#and my hands would get all cracked and bloody from cold damage

[deicide-doll]

.

#i just saw some kids out biking today and they were wearing gloves and hats and shit #and i remembered how as a kid my parents never really got me gloves for winter #but i liked winter so i'd still play out in the snow #and my hands would get all cracked and bloody from cold damage #and also because when i was a kid my mom would make me do laundry by hand with harsh chemicals #and then she'd make fun of me for havin fucked up hands #say no man would want to marry me because my hands werent dainty and pretty #which like why would she do that? #a lot of the abuse/neglect that happened to me was bc of my mom projecting her own insecurities and anxieties onto me #or just because she's not really a maternal person and didnt really want kids in the first place so she didnt know how to take care of one #but like that just seems like something done out of pure malice #so new trauma memory unlocked i guess :/ #misiabear rants #closed eyes

[heartfullofleeches]

RoadSide

Immortal Yan + G.N Reader Blurb/Intro

Summary: A car accident leads to a bigger crash

Warning: Violence/injury, light gore

Bile sits in your throat, held back by the seatbelt pinning you to your seat.

Your body is heavy- the leather digging into your skin adding weight to your imbalanced skull. Your windshield is cracked, the white fractures and spray of blood making it hard to see from it while the blinking headlights make up for the range you couldn't see. What you refused to see.

A body lays ten feet away from your car. Motionless and surrounded by a halo of red that trickles back to the hood. The collected mass of blood and saliva in your mouth pours free as the body twitches. This.. wasn't how tonight was supposed to go. You were heading home from work when it happened. Same road, same speed - only one difference. He came out of nowhere. You saw it. The pressure behind your eyes disfigured your judgment, but you swore as your car came into contact with his fragile body - fear was the last thing present in his eyes.

Air rushes into your withered lungs as you unhook your seatbelt and crawl out of the car. You had to make sure he was okay. Everything burned, but you were far better off than him. You sure the front of your car as a crutch as you round to the front, smearing his cold blood all over your hand. You shutter as it stains your clothes, but you don't have the pleasure of expressing your fear. Choking back a sob, you drag yourself over to his side.

Blood bloomed from the left side of his shirt where he was hit, blossoming beneath the tire marks decaled on his white tee like some twisted joke. The cruel irony makes you gag. His leg was bent at an odd angle and face obscured by his fair, holes thorn through body and clothes from being used like a skipping stone by his chair. One hand hides within his jacket while the other clutches his phone. It's surprisingly not damaged. Taking a closer look at his opposite arm you can see what looks like a plastic bag filled with cushion.

"s....."

You thought you were hearing things, but his lips slowly form the words his broken jaw struggle to expel. His body trembles, knuckles rapping the road to gain your attention. You lean in.

"le...."

He coughs up a sea of red, exposed ribs heaving.

"I can't hear you..."

You lean in close.

"Smile wide."

In range, the thought to be corpse lunges out and drags you to the floor as he sits up. Too weak to struggle despite the drastic degrees of your injuries, you claw at his arm as he wraps it around your neck. The smily muscle of his torn cheek glides up against your tear riddled face as he pulls you in. A blinding light assaults your weary eyes as he presses the red button on the screen. You scramble as soon as he let's go.

"Shiiit. That's fucking hot, babes. You look so fucking good covered in my blood and it looks like my eye's about to pop right out! I was getting cloder feet because I thought you weren't going to come by tonight. Unfortunately, this lazy bitch has to go back in if I'm not sleeping in a ditch tonight."

You look away as he jams his finger in his eyes, grunting as he forces it into the socket. "What's... going on. With those injuries you should be able to move like that. Is this some kind of sick prank?"

"'fraid not, sweetheart. My guts are absolutely soup right now. Name's Devlin. Your new boyfriend, husband, bitch, pet - whatever you want to call me. Doesn't really matter, since we're gonna be together for the rest of our lives... unless you want these pictures to get out."

He scrolls through the many pictures taken of the accident. Your bloody car and license plate, his mangled limbs, a picture of him holding a thumb up, and the final one taken minutes ago.

"Obviously a few of those are between us, but if you reject me I can change face and send these photos in. Things would look mighty suspicious with no body - right?"

"I.... I guess."

"Good." He sighs, a fresh growth of blood developing over his shirt. "I knew you were the one when you ran me over the first time. Not a brick in the road now, am I? Anywho, your car still work? We can get it to a mechanic and then we can go have some fun... or head home. Not like we'll ever be apart again so I don't have any preference."

#Devlin my oc #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere imagines #yandere scenarios #yandere x you #yandere headcanons #yandere oc #yandere blurb #yandere insert #male yandere #Immortal yandere #Yandere zombie #yandere drabble #yandere x y/n

[walkgojo]

" JUST A BIT OF RUST. "

✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: 

 ✗ tags! toji fushiguro x any!reader, angst, toji fushiguro disappearance, discussion of grief.

 ✗ notes! this is my first fic, please don't get the pitchforks and i would highly suggest listening to someone from a warm climate by hozier on REPEAT while reading.

