to keep him safe? Hell, he’s difficult. He disobeyed me at almost every turn and made me question myself more than I ever had. I could barely keep a handle on him myself.”
“Satoru,” Suguru tries.
The sooty haired sorcerer shakes his head and continues, “You can be upset with me, Miguel. But he’s my one and only friend, and I’ll protect him until my last breath. Against the society, against anyone- even you.”
Satoru is far too righteous, and Miguel scoffs about it. But nevertheless acquiesces without choice in the face of truth. Larue welcomes him to calm down with a palm gripping the man’s big shoulder.
With the room at a new calm, Larue insists that Suguru and Satoru take a clean change of clothes. Equally discarding the blood and grime with a hot shower, washcloths, and soap.
It allows the two a breath. A pause in the chaos they’ve endured. It provides comfort in the form of Suguru’s favorite forest green samue pants and shirt he’d wear in the after-hours when he still very much lived his old life in this temple. He sits upon the couch cushions in them now, his daughters each attached to a hip, conversing with Miguel and Larue as he awaits Satoru’s emergence from the shower. Time passes with questions about Nanako’s and Mimiko’s health, their schooling, and their sorcery practice. Miguel and Larue have reservations about asking questions of their own, but Suguru encourages them- wanting them to feel comfortable despite the distance of time that separates them. All the while, the girls busy their small hands by brushing the partition of long onyx hair, each given a handful to braid and care for. Suguru knew it would comfort them, or maybe selfishly that it would provide solace for him the same.
In the bathroom, Satoru tries not to blush as he watches the mirror’s reflection of himself tie the ribbons of the black linen samue shirt across his chest. Satoru is wearing Suguru’s clothing for once. Not the other way around. Not garments which have been purchased out of necessity, nor to be shared. And Suguru’s temple clothes feel like Suguru, too. They’re protective yet soft to the touch. Durable yet identically stylish. Satoru wanted nothing more than to acquire samue sets of their own when he and Suguru found their haven away from the storm.
When he finally emerges from the bathroom and is greeted by Suguru’s soft, peaceful smile, his beloved looking just as charmed to see Satoru wearing his clothing, Satoru makes a mental note to do just that.
Suguru gets to talk with everyone for a little under twenty-five minutes. He tells of the bits and pieces he remembers from the warfare on Christmas Eve. Satoru fills in where he can’t recall. They speak together about Suguru’s scars, his recovery, about gaining his independence. They inform the girls that yes, it was Suguru who came to visit them near the train station that day. Suguru apologizes for it, tears slipping down his cheeks as Nanako and Mimiko cuddle into his body- the three of them identically weepy.
Satoru picks up the story where Kenjaku comes into play. This information is news to Suguru, a newly painted portrait of the man who aimed to steal his body and power. Satoru had thought about skipping over it, but the urge to warn Suguru’s family was too strong, as it would be uncertain who this demon’s next target could be if Suguru was gone- or if he’d gun for Suguru regardless, no matter how many thousands of miles away they can put between themselves and Japan.
Suguru speaks of their escape from Jujutsu High and their plans for the future, which aren’t plans at all because they haven’t discussed where they’ll go, or rather, where they’ll be safe.
There’s so much information that Suguru wants to share with his family but he’s out of time. Satoru’s too cautious, he can’t get his eyes off the clock in the room for even a second. “I think we need to get going,” Satoru states with certainty, standing from the couch on which he sits with Larue.
Mimiko is almost finished braiding Suguru’s hair for the tenth time when she asks, “Geto Papa, will we see you again?” Nanako passes her sister a hair tie, nodding her head as if telepathy allowed her to ask the same question. Suguru pulls them in for another too-tight hug, disrupting the handy work to kiss their foreheads as he’s missed doing for all those months apart. “I don’t want you to leave,” Nanako finishes for her sister.
Suguru’s charcoal gaze finds a ray of tender blue irises when he looks up. There’s a parallel understanding that’s shared without words, perhaps a promise from Satoru that he’ll make sure this isn’t the last time Suguru gets to see his family. And Suguru believes him. “If I could take you with me today, I would. But I’ll be back to check on both of you. If you’ll give me some time?”
The girls huddle in tighter than before, nearly climbing into Suguru’s lap to nod their heads. Suguru can feel the silent tear drops soaking through his green linen samue shirt when he pulls them into a hug and kisses the tops of their heads once more. It breaks his heart to repeat his absence, but at least this time they know he’s alive. They know he’ll return.
