Work Text:
“Would you still love me if I were a worm?”
“Drink your tea, Satoru.”
-
Suguru Geto is born to a set of normal parents in a normal suburban hospital on a perfectly normal Tuesday morning. The day that he was born, eyelids glued together in the wake of the harsh, unfamiliar hospital lights, it was said that the room was so silent you could hear the thud of his heart against skin. Fragile as paper. Not a single sound.
-
“You’re dodging the question.” Satoru stretches his arms, before collapsing into Suguru’s lap. His sunglasses leave a faint, red dent on the bridge of his nose. Suguru feels the urge to run his finger over it.
Cicadas hum as the blanket of night swallows them whole. Suguru feels the midnight draft against his skin, hears the crowds of people below them thinning out into nothing. He hears them, always. People. Feels their sorrow bone-deep, their rage churning in his stomach. It’s hard to separate the two, nowadays. What belongs to him and what he’s allowed them to take.
Suguru suspects that Satoru isn’t really present at the moment. Not that he could blame him. Suguru hasn’t been present for months, now. He downs another glass of beer.
“You’d be an ugly worm, wouldn’t you?”
“Hey!”
Instinctively, his fingers reach out to course through Satoru’s hair, but he stops, just short of the top of his head. Ah. He thinks, watching Satoru’s lips purse together below him. So this is as far as you’re letting me go. He smiles, feeling as if something’s been answered, a knot in his chest untied – though he’s not quite sure what. You’re the strongest, after all.
“Honestly, I might like you like that better than I do now.”
Satoru blinks, owlishly, tilting his head.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
-
Exorcise. Consume. Repeat.
Exorcise. Consume. Repeat.
Exorcise. Consume. Repeat.
When Riko Amanai finds him, he’s throwing up behind a dumpster in Okinawa.
“Are you okay?” She rushes over, patting his back in light, careful strokes. Suguru wipes the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Don’t worry.” He laughs, watching as she raises her eyebrow in suspicion. “It’s just that it’s been so long, but I still can’t get used to it.”
“The taste of…curses?” Riko winces.
“The taste is one thing, but I wish it wouldn’t feel like…” He pauses, thinking. “All that. They feel so much, people. All that grief, that guilt, that ugliness. Consuming it isn’t exactly pleasant.”
Riko, slack-jawed, nods in sympathy. “If I were you, I’d probably just quit, I think.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Suguru smiles.
Riko sticks her tongue out. “No, I probably wouldn’t.”
Her brains splatter out through her right temple so fast that Suguru doesn’t even blink.
-
He opens his eyes, bloodshot, and watches the ceiling fan as its blades circle around one another, spinning into a vague, white blur. He picks up his phone. No notifications. Right. Suguru sighs. Yaga sent Satoru off to the U.S. last week.
A crowd of men are cheering and howling outside a dingy bar near his apartment. The noise is throbbing beneath his skull. It’s 3 in the morning. He clenches his knuckles so hard he nearly sees white. He considers filing for a noise complaint. He considers bashing their heads into the concrete and watching the blood drain out of their faces.
He peels himself off his bed, and settles for a glass of water.
-
Suguru can’t remember anything that’s happened in the past 3 months, and he’s not entirely sure if it’s normal.
“I’m pretty sure it’s not.” Shoko takes a huff out of her cigarette, smoke billowing over the balcony, before nudging Suguru’s shoulder with her own. “Want a hit?”
“I’ll pass.” He sighs. “Ask me again after I finish up at Hokkaido later tomorrow. It’s a troublesome one. Bunch of them went and aggravated some high-level cursed spirit for God knows why. Some kids’ game? If they’re going to throw away their lives like that, why am I even going all the way out there?”
Shoko leans her head on his shoulder. They’re silent, just for a little bit, listening to the trees rustle around them. “Why?” She twirls the cigarette with her tongue, laughing. “Funny. I figured you’d know the answer to that. Now we both look like idiots.”
Suguru’s eyes widen. Shoko, completely unfazed, continues. “You know what’s even funnier? I heard Nanami ask Haibara something just like this the other day.”
“And? What’d he say?”
“He doesn’t know either.” Shoko shrugs. “Just said it felt good to be able to help people in any way that he could.”
Suguru chuckles, gesturing for Shoko to pass him a cigarette. “Honestly, he’s a good kid.”
“Right?” Shoko smiles. “Though, back when you used to preach to me and Gojo about duty and responsibility and all that, you sounded just like him.”
“Well…” Suguru watches the end of his cigarette light up, light flickering between chunks of ash. “I can’t really remember all that, either.”
-
A dream:
Before everything, they were just Satoru and Suguru, simple as that. They’d ride on tandem bikes, and slurp on popsicles outside convenience stores. They’d sling their arms over each other’s shoulders, and laugh at kids who fell off the monkey bars trying to impress their friends. When Utahime would stare at them, eyebrows raised, or Yaga would scold them with his arms folded over his chest – they’d shrug.