 ✗ word count: 1.8k

edit: i adjusted a few typos/missing words! sorry for any mistakes 🫧 part 2 will be coming soon.

✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: ✧·ﾟ:✧·ﾟ: 

six seasons had passed since you saw him last. for three of those, you ignored the white motorbike that was parked poorly outside your apartment. you felt the gentle crush of salt beneath your boots the first winter, you cursed the sight of it, even as your gloved hand swept the snow from its cracked leather seat. 

when the kind relief of springtime came, you noticed the edges of the rear breaks had began to rust, some damage to the frame. you stood, staring with cautious eyes. if you thought about it long enough, you could remember the warmth of his back pressed to your cheek as you arms circled his waist. you shake your head. he left you, need you be reminded. you had considered calling some sort of recycling service for the vehicle, but you felt a sort of kinship with the bike. you'd both been abandoned by toji.

you knew his job was dangerous when you had met him; he would disappear for days. you didn't know what about you had made him so fond, but you always noticed when he'd lean ever so slightly into your touch. a soft palm that cupped a bloodied cheek so kindly as the other hand wiped away the dirt from his skin. 

"what is it?" you whispered, cheeks growing flushed from his steady stare.

"nothing." he breathed, hands gripping your hips as he sat patiently on the dining room seat.

a fool you'd been, you thought. to think that a haphazard relationship with a man, whose work could not even be disclosed to you, could find itself successful. a fool you'd been, imagining a life where you could come home to him every night. a fool you'd been, savoring the salted taste of his lips, as if they'd ever fully belong to you. 

when you finally came to terms with the idea of total loss, you felt paralyzed. knees pulled to your chest as you curled into the couch, cheeks flushed as your eyes stung with tears. while you had reluctantly allowed rage to cradle you for a year and a half, grief felt much more suffocating. 

because, what if abandonment wasn't the truth? what if the reality was that your lover had found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time? facedown in a gutter, purpled and stiff flesh that was once soft and warm. what if toji no longer existed, who would know to tell you?

you bite down on the inside of your cheek, not minding the taste of copper against your tongue as you try to save yourself from the cold plunge into full distress. 

if he was dead, would you have felt it? would something in your body alert you? like this sudden emptiness — not absence, but the weight of nothing pressing down into your chest. the gravity of love torn forever. the violent severance of hope, the ties it had made around your heart now cut and shredded? would you have felt that?

you felt rage, you felt grief, but hope was stored somewhere below your collarbones and above your ribcage. it had cozied itself there, it had burrowed and made a home. a place for toji. 

if toji was gone, if your body had not felt the cosmic loss, he would live right there. on the same spot he laid his cheek when he came home late at night. the space between your collarbones, above your ribcage, to hear your breathing and heartbeat all at once. a reminder that the love was not a fantasy, that he had it in physical form. someone who could wipe the same tears he shed as a child, someone who smiled at him, someone who asked for more of him but asked nothing of him. that had never happened before.

—

"what was your childhood like?" you whispered, curling into his side. your voice was soft and hesitant, like speaking to a wild animal that you were afraid to spook.

there's a silence that hangs in the air, you can only hear the cars outside driving over wet pavement. it's like that for a few minutes before you hear him release a breath.  "why?" you feel his arm tighten around your waist slightly, almost as if he feared that any real answer might drive you away.

“because,” a pause, “i want to know you.” your fingers slowly trace over his jaw, traversing over skin before meeting his lips. he pressed a kiss to the tips of your fingers, your breath catching in your throat. it had always surprised you when he met you with such tenderness, but you didn’t want it to surprise you anymore. you wanted to expect intimacy, tenderness, soft touches and gentle stares. so, you had to ask. “so, what was it like for you?” 

“no,” he responds simply. “no?” “no, it’s only going to make you upset. it’s going to ruin whatever mood this is right now.” you roll your eyes, those gentle fingers of your now pressed to his chin, forcing him to look at you. “it’s not ruining this, it’s making it something new. different.” your fingers slowly release him. there’s a flash of understanding in his eyes and he wants to take your invitation. “it wasn’t like yours. it wasn’t what people make childhood sound like.” his fingers grabbing your wrist before guiding your hand to his face once more, placing his cheek against your palm. it was dark in the room, the only light was the street lights that filtered in through the curtains. you could barely make each other out, but you could feel him relax again. “i’m sorry.” apologies were foreign to toji — well, apologies uttered when nothing wrong had been done. he was used to the sounds of apologies as final words right before the firm snap of a neck, the crush of a skull. but, this phrase from you was different; it came like honey and was free of fear. it felt like a balm — relieving the burns of what someone else had done.

he never understood how you could do that. how you could ease some of the rage in him, enough to take the edge off, to urge him into unassuming existence as he let himself feel small for the first time. small enough to cradle, small enough to be cared for. he presses a kiss to your forehead, exhaling against your skin. the same way you felt nervous on the back of his bike before relaxing into his grip was the same way he felt now. pillow talk, whispers in the night that dared to open him wide — he needed to press of your skin to feel secure, he needed to grip your waist to know he wouldn’t fall to the wayside. you’d never let him. — the soft slam of the kitchen cabinet, you look up from the kotatsu. its drawing a soft hum from you as you sipped on a cup of barley tea. “toji,” you coo, lips curled kindly, “come sit with me.” he turned to look at you, something sharp in his gaze. it struck a chord of fear in you, something unsettling stirring in the pit of your stomach. anger, disgust, something you couldn’t describe.  your gaze followed the line of his arm, a bookbag in his grip with his clothing stuffed inside.