Because Suguru has conviction if nothing else. Because Suguru keeps his promises now. Even the one he makes to Miguel and Larue as he and Satoru exit through the door from which they’d entered, “I will be back to see all of you. So do right by me, and keep our family safe. Satoru will count on you just as much as I will.” Suguru finishes by nodding the command. Larue and Miguel nod back their confirmation of it. Satoru’s ivory brows furrow in misunderstanding, but waiting here any longer would increase the grave risks they’ve already taken tonight.
Satoru is already on the dragonfly curse when Suguru hops up and wills it to whisk them away above the night clouds.
The flight to nowhere isn’t so much as treacherous, but quiet and a bit chilly. Satoru holds on like he’s told, and Suguru gets them across Japan’s borders in search of a new haven.
“How did you know where to find me?” Suguru asks, catching Satoru’s attention.
“Hmm?”
“I thought I wasn’t going to make it during the fight with that… man. The Kenjaku curse,” the heavily scarred sorcerer clarifies.
“Another indirect effect of my energy existing within your prosthetic. It was like I had a meter telling me the amount of cursed energy you were losing. It made me feel sickly like something was wrong with me, therefore something had to be wrong with you. So, I said, ‘to hell with my mission’ and came back.” Satoru’s face is in Suguru’s cheek again and his body perfectly fits against that broad fabric-covered chest. Green was such a lovely color on Suguru, he’d decided. “I didn’t realize how bad things were or how much you’d been hurt until I got there. It scared me.”
Suguru leaned his temple into the other man’s, like a tamed animal returning affection. He turned into that warm, burn-healed soot-cleaned cheekbone and kissed the softness of skin there.
The heat of the touch made a rosy pink spread across Satoru’s nose. But he still has so, so many more things to say. “Suguru, the man you fought wasn’t just Kenjaku. He was the exact person from my dreams. The one who pretends that he’s you and tortures me until I wake up. But I didn’t want to say that in front of your family…” Satoru swallows a growing lump in his throat because he’s absolutely not going to cry. He shouldn’t anyway, because it's over now. Suguru is safe. “He spoke to me before I was unsealed. He’ll probably still seek you out. And Yaga told me Kenjaku has been around for centuries… and even if I know I killed him that day, I just can’t be sure-”
“But we have each other, right?” Suguru stops the ramble before Satoru buries himself beneath rock and heavy sand. “If we leave Japan, it’ll take time and resources for anyone to find us. Let alone some ancient cursed object who needed help from the school to take us down.” Suguru sneers with a teasing smile carved into a wolfish grin, a continued reassurance for the man on his shoulder. He pecks that flushed cheek again for good measure, endlessly pushing the point across. But it's then that his lips taste a salty tear as it runs down pinkened ivory skin. Satoru doesn’t look it, but Suguru can feel the other trying to swallow the knot behind his
Adam’s apple. He can see Satoru attempting to contain the moisture growing in that pale lashline.
“My worst nightmare was playing before my eyes,” Satoru sniffled, he chuckled awkwardly to mask it despite himself. “Maybe Yaga wouldn’t have done this if I’d been more involved-”
Selfish.
“I will land this curse in foreign waters if you start blaming yourself,” Suguru reassures and threatens at the same time. It’s no easier having to hear this now but he’s not about to let Satoru fall victim to the past.
Satoru buried his face in the fabric at Suguru’s shoulder and huffed an exhale, “Suguru…”
“Yeah, gorgeous?”
“Did Shoko tend to your wounds?” The six-eye-gifted sorcerer quickly changes the subject, muffling the words against the ink of Suguru’s raven-black hair by his onyx-gauged ear.
“I don’t know,” is the melancholy reply.
How can Suguru tell him that he doesn’t remember anything… again. As if it's the same story just additionally somber every time it's repeated. “But I think she talked to me at some point. I dreamed it, at least. It felt like a dream...” He continued, reminiscing the aged voice of an older Shoko. One who seemed bitten by the world she currently serves, and frustrated with Suguru himself. But that odd voice had a way of seeping into his mental state prior to his recent comatose. He’d heard the words before in Satoru’s home. And they coached him on the same subjects, endlessly so. “She told me I had a second chance. And that I should do better this time. But I thought it was just a voice you hear, not specifically hers. Ya know? But… after all this time, I don’t think it could’ve belonged to anyone else.”
Satoru tightened the grip of his fingers around Suguru’s hands as he listened.