“You wouldn’t get it.” They’d say. “It’s not something you’d understand.”
-
Before everything, there was movie night.
Some cheesy 90s rom-com would be plastered on screen. Satoru would insist that it was good, but both of them would know that he wasn’t really watching, anyways. A box of strawberry shortcake would remain open, but unfinished, on the floor. With his head keeled back into Suguru’s lap, Satoru would ask some stupid, entirely unfeasible question, demanding his full attention.
“What would you do if I ate all your furniture one day, Suguru?”
“What would you do if I turned into a cartoon character one day, Suguru?”
“What would you do, Suguru? If I told you I loved you?”
Each of these questions were equal in importance, and each time, listening keenly to Suguru as he answered, Satoru would smile, his eyes crinkled shut, as if to say ‘Good job, you’ve passed. You’ve understood the brilliant mind of Gojo Satoru.’
So, whether it be:
“I’d make you buy me an entire Ikea catalog for us to build together,” or,
“I’d write you into a sitcom, with simple jokes and childish gags. Everything would be resolved by the end of the episode. You’d be the comedic relief, or maybe the charming second main lead,” or,
“I’d tell you that it’s about time.”
Suguru had always known that it would end like this. Tangled limbs and morning breath. The morning light crawling in through his apartment window, Satoru’s skin glinting, radiant, as he curls up under the sheets.
Did you know that Satoru snores? Suguru does. He nudges Satoru, wearily. Hears him groan, endlessly impatient. Satoru makes a mental note to fall asleep at the same time as Suguru, after that. He doesn’t tell Suguru, of course. But he knows.
Did you know that Satoru’s not an early bird? Suguru does. His bedroom would be painted, floor-to-ceiling, with blooming warmth, silken-sweet like honey. He’d stretch, feeling his joints crack and pop as Satoru continues sleeping peacefully beside him, dead to the rest of the world. Maybe it’ll be okay. Suguru thinks, brushing strands of hair out of Satoru’s eyes, Maybe it’ll be okay if the rest of the world doesn’t get Satoru, like this. Maybe it’ll be okay if this Satoru is just for me.
-
Haibara’s body is laid out on the stretcher, and all Suguru can think of is this. How foolish of me. To attempt to contain a God between my very palms. To expect that this would last forever.
How foolish of me, to forget who we were. Who we will always be.
-
Suguru finds he doesn’t feel much of anything, nowadays. He exorcises. He consumes. People come and go and pass him by and cheer and thank him and grab him by his collar and tell him things like ‘My son! How could you not save my son!’ or ‘I’m scared. I don’t know what to do!’ or ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
He wakes up. He eats sludge. He moves like sludge. Time passes and it doesn’t. He thinks about death. He exorcises. He consumes. He thinks about death again and again and again, so many times that it feels like he’s living in it. Breathing it.
Satoru sees him, in between missions, but he doesn’t see him. Not really. He asks him things like ‘Is it that summer heat?’ or ‘Have you been eating too much soumen?’ and Suguru will smile, his eyes crinkling shut, as if to say, ‘ Congratulations! You’ve failed! You once told me that it was overwhelming. Your six-eyes. What’s it like to see all, Satoru? Or are you just pretending not to notice what’s growing inside of me?’
As if to say, ‘Are you afraid of me, too? I am.’
-
Maybe that’s why, as the screams of villagers are piercing the quietude of night – Suguru feels the buzzing in his thoughts mellow out into a low hum. This is the part, Suguru assumes, where he’s supposed to cackle, or laugh, or say something like ‘ What gives you the right to live on in peace while trampling over our ashes?’
Instead, Suguru can only think of Riko. He can only think of Kuroi, of Haibara. He can only think of Nanami, slouched over in the mortuary, fingers digging into skin. “ For those who live as jujutsu sorcerers, ” Yuki Tsukumo had said, hands clutching onto her helmet, “ that is the punishment we must endure.”
Truth be told, this whole memory – Mimiko and Nanako, the village, the people – doesn't exactly come to him clearly, but here’s the part he does remember:
A woman wearing a sundress, head bloodied, grabs onto his ankles. She’s hanging onto her last breath. Suguru knows this. She croaks, coarse and unforgiving: “You monster.”
“No,” Suguru turns his back to her. The unbearable magnitude of sorcery – the blood on his hands, the blood staining theirs – has simmered down into nothing. This is the point of no return. “Sorry. We’re all human. That’s how we ended up here.”
-
Suguru Geto is born to a set of normal parents in a normal suburban hospital on a perfectly normal Tuesday morning. The day that his parents died, sleeping peacefully in their beds, it was said that the room was so silent you could hear the thud of Suguru’s heart against skin. Fragile as paper. Not a single sound.