you quickly pull yourself from the warmth; it felt like ice was beginning to cut through your skin as you stood to your feet. he was leaving. he was leaving. he was leaving in a way that felt permanent. “are you, um, headed out for a job?” you whisper, fearful that your voice would strain if you spoke any louder. he turns back to the cabinet, grabbing some snacks you had purchased and shoving them in his bag before zipping it shut. “i’ll make sure i get some more of those for you,” you try to convince yourself that the silence isn’t some sort of permanent farewell, but the white-hot pit would assure you otherwise. “i’m leaving,” toji starts and finishes all in one breath. 

what is this fear in your fingertips? why do you feel as if you’re trembling? 

“i-i see that. how long will you be gone? three days?” the most he’d ever been gone was twelve days, with short messages every four days. he shrugs, walking toward the door as you follow, feeling like a pathetic puppy. so much so, you almost whimper as his fingers grip the door knob but don’t dare reach for his keys. “four?” he doesn’t meet your gaze. he simply turns, hand releasing the door before pulling you hard into him once more. a kiss to the top of your head, a squeeze to your arm before he made out the door a final time.

— 

you stand in front of the bike, gripping the keys between your fingers and palm, taking a deep breath. you placed your hands against the seat, unsure of what you wanted to do. to mount, to leave, to ride, to walk. you just knew you needed to leave the apartment soon but the longer you thought, the more you felt pins and needles pressed into the small of your back. beads of sweat starting to pool, eyes shutting for a moment. the summer heat had been pressing down on your chest, gripping your shoulders unkindly, your hair stuck to the back of your neck. you remembered the relief of cool wind that last summer when he’d pick you up from work, the air cooling you down as you let him take you home. you couldn’t tell what you were craving now but maybe you’d get it the moment you got on the bike. 

“what do you think you’re doing?"

the voice is cool and low as you were just about to lift your foot from the ground. your breath catches, a biting chill striking you. you're frozen in place, eyes widening as your stare bores into the convenience store across the street. the sound came from behind you. you do nothing, you say nothing. you wait, thinking that maybe this was just an old memory that was echoing, a near hallucination of something that was. until it comes again. "i said, what do you think you're doing?"

a hand on your shoulder, it's firm as it turns you around. your body is reluctant, fearful to know who is behind you. it's as if all sensation leaves your flesh, as if you've been thrown into a dream. body nearly numb, ice cold in this hot summer. it takes time, but you turn, eyes meeting the expanse of his chest. you can't look up, but you know. there it is, that white hot pit now searing through your stomach and crawling up your throat. "i was going for a ride." your voice is something you cannot recognize, it's so fragile it could shatter. fingers trembling once more, like the last time. muscle memory. "you're not going anywhere, sweetheart."

#jjk x reader #jjk toji #toji x reader #toji x you #fushiguro toji x reader #toji fushigro x reader #toji fushiguro #jujustsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu toji

[holylulusworld]

Fresh Start (4) - FIN

Summary: All or nothing now. Can you and Sam find a way back?

Pairing: Mobster!Sam Winchester x Wife!Reader, Mobster!Dean Winchester x other reader

Characters: John Winchester, Ruby

Warnings: angst, language, blood, mentions of death/torture, violence against Ruby, character's death, John is an ass, a creep, and bad in general, fluff

 << Part 3

Divider by @firefly-graphics​

You grip the door handle to open the door parting you from the woman who tried to kill you. You take a deep breath and close your eyes for a moment, counting to ten to calm your nerves. 

If Sam’s enemies, his allies, and your husband shall respect you, you must walk through that door and prove yourself. This is not easy for you. Not at all. You don’t want to witness torture and violence.

“You can still change your mind, sweetheart,” Dean places his hand on your shoulder. “Y/N this will get ugly. Sam is out for blood. Ruby’s blood. Usually, he wants me to get information out of people.”

“I have to,” you dip your head to look at Dean standing next to you. He offers a cracked smile and sad eyes. “Everyone believes I’m soft and an easy target. Everyone needs to hear that I was part of this. That I stood my ground and-“

“I get it,” swallowing thickly Dean drops his gaze. “My father always gave me the feeling I must prove my worth over and over again. That’s why I turned to Alastair and asked him to become my mentor in…”

Dean is easy to talk to and understands your situation. Dean wanted to run from his family so often, but he knew this would mean leaving Sam behind too.

“Torture,” he nods. Dean barely talks about his time at Alastair’s place. You only know he still has nightmares and hates to be used as a blunt tool to hurt people. “I’ll talk to Sam when this is over, Dean. We can’t keep on running in circles. This includes using you as a torturer. You deserve better.”

“We both do,” he chuckles humorlessly. “Maybe we should run away together.”