“I guess I didn’t want to tell you about it, but since I’ve heard her more than once in my head, I think you should know.” Suguru’s coal-like gaze is focused on the distance in front of them but lost on where he should be going with this. Lost on why he felt the urge to tell Satoru now. “But this time? I figured if I were hearing Shoko and saw what I saw, then I had to be dead.”
Satoru slips his face away from the comfort of Suguru’s cheek to observe the man directly, the breeze whipping at the tendrils of his short white hair, “Saw what you saw? What are you talking about?”
The flying headless dragonfly curse dipped and rocked them when the single dream Suguru dreamt before waking at the auditorium played like a movie at the forefront of his mind. The first dream he’d conjured in almost a year's time, one so incredibly distant and real from the purgatory he’d once struggled to grasp.
“Suguru,” Satoru released the hold of palms in exchange for running his fingertips over Suguru’s forearms, threading his digits into the fabric covering the other’s skin, an action to hold the pained man behind him impossibly closer.
“You were walking alone,” Suguru begins, lowering his lids to recall what he saw so clearly, allowing it to play in the reflection of his black pupils once more. “And it was raining. Not a storm, but like a spring shower. And you couldn’t be bothered to use your infinity. It was… odd.” Suguru sank his freed palms to press them over Satoru’s belly and wrap them around the man’s waist. For the first time, Suguru relaxed himself and rested his chin in the divot on Satoru’s shoulder. “You carried a bouquet of flowers, blues and whites. And you just… you looked so sad, Satoru.” Those long obsidian lashes pinch down over Suguru’s cheeks, and his crow’s feet tighten as he continues, “You were there… at the school. And I didn’t piece it together until we passed through that alley tonight- the one stained with my blood and your transport marks. In my dream, I saw you drop the bouquet, almost throw it at the wall before you bent down and cried right there. I tried to call out to you, but I didn’t have a voice. I could only watch you from afar and yet I felt so close that I could reach out and take your tears away with my fingers.”
Satoru felt clammy. His body itched and his chest stuttered through uneven breaths as he listened to a future they may have endured had he not intervened on Christmas Eve.
“I guess I saw something I shouldn’t have. It was so real, so… vivid, Satoru. Like, I could smell the rain and hear the beat of your heart in my ears. But the next thing I knew I was awake, and the first thing I saw was you above me with that light in the auditorium illuminating you like a god.” Suguru admits, pulling one of Satoru’s newly shivering hands to his lips to kiss every individual knuckle. Not because he thought Satoru needed the comfort, but because Suguru needed his own reassurance. “That’s why I cried. I just couldn’t believe my eyes.”
A tear escapes from an ivory lashline. Satoru clings ever closer to the body behind him, “I love you, Suguru.”
Suguru turns into the face he’s always been so fond of. Gone were the days when Suguru saw those shimmering pools of blues as a threat. Forgotten as the evil that bound him to a house that harbored an arrogant man- a man who became a haven himself.
“I love you too, Satoru, more than anything in this world,” he confirms, heart in his hands, life at his fingertips. Suguru steals what might be the first kiss of their tangible future from benevolent lips. A connection unnecessitated by tongue or need- but by depth and dedication. They kiss with practice and taste their share of energy and salt, the familiar comfort of lower lip caressing lower lip.
When they part, Suguru speaks one last addition before they soar dawn break for hours more.
“I think I know where we need to go.”
_______
A fiery sun blazes over an unclouded afternoon sky.
Tall clusters of palm leaves sway in the warmth of a salty breeze.
The stickiness of humidity was a threat only when bodies danced and trembled in close quarters beneath light linens and showers of rainwater.
Their first night in their haven would lead to hundreds more. The comfort and keeping of a place they didn’t need to hide nor run from, still yet kept their bodies attached. Satoru and Suguru find love in every hot touch, searing bite, and scrape of blunt nails.
The windows are wide open, allowing that sea-scented breeze to infiltrate their shared space. It cools the rolling sweat on Suguru’s back, and the casts of orange sunshine add a particularly charmed color to Satoru’s winter hair and ocean eyes.
Satoru moans soft and sinful when Suguru’s big palms massage handfuls of ivory ass and strong hips, taking purchase of his intentions when he repeats a deepening thrust into the cavern of Satoru’s secret desires.
Suguru’s been on top of him for the last few days since they’ve used their few weeks here to get established. Both empty-handed upon arrival, the two of them focused nights on end to procure a place to stay, food and water, clothing, and comfort. No act less than necessary to be in the safety of each other's arms the way they are now. And with nothing much else to do- no missions, few curses to slay, minor decisions to make, the two find themselves indulging in lust, adoration, and companionship every moment they can.