-
The second the doorbell chimes, Suguru already knows that he’s made a mistake.
Satoru unhooks the door latch. He just woke up. Suguru can tell. His hair’s brushed the wrong way. His eyes are loopy. He’s wearing that ratty t-shirt he stole from Suguru’s closet months ago. “Suguru?” Satoru rubs his eyes. When they open, he clutches Suguru’s shoulders like a vice. “What happened to you, man? What’s with all the blood? I thought your mission was-“
“Satoru.” Suguru smiles. He means it, this time, even if just a little bit. He raises a thin, plastic bag with his right hand, a box of strawberry shortcake swaying, shakily, within it. “Movie night?”
-
They end up in front of the TV again, shoulder-to-shoulder. Satoru’s shovelling mouthfuls of cake between his teeth. Some corny song from the early 2000s is playing as the two main leads lock eyes, hand in hand. For a second, Suguru imagines that it’s all the same as it was – but the blood’s still sticking to his skin, and his badge is probably buried under some hilltop, somewhere – so he knows better than to cling to the thought.
“Suguru.”
A part of Suguru hopes that he’s right about what’s coming. That it’s some stupid, inconsequential question like – “What do you think the colour purple smells like?” or “Would you say I’m more of a weasel or an otter?”
“What happened to you?”
Of course. Suguru sighs. He crosses his arms. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Satoru blinks. Bites his tongue. Opens his mouth, then closes it. Suguru feels like what little that’s left of his heart is shrinking into itself.
Then, Satoru speaks.
“…I’m sorry.”
Lunging forward, Suguru’s lips meet Satoru’s, as they crash, messily, onto his living room floor. Their teeth clack against one another’s, callous hands scrambling to regain control. Suguru can’t catch his breath. Everything tastes like metal. He can’t tell where the blood ends and where Satoru’s mouth begins.
Neither of them are enjoying it. They both know this. The blood from Suguru’s hands finds its way onto Satoru’s skin – staining what was once pristine, untouched by the filthy underbelly of the world.
Neither of them are enjoying it, but they both know this – once they let go, it’s all over.
It’s then, fingers carving into the small of Satoru’s back, that Suguru realises: Satoru’s deactivated Limitless. He can’t help himself, then, grinning against Satoru’s lips. How bittersweet. He feels Satoru writhe beneath him. I finally get the Honoured One all to myself, and this is when it happens? I wonder what you’d think, Satoru, when you hear about what I’ve done. He bites the tip of Satoru’s tongue. Though I don’t really care to find out.
Satoru bumps the back of his head against the couch. He pulls away.
“Ow.” He looks up at Suguru, eyes glossed over with mist. “What was that?”
Suguru looks at Satoru like the sky just collapsed behind him. Before Satoru can even continue, he adjusts the hem of his shirt, stepping away from the scene. The credits are rolling, now. It’s 3 in the morning. Mimiko and Nanako are waiting on him.
“I’ve got to go, Satoru.”
He doesn’t know how it came to this.
“You’re going already? What the hell?”
He doesn’t know when it stopped being “We’re the strongest.”
“Sorry. It’s important. I’ll see you soon.”
He doesn’t know when they became this.
“Oh… Alright then. I guess.”
Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru.
-
“Are you happy right now, Geto?” Shoko lights up her cigarette, watching the crowd as they drift in and out of nearby stores.
“I can’t say.” Suguru closes his eyes. “I certainly wasn’t happy before.”
-
Satoru grabs onto Suguru’s wrist, nails etching into his palms. Shibuya is busy, today. Suguru dreams of Mimiko and Nanako. He dreams of the new dessert store that opened down the street. He dreams of tandem bikes, and convenience stores, and a bliss that will never end.
“What the hell were you thinking, killing all those people?” Satoru croaks. Suguru dreams of fires, and hilltops, and women wearing sundresses. “Turning back on everything we’ve been working for-“
“So, you can continue to turn a blind eye to the pile of bodies we’ve left behind us. Lucky you." Satoru chokes, hearing him. The skin under his eyes are laughably red, damp with tears. In another world, Suguru would run his lips over them, kiss it better. "I’m going to continue fighting for the path I’ve chosen. I guess you could kill me, if that’s the path you’re choosing from here on out. You’re the strongest, after all. Whatever works for you, Satoru.”
Silence.
Suguru tugs his wrist out of Satoru’s grasp, walking ahead. Look at me. Suguru laughs, covering his mouth with his free hand. To think that you’d understand.
“Is that all you have to say to me?!” Satoru shouts.
Suguru turns around. Satoru, with his watercolour eyes, and his bleeding heart. Satoru, who sleeps like the dead at the crack of dawn. Satoru, who he’d once thought could truly know him, skin and bone.
Satoru, his best friend.
“If only it weren’t you and me, Satoru.” Suguru smiles. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”