“You, me, and that girl from the diner?”

“Exactly.”

“Does she know?”

“I didn’t tell her about my…profession. It’s better this way,” he shrugs. “Let’s be honest. Sooner than later, she’ll have enough and move on to someone else. I can’t marry a nice girl not knowing what she got herself into.”

“Maybe she would understand you didn’t tell her the truth, Dean.”

“We can still run.”

“I can’t…I’m still in love with your brother.”

You stand there in silence next to Dean for what feels like an eternity. Breathing in and out while your heart beats out of your chest.

“I hope he’s worth it,” he watches you open the door. Dean takes a deep breath and forces a cold mask to replace his features. It’s easier to pretend to feel nothing when pain, blood, and death lie ahead. “This is going to be a fucking long night…”

Head held high you step inside the room. Just like Dean, you hide your insecurities and fear behind a stoic face tonight.

“Look what the cat dragged in. I had hoped at least your ugly face got damaged a little more. Like my grandfather used to say. If you want something to get done, do it yourself.”

Another punch hits her face, but she takes it like a champ, you give her that. Her bloody smirk makes you shudder. Ruby spits blood onto the floor. It joins dried blood, spit, and something looking like ripped-out nails on the concrete in the basement. 

This is not a nice place. It’s cold, dark, and filled with the faded screams of the victims of Winchester’s business.

You fight the urge to empty your stomach as Sam gets a knife out. 

“Sam, I-“ you look at Ruby, almost feeling sorry for the broken creature restrained to an old chair. You remember the furniture. It used to stand in John’s kitchen, or at least you think so. 

“Aw, does your little wife want to watch you get your hands dirty Sammy?” Ruby sneers as you look away. “I can’t believe you chose her over me. Look at her. She’s soft and won’t make it for much longer in life like ours. Everyone knows she’s nothing but a burden to you.”

“Watch your tongue, bitch,” you never saw Sam like that before. He slaps Ruby’s face hard enough to split her skin open with his wedding band. “You are talking about my wife and the woman I love. She’s family and you are simply a faded memory. A meaningless one nightstand I forgot about the moment I slipped out of you.”

“You’re a bad liar, Sam,” she coos, batting her eyelashes. Ruby looks like she got under the bus, still, she tries to flirt with Sam. Blood runs down her neck, left arm, and chest. Her nose is bleeding heavily and one of her eyes is swollen, and black. 

“Not me,” Dean whispers as you look at him in horror. “I came here with you, Y/N. I don’t like putting my hands on women that way.”

“It was my honor to avenge you,” John steps out of the shadows. Blood is splattered all over his white shirt, his face and arm, but he doesn’t seem to care. You gasp as he takes off his bloody hand gloves, carelessly dropping them to the ground. “You’ve missed the show, Y/N. We were waiting for you.”

“I told her to wait a little longer,” now you know why Dean distracted you for so long. He didn’t want you to watch the worst part of the show. “This is not for her.”

“She wanted to watch,” you dare not to meet John’s gaze as he steps closer to you to cup your chin with two fingers. “Right? You are one of us, Sammy’s future. You’ll carry his heir soon enough and continue our bloodline.”

“Why don’t you bang her yourself,” Ruby doesn’t shut her mouth. She snickers behind John’s back while trying to wiggle out of the ropes holding her wrists. “I know how you look at your son’s wife. I bet you are creaming your pants imagining having your way with her.”

“Silence,” John twirls around to punch Ruby’s face with full force. You whimper, not wanting him to hurt her even more. “You’ve got no clue what you are talking about. I don’t fuck my son’s girls.”

“Didn’t you stop you from fucking Jess, or Lisa…or me,” she grins up at John. His chest heaves up and down as he stares down at the bloody mess that used to be the woman Sam desired a long time ago.

“Sir, I think Y/N should go now,” Sam protectively steps in front of you to block your view. “She has seen enough.”

“No. She needs to end this the Winchester way,” you feel your legs give in when John pushes his son out of his way to hand you a knife. “Kill that woman. An eye for an eye. A life for a life.”

“I-“ you glance at the knife in your hand. It would be a death sentence to say no to John Winchester, but you are not a killer. “Can I…”

“She’s better with a gun,” Dean steps in. “You remember our training, right?” he takes the knife out of your hand to give it back to his father. “Here, take mine. I’ll help you.”

“I said this is enough,” the room falls silent as Sam rolls his shoulders. “I’m not going to let my wife do such a thing. She wanted to witness Ruby’s punishment, and she did. I’ll end this.”

“Sammy, what?” before Dean can react Sam snatches the gun out of his brother’s hands, unlocks it, and aims at Ruby’s head. “Wait…”

“Goodbye,” Dean presses your face in his chest and tells you to cover your ears as Sam ends Ruby’s life. You are trembling and crying as another pair of hands tugs at your body moments later.

Everything is a haze after the gunshot. You end up in someone’s arms and get carried out of the basement. Too afraid to look at the man carrying you, all you can do is cover your eyes with your hands.

“I’ve got you, baby girl,” it’s Sam softly whispering your name. “I’m sorry. Father can be…” He holds you close to his warm chest, failing to even talk.