Satoru feels full. So, so full, “S-guru, haah-”
The crisp whites of bamboo sheets dampen from their shared heat and rocking friction. Satoru is nearly bent in half, the back of his head in the pillow and his ankles hooked around beautifully marred shoulders. He watches as Suguru’s irises begin to change. The power of my cursed energy infusing with his, Satoru now understands. It creates the most beautiful lilac hues he’s ever borne witness. Out of his selfishness, he lets his legs slink away from Suguru’s top half, instead choosing to hook them around a thick waist. With his docile hands, Satoru unclenches the pillows and reaches for Suguru’s face instead.
“Satoru…” comes in a soft pant when Suguru is pulled close to the man’s lips. His hips pick up the pace just enough to accommodate the new closeness, they push in and grind more so than fuck in and out.
Satoru’s head swims. His length is throbbing when Suguru wraps his thick fingers around it and his mouth hangs slightly agape so rushed breaths can escape the back of his throat. He can’t tell if that’s blood or sweat under his fingernails as he digs into Suguru’s shoulder blades. The bed rocks underneath them and the hushed clanging of the bedframe almost matches the sound of the wind chime from the deck outside.
Porcelain cheeks are ruddy red. They match the pinkened tan hues of their other half, and Satoru wonders if he’s going to come just from the thought of how he and Suguru must look pressed together like this. He takes a sharp bite into the scar on Suguru’s lower lip to let the man know.
“Fuck, Satoru, I can’t hold it,” Suguru apologizes when his hips falter their pushes and pulls. He bottoms out inside Satoru, forehead pushing into the other’s when he releases his seed.
Satoru’s hands slip past Suguru’s blushed-out neck to thread into his nape of darkness instead. His fingernails dig into skin when Suguru’s clench on a pink cock tightens and drags. Satoru comes between them in stringy layers, bucking his hips down to fuck himself on Suguru’s pulsing, leaking length. The kisses start all over again, mouth on mouth and tongue battling tongue. The room smells like sweat and sex and the air feels more like a haze than humidity when their energies intertwine.
Suguru pulls out without warning, making the man below him shudder and moan like a whore in between their mouths with protest. But Suguru gets low, he licks at Satoru’s cum-covered chest while thick, greedy fingers dip down to insert themselves into Satoru’s hole. Pulling and scooping cum from within Satoru’s loosened rectum.
Satoru’s mouth is still hanging loose, moans spilling over his fragile lips when fingers pass through the opening of his mouth. Suguru wipes his cum on Satoru’s pink tongue and gets him to swallow. Before Suguru can pull his digits back, that same tongue is winding around the intrusive fingers to lick them clean one by one. It makes Suguru’s cock chubby with a renewed hardness.
The heavenly-gifted sorcerer whines again when Suguru’s length pushes back inside him without so much as permission. Satoru’s hole clenches around the intrusion. Suguru has only just finished licking up the cum on Satoru’s chest, but the wet sensation makes the air too thick. Satoru’s body is melting into the bed again.
“Stay inside a little longer, ‘kay?” Satoru pleads in a coo. He’s massaging the scalp behind Suguru’s ears now, keeping him close as he watches that hazy lavender gaze drift away and settle into something more steel in color. Satoru’s hips adjust again, slowly, patiently grinding on Suguru’s length like a lullaby. A choice to milk away the rest of Suguru’s natural hesitations and resistance. His partner groans so sweetly when he does it. Satoru can tell Suguru’s slightly overstimulated, but Satoru has become ever-so fond of extending their connection like this.
“You don’t play fair,” Suguru smiles gently though lightly afflicted.
“Coming from you, that is sooo rich,” Satoru teases. He encourages Suguru to slowly collapse in on his sweaty, lust-dirtied body. Satoru’s fingers gather tendrils of black hair and twirl them together into a low ponytail shape before laying them to fall off Suguru’s right shoulder. Suguru tries not to shudder when Satoru’s delicate fingertips graze the flesh connecting to the prosthetic arm. But the Gojo heir can feel the breath his partner takes, and the relief and comfort that comes with it regardless... “Say, Suguru…”
“Mmhmm,” Suguru purrs from within Satoru’s loving hold.
“Do you feel any different when you fuck me with the arm attached versus without?”
Suguru lifts his coal gaze, “Besides having more hands on you? No, not particularly. Why?”
“Your eyes tend to change color when you’re wearing the arm. I suppose it’s from my energy infusing with yours. I didn’t know if you could feel it.”
Suguru stares at him from his perch on that strong ivory chest, a single raven brow cocked in curiosity.
“It’s pretty, though. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t turn me on. The most beautiful shade of purple I’ve ever seen.”
“Is that so?” Suguru bats his thick lashes up at him, decidedly moving up onto his elbows. He can’t help but smirk like a demon, “Kinky.”
“Ugh, you ruin everythinggg,” Satoru pulls at Suguru’s hair to punish him, those stunning orbs of azure blue rolling with attitude and annoyance.
A wolfish grin spreads across Suguru’s face. His hands are all over Satoru’s beautiful body again, worshipping him and commemorating him. They feel everywhere. Roll over every bone and muscle. He relishes the sound of Satoru’s yips when his fingers graze a ticklish spot, and he savors the sound of Satoru’s hearty moan when he fits his hand around a pink, sensitive, still leaky cock.
He’s Suguru’s salvation, Suguru’s purpose.
Though the day had slipped away, the sand was still too hot to walk barefoot despite the more controlled climate that December brought.
As if that would prevent the most determined of ivory feet from indenting a trail to the shore.
“Satoru!” The most favored and precious of voices beckons from near the coastline. There’s a strong, human hand waving in the air to accompany the calling. The tone welcoming, happy, and graceful as it swirls playfully in the cooling breeze of early evening.
Though Satoru’s heart pangs at his own name, he feels like he’s been here before.
Pale toes dig into champagne sands quickly, taking that casual gait and morphing it into a jog. No, a sprint, really. Uncaring to any seashell they cracked or buried in their path.
“Satoru-” Suguru’s addicting laughter is already bubbling, holding out both prosthetic and human hands in a ‘stop’ motion like he’s trying to prevent getting himself steamrolled. “Why are you running?! Slow down!” His laughter contagiously shimmers like the sunshine on blue ocean waves.
The winter haired sorcerer kicks up rooster tails of sand with every tread, gaining meters quickly under the soles of his feet. From this distance, his six eyes trace every healed burn from the talismans that once charred Suguru’s tan skin. His gift outlines the marks left behind from the gashes and slashes of a second war long behind them. Those crystalline irises trail the scars that have been left on Suguru’s bad leg and the two that crisscross over his chest like an accident repeated twice the same- one of ignorance and one of vice. The gory cut of the missing arm will always be the most prominent, but with or without the prosthetic, Satoru can’t help but think Suguru is simply beautiful just the way he is. The man with inky black hair is painted with healed memories that have propelled them to this future. The recollections that simply bind them as one person at the sunset of every day.
Satoru grins giddy like a child about it, eager and exhilarated when he hollers into the cooling air- “Catch me!”
“What?!” Suguru’s cheery smile falters for a pause. He can’t be serious. Two strips of raven brows furrow as he helplessly watches Satoru charge toward him at full speed. The slightly shorter sorcerer takes a step back- about four, or five, actually, into the tide of crystal water in hopes it’ll cradle his fall when he’s inevitably hit with the onslaught that is Gojo Satoru, Six-Eye User and Special Grade Sorcerer, Number One in Suguru Geto’s heart. “Yo, slow the fuck down!” He shouts back like it’ll do anything to deter the bull-headed man from what will inevitably happen next.
Before Suguru can take an extra cautionary step into the ocean, Satoru has already left the ground.
Suguru forgoes the caution of his hands to open his wingspan and prepare to catch this lunatic who hits his battle-scarred chest with full force.
It’s fractions of seconds when Suguru takes salt water through his nose, the weight of a fully grown adult male in his embrace has him bouncing off the ocean floor. The push and roll of currents help Suguru and his unforgivingly taller passenger pop up from the waves after taking swim trunks full of sand.
“Were you worried?” Satoru laughs heartily when he coughs out salt water as if he’d taken most of the hit.
There are drops of sparkling ocean in Suguru’s midnight lashes and his once tightened, clean bun now hangs loose from the weight of being soaked. “About you? Always,” Suguru coughs too, chuckling about how ridiculous and utterly predictable his other half can be.
Suguru finally gets his knees under himself but they’re slightly sinking into the sandy ocean floor since he’s carrying the additional weight- Satoru wrapping around him like a koala. Suguru holds Satoru’s perfectly toned body and loving heart secure nonetheless.
“Suguruuuu,” The coddled man complains, tossing his head back like he’s going to throw a tantrum before leveling with Suguru and pressing their dripping foreheads together. “I mean it, were you worried? About anything? About this, about us?”