“A fucking asshole,” Dean is right behind you and his brother. While John yells your husband’s name, Sam walks upstairs and makes his way inside your bedroom, ignoring his father’s orders. “How can he expect her to stab that bitch? Did he lose his mind?”

“He lost it a long time ago, Dean,” you whimper as Sam places you on the bed. “I told you years ago. When I was fourteen. This will never end.”

“This is all his fault. Ruby got mad as he ended their affair. She wanted to hit him where it hurts. Without an heir, John Winchester will sooner than later lose his empire,” Dean gives his brother a cracked smile. “Charlie dug a little deeper for me. And Ketch knew more than I told all of you.”

“You knew all the time that she wanted to hit him, not me?” Sam shakes his head. “How could you hide this from me?”

“I had to be sure, Sammy. Charlie found everything.”

“So, did he want to touch my wife too?” frowning deeply Sam looks at his brother. “Please tell me she lied, Dean.”

“I wish I could say no. I don’t know, to be honest. Ruby wasn’t wrong, though. He looked at Y/N like he wants to…”

“What will we do now?” you look up at Sam. “I’m scared of John. He didn’t look happy when I couldn’t kill Ruby.”

“We run,” Sam jerks his head toward his brother. “Charlie helped me transfer most of our money to an offshore bank account a few days ago. I knew shit will go down.” He shrugs as his brother gapes at him. “We can take the Impala and get out of this fucking town, Sammy.”

“Better late than never, huh? Lock the door,” Dean hurriedly locks the door while Sam walks inside the walk-in-wardrobe to remove a fake wall. He gets three duffle bags and clothes out, smirking as you look up at him with wide eyes. “One for each of us. New papers, money, clothes, guns, all we will need to get out of town.”

“How…what?” Sam hands you new clothes to wear. Jeans, a t-shirt, a red-checkered flannel, boots, and a leather jacket.

“Dean, I got something for you too. We need to look different. No suits and polished shoes until we got away.”

“I can live with that,” Dean looks at the clothes Sam hands him. “Jeans and plaids. Awesome…”

“I said no detours,” Sam watches a girl run toward the Impala. He huffs in the backseat as she jumps into Dean’s arms. “He found the time to pick up a girl?”

“Get inside, sweetheart,” Dean hurriedly gets back behind the steering wheel. Benny, Castiel, and Gadreel made sure to distract John long enough for you to escape but he doesn’t want to waste another minute.

“Hi,” you watch the waitress Dean met up with for weeks get inside the Impala. She presses a duffle bag to her chest, smiling at Sam and you in the back. “Nice to finally meet you. I’m (*another reader*).”

“Y/N, and this is Sam, my husband,” you watch her buckle up as Dean starts the engine to get out of town. “We glad we finally meet you.”

“So…we are on the run now,” she asks as you watch her watch Dean. She moves her hand to his thigh and softly speaks his name. It’s the first time Dean looks at peace since you know him.

“Not for long, (*another reader*). We will find a place to call home. See it as…”

“A fresh start,” Sam smirks as Dean pushes the car to its limit.

Only a few hours and you are out of John Winchester territory. Castiel, Benny, and Gadreel will make sure your father-in-law looks for you at the wrong end of the world.

“A fresh start,” Dean agrees as you lean your head against Sam’s shoulder. You close your eyes and allow yourself to dream of a better life; away from crimes, pain, and fear.

A life in which you can have a family and a life with the man you love.

Tags in reblog.

#Fresh Start (4) #Sam Winchester #sam winchester fanfiction #mobster!sam #mobster!sam x reader #mobster!sam winchester #sam x you #sam x reader #sam winchester x y/n

[ninjastudioart]

Answer Questions

(Part 2 of Sleep Schedule. Special thanks to @silentslxmp for the lovely ask)

School had been over for an hour, but the ninja had yet to start training. Wu had gone to get more of his weird tea and the ninja decided to clean the weapons in Wu's closet for him. To be fair, they were already pretty clean but they knew Wu would appreciate it. Especially since Lloyd had yet to get back.

Zane had become very nervous about that. Lloyd had said he'd be back by late Tuesday, and Zane had assumed at latest he'd be back early Wednesday. It was Wednesday, close to 18:00, and there was still no sign.

He tried to ignore it, focusing on his friends talking and just wiping the dust off the various weapons. He was sanding the wooden handle of one when the door slid open.

The ninja jumped up to see who it was, and to there joy it was Lloyd. Though, the joy faded almost immediately into shock.

The bloody sword clattered across the floor, cracks forming in the dried body fluid. Lloyd stumbled in, limping on his right leg. His suit was torn in various spots, and under the cloth in some spots you could see wounds in the process of healing. Glowing green despite the blood being pink-purple. But the largest shock was the obvious chemical burn across his chest and stomach, damaged skin with bits of what remained of his suit and leather-armor melted in.

Kai and Nya ran over, grabbing Lloyd by the arms as his injured leg buckled under his weight.

"Oh my FSM Lloyd!?! Wh-what happened?!" Nya asked, face etched with worry as Kai grabbed at Lloyd's mask. Zane noted it seemed to have been crudely repaired, and he saw why when he saw the burn across the right side of his face.

Jay, already up, ran to grab a first aid kit, followed by Nya who ran into a different room to grab the hydrogen peroxide.

"Cole, help me carry him to the kitchen!" Kai could lift Lloyd alone in terms of weight, but he was worried about hurting him more. So Cole ran over, signaling Zane to follow.

Lloyd was unconscious by now, probably from pure pain. Cause not only had he been hurt, he would have had to come all the way back to Ninjago...on horseback.

He accepted the med-kit, and immediately started to work.

Wu talked to the ninja in the background, but it was all an auditory blur for Zane as he carefully pulled another piece of fabric from Lloyd's skin. He was glad his friend was unconscious, since this would be a very painful experience otherwise.

He dropped it into a small bowl filled with alcohol, and moved back for another shred. One finger formed into tweezers, he carefully poked and prodded at the skin to find something else.

"Zane?" Zane nearly jumped out of his fake skin, making sure to pull his arm up so he didn't accidently cause more damage.

His blue eyes darted to meet Lloyd's, well, his one eye since the other was unable to open. He looked tired, and tears beaded at his bottom lid. His mouth was slightly ajar, but only on one side. The other was still melted together.

"Lloyd! You're awake! I'll tell the-" A cold hand rested on Zane's, and he immediately stopped and looked at his friend.

"I'm sorry...for what I-I said. Didn't-didn't deserve to be-" Zane placed his free hand on Lloyd's, smiling at his friend.

"Lloyd, it's fine. You don't need to apologize for anything. If you'd like we can talk about it AFTER we finish here, okay?" He seemed to accept the answer, if not just out of tiredness, and closed his eye.

Zane smiled, before jumping back into his work. He grabbed a piece, but looked to Lloyd before he continued.

"This will hurt."

And then he pulled it off, Lloyd squirming and biting back a scream.

Jay paced back and forth. Nya watched him...pace back and forth. Kai layed on his back staring up into the eternal abyss of the universe.....hidden by the ceiling. Cole also watched Jay pace while doing jumping jacks. Overall...not a fun atmosphere. Especially since Wu was scribbling a message asking what the hell happened since in his own words, "the mission wasn't anything crazy sounding."

Zane walked into the room, instantly met with all the attention of each member.

"So, is he alright?" Kai, tried to sound calm, but he was clearly worried.

"Yes, he's fine. I just need to bandage him up." Wu smiled at Zane, walking over and placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I'll bandage him up, you go ahead and rest. Thank you for everything Zane." Zane gently grinned, then moved to join the others, preparing to answer their questions.

"I'm guessing he was awake?" Zane only nodded. Despite biting back the screams in impressive fashion, having cloth and leather torn from your skin wasn't the best thing to have happen while trying to stay quiet.

"Will he be okay?" Nya grabbed his arm gently, face usually drawn in nonchalant-ness now scratched with worry for their leader.

"Yes, he was already healing. I was more worried about his body healing AROUND the fabric and leather. He'll heal fine now, it may take a few days though." The last part still felt wrong, but they had watched Lloyd have his spinal column snapped in half, only for him to wake up 4 days later, able to walk and everything. He knew Lloyd would recover quickly, well, physically at least.

Zane was still curious, and worried, so he decided he would see if Wu needed help. He slid out of his blanket, and stood from the thin mat he slept on, laid across from Lloyd's. He carefully avoided any objects strewn across the floor, not wanting to wake his friends, before leaving the room.

It was quiet, other than the sound of muffled voices coming from Wu's room. Zane stopped, listening for a moment.

"Lloyd I would appreciate it if you DIDN'T keep getting hurt with chemicals."

"Those bastards had be cornered, I had no choice. Besides, I've done it before."

"I would rather you didn't mix up a batch of acid and then dump it on yourself."

What did that mean? What had Lloyd made? And why did he make acid?! That was the better question.

"I didn't TRY to get it all over myself, but when I poured the bottle and dropped it, one of them grabbed it and threw it back at me! Fucker was lucky, there was still shit in there."

Zane, puzzled, decided to keep listening, intrigued by how open Lloyd seemed with Wu.

"...so why did they corner you?"

"Fucking prick, did what he asked, but that pompous shithead decided to send his guard dogs to play fetch." Zane was even more confused, until realizing Lloyd was being sarcastic. There were no actual dogs, which was good since Zane didn't think dogs could throw bottles of acid at people.

"Fucker got what he deserved though, his little commanders gonna have a rough day after seeing that dickhead strung about his room."

"Lloyd please don't give me that imagery. Bad enough seeing you."

"You've seen worse!"

"I'm aware I've seen you before."

Zane found himself smiling at the playful banter, leaning against the wall. He wondered how long Lloyd had known Wu, or if that even mattered.

"...Those kids...they're okay right? Had to leave in a rush...mask was ruined."

"Yes. I got the message back from the Imperial Palace. They said the kids were safe and had been returned to their families. They will be sending a diplomat to "guide" the district leaders heir. Make sure he doesn't do the same as his predecessor."