Suguru’s barely phased, these antics have never been few or far between the normalcy they try to accomplish. “Nah, I’m just waiting.”
For this to end, Satoru is reminded in the back of his mind. “For… what?” He asks cautiously.
A single jet-black brow pushes up onto Suguru’s damp forehead, “For you to kiss me, dummy.”
Satoru’s halos of blue irises nearly sparkle from the reflected combination of the clear turquoise ocean and the bright orange-red glow of setting sunshine when he gasps and pushes forward to accept a helping of tongue and lip.
The kiss isn’t chaste. But it’s not lustful nor elongated either. It's simplistic. A perfect-fitting of mouths that dote on each other. That trust each other. A sensation as natural as the ocean waves lapping over their collarbones and tickling their faces with chilled sprays of salt water.
When they part, they bob together in the water under the heat of a coastal winter before trekking only some feet closer to shore, hand in hand, so they can sit in the sand together and let the waves crash over their shins.
“Is this what it felt like?” The sorcerer with dampened silver lashes asks his partner.
Suguru leans over and kisses the temple of that salt-licked head. Satoru’s hair is cute like this, he thinks. Minding the fact that the hairs are a tad shorter since they’d trimmed all the burnt ends off in their new kitchen a few weeks ago. Suguru pulls his droopy bun out of his hair and shakes the wet locks free, “What ‘what’ felt like?”
Satoru thinks about saying it without sounding offensive. How to speak the words that have been on the tip of his tongue for so long that it’s been the basis of many of their prior fights back in Tokyo. His fingers play with Suguru’s, “When you left the society. Did it feel this difficult to leave it all behind?”
A honey-sweet hum rolls off those handsome vocal cords as the curse-manipulating sorcerer ponders it, “Not quite, I guess. I was done there, my chapter had long closed. But nothing will ever compare to leaving you.” He looks out toward the setting sun against the distant ocean waves. Their country now hundreds of miles away on the other side. “Why? Do you regret leaving?”
“No,” Is Satoru’s immediate answer, he’s shaking his head as it comes to rest against Suguru’s temple, shoulder pressed against shoulder.
“We’ll probably be running for a while until they give up hunting us, but we can’t even be sure they’re trying since we’re…”
“The strongest.” Satoru finishes, lifting his chin to pin Suguru in his place with a focused stare.
“You’re so cheesy, I can’t with you,” Suguru shoves a palm against Satoru’s face to push him off and away, blushing like a fiend from how embarrassing that man insists on being twenty-four-seven. “I was going to say ‘out of the country,’ you big sap.”
Satoru snickers like it’s the funniest thing, but equally like he wanted to be something he wasn’t sure Suguru still believed in.
“Hey, Satoru. Thank you. For everything.” Suguru adds soft, black lashes lowering over his beautifully, naturally stormy, fox-like eyes.
“For you?” Satoru smirks, almost scoffing wanting to give the other a metaphorical punch to the gut. But the moment turned buttery, warm, and plushy soft. “For you… I’ll give my whole life.”
The battle-carved sorcerer had been sporting a relatively delicate pink in his cheeks, but they reddened at the confession. His heart thumped deep within his oh-so-full chest. How can I compete with that!? He begs himself to ask. But it's not a competition. And Suguru recognizes the vulnerability it takes to submit yourself to another like this-
Because he’d felt it longer than he’d like to admit to himself.
Because as far as Suguru was concerned, he’d give his life too.
Suguru’s charmed eyes meet that wild gaze of impatient affection when he speaks a promise the same-
“For you, my entire life, Satoru. Forever.”
Satoru should’ve let him off the hook. But seeing such a final intimate side of the yin to his yang really did it for the blessed sorcerer.
Satoru toppled that tanned, memory-scarred, muscled body right into the sand without so much as an argument about all the stickiness or how late it was getting to be playing around. He can feel when big hands wrap around the knobs of his bare spine to pull him closer, and how black lashes tickle his silver ones as they pass by each other in a slow sweep with a loving nuzzle. Satoru doesn’t pay mind to how Suguru’s onyx hair clings to skin and sand like a wet magnet. Porcelain fingertips hold the smooth line of Suguru’s jaw as he presses straddling hips over such a perfectly toned, scarred abdomen.
The brevity of their locked gaze is threatened only when Satoru finally takes Suguru’s lips into a kiss so spiraling sweet and purposeful that no sugar nor candy, no praise nor gain could ever wish to replace.
Whether the men are aware, their lips permanently lock the commitment and promise of love and life into infinity. And evermore.