"Good, then everythings fine. What's a little burn as long as they're okay..."

Zane's smile faded a bit. The sentence itself was mostly fine, but the way it was said. It reminded him of the way Lloyd joked about himself. It was clearly meant to be seen as positive. But the tone. It was so...sad? So...sincere.

He wondered if all the jokes, all the statements of uselessness and self-hate, were not jokes at all. But a way Lloyd tried to cope, to seem okay.

It made him feel somewhat guilty, but Zane brushed that off. How could he know? Only Lloyd knew if the jokes meant more.

Zane decided he was done spying, not wanting them to realize he was there, and opened the door.

Lloyd nearly jumped into the great beyond, Wu having to hold him still as he tightened a bandage.

"Lloyd calm down please. It's Zane." Wu turned with a smile, his beard tossed over his shoulder, probably to avoid getting a bandage stuck to it.

"Hello Zane, can I help you?"

"Hello Wu, I was just wondering if you needed help. I also wanted to make sure Lloyd is okay and healing properly!" Zane stepped around, getting a look at Lloyd's face.

It was mostly bandaged, though his mouth was visible. It was still deformed, but where Zane had cut the lips apart was looking better already.

"I'm just about done bandaging him up, but if you'd like to examine him go ahead."

Lloyd seemed betrayed as he looked at Wu, eyes swearing to make him pay for that. But Wu only smiled, shockingly smug as he wrapped bandages around Lloyd's neck.

"Thank you Wu." Zane kneeled down on the floor with Lloyd, smiling in an attempt to not make Lloyd more uncomfortable.

"How are you feeling Lloyd?"

"Lloyd's face was nigh-emotionless as he spoke.

"Bad."

Zane stared, unsure what to do with that information.

"Can you be more specific?"

"Like I got the shit beat out of me and then got acid dumped on top of that?"

Zane could only blink rapidly as he did his best to imagine how that would feel. And, in all fairness to his friend, bad was a good word for it.

"Do you feel any different? It has only been a few hours, but some of your burn should be healing." He knew Lloyd's body would prioritize the burn at this point, so he hoped that meant the pain was mitigated.

"Itchy, but-" He motioned a hand at all the wrapping, and Zane nodded.

"I wouldn't recommend scratching it, your claws may breach the gauze and expose the wounds to the air." Could Lloyd get infections? His body fought against literally anything it deemed un-belonging, but he wasn't sure. Maybe he'd ask later.

Wu cleared his throat, standing.

"That's all the bandages done. Now, I am heading to the store to get some more since-" He pointed at the sheer amount of wrappings on Lloyd's damaged body, "so you're done Lloyd. But Zane should examine you to make sure you'll be alright."

Lloyd seemed unimpressed with that course of action, but nodded in agreement before Wu left the two alone.

Zane watched him go, wondering if Wu was aware Lloyd largely needed nothing at this point other than to rest. Or if he was just extra concerned.

Zane, confused once more, turned to see Lloyd scratching at his scalp.

"Are you alright? Did you get any cuts on your scalp?"

"Huh? Oh, nah. Just itchy since I'm probably filthy." Zane nodded, staring for a moment. Lloyd would probably be dirty for awhile, since he couldn't really shower with all the bandages in the way.

"If you'd like, I have some dry shampoo! It isn't the greatest fix, but it might help!" Zane suddenly popped open his chest cavity, reaching in and pulling out a bottle.

Lloyd, initially perturbed by the sudden horror, smiled.

"Thanks Zane."

He went to reach for the offered bottle, before realizing his range of movement had been fairly limited, even with his freakishly long arms.

"I can do it for you if you'd like, but I'd like to brush your hair first if that's okay." Lloyd seemed to pull away a little, but he stayed still, looking away.

"You don't-you don't have to do that. I'm fine, not like I haven't been gross before, kinda my usual state, heh." It was clearly meant to be a joke, but it made Zane feel a little sad.

"I want to help you, besides, your hair needs as much help as it can get with how little you brush it." Lloyd mockingly acted offended.

"I brush it every morning and most night. Not my fault it decided to be this thick."

Zane smiled, moving to sit behind Lloyd, slowing down when he saw how his friend tensed at the sudden movement. He reached into his chest, again, and removed a brush.

Zane loved Lloyd's hair. Despite its messy and untamed appearance, the hair itself was like silk, or cashmere, and it was thick with lots of volume. He had some trouble thanks to that last compliment, but persistence worked to get through most of the tangles.

Lloyd seemed content with the brushing, and Zane could see he had his eyes closed in the mirror sat in front of them.

His hands moved slowly through the platinum blond locks, enjoying how it felt. Even his dyed hair had retained it texture, a shock since it was some pretty dramatic dye work.

He pulled the brush through again, resting one hand on Lloyd's head and scratching his scalp. Or what he assumed was his scalp. It was impossible to see due to all the hair.

He heard a humming sound, or a sound like an engine, but realized it was Lloyd purring as Zane scratched his scalp.

It made him smile, how strange yet endearing Lloyd could be. It was a stark contrast to how he carried himself at school. From an intimidating and violent "jerk", to a purring kitten. It made Zane smile, and he felt more relaxed by the fact he seemed happy.

Lloyd opened his eyes, realizing he was purring, but unsure how to stop it. He looked into the mirror, seeing how Zane smiled softly as he brush and brushed the mop of hair on his head. For some reason, it made him feel guilty. Like Zane had forced himself to accept he'd be hear for awhile.

He hated to be a bother to his coworker, especially after he'd done so much to rip shreds of cloth and armor from his skin.

" Alright, I'll just spray some in and try to rub it into your scalp since, well, I can't really get to it heh." Zane seemed amused, but for some reason it made Lloyd feel...bad. He felt the all-to-familiar lump in his throat, burning as he looked down at the floor.

Zane began his work, but quickly stopped as he realized Lloyd seemed to be shaking. He looked into the mirror.

Lloyd was crying.

The false magma dripped down his face, burning orange and yellow as it fell, hissing into a cloud of, smoke? Zane didn't know what Lloyd's tears were, like liquid fire he guessed. But that was beyond the point. His friend was crying.

"Hey, did I say something wrong? I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, for-for being a nuisance. You should just leave...I can take care of myself." Lloyd pulled away from Zane's hands, crouching, preparing to leave.

His hair fell over his eyes, shadowing his face. But his ears hung to the sides, drooping down as the tears only fell faster and harsher.

Zane stared for a moment, debating. Should he let him leave? He made his decision pretty quickly.

Lloyd felt every muscle in his body tense as two arms wrapped around him. Every warning sound was blaring in his head, every alarm designed after his years in this city. His years in this life really.

Zane pulled him back, and Lloyd realized his teammate was hugging him.

"Why?" He managed to choke the word out as Zane held him close, comforting him. But that made him feel worse.

"Why are you being nice to me?! I'm a-I'm a monster. I'm an asshole who-who HURTS people! Why would you-" He was cut off as he choked back a sob. He was shaking, and the feeling of nausea was creeping into his body.

"Because you're my friend, and you're upset? Besides, it not like the kids you fight don't deserve it. Last I checked threatening to 'skin and hang you from a meat hook' is a pretty fair reason to fight someone. Not a justifiable reason maybe, but a good one."

Lloyd didn't know what his mind was more stuck on. Zane defending his awful habit, or being called a friend.

Did he consider Zane a friend? Did he consider any of the ninja friends? He tried to keep it professional. Refer to them as his team, his coworkers. But was that how he felt?

Did he deserve friends? Zane seemed to consider him one, but why? He didn't deserve that, he didn't deserve anything to be honest. He was a monster, and monsters like him only deserved to suffer.

But he couldn't make himself pull away, not when he had already been a jackass to Zane. Which reminded him-

"Zane...what did you ask me again? B-before I left..."

"Lloyd we don't have to talk about that-"

"You-you asked me why I don't sleep, right? I-you got my note right? I-wanted to answer that question."

Zane would have felt happy, if not for the fact Lloyd was crying his eyes out and only telling him out of some weird obligation he had created for himself. He wanted to know, but he wanted it to be on Lloyd's terms as well. This felt like it wasn't.

"Lloyd I want you to tell me when you-"

"I'm scared."

The words were so simple, yet crashed through Zane's mind like a crossbow bolt.

"What?"

"I-m scared, scared of.... I don't want to see the memories anymore."

#ninjago lloyd #ninjago #ninjago au #ninjago hc #ninjago zane #ninjago fanfiction

[lostforgottenspaces]

Heal and Love

Dorcas was on her feet the instant she saw Marlene appear around the corner. She had been read in an alcove by one of the many moving staircases waiting for her girlfriend. Marlene had smiled when she saw Dorcas, but the movement had been quickly followed by a wince. A large gash sliced down over her jaw and she had an already bruising eye. Quickly, Dorcas dragged the Gryffindor to sit down, before carefully cupping the unharmed side of her face.

“Oh my god, Marls,” Dorcas said, slowly tilting her face to assess the damage.

“You should see the other guy,” Marlene joked half-heartedly. She breathed in sharply as her girlfriend lightly brushed her thumb under Marlene’s eye.

“The other guy?” Dorcas said suddenly, hands still. “Marlene who did this to you.”

Her voice was quiet but full of seething anger. All expression and emotion dropped from her face as she watched Marlene carefully.

“Oh, no one really.” Marlene tried to brush it off, avoiding Dorcas’ piercing gaze. She continued vaguely, keeping her voice light and unbothered. “It was just a bit of a scrap you know. He said something stupid, I punched him, we fought a bit, end of story.”

“Darling. Who. Did. This.” Dorcas was struggling to keep her voice calm and even. Blood was running over Marlene’s jaw and down her neck. There were flecks of it all over her shirt. Someone had caused this. Someone had hurt her Marlene. If they thought it was okay to mess with her girlfriend they were so, fucking, dead.

Marlene looked down at her feet, avoiding her girlfriend's question. Dorcas took a slow breath before tilting Marlene’s chin back up.

“I’m going to clean this up for you okay baby?” Dorcas said gently, her gaze softened. “And then you’re going to tell me exactly what happened and who did this.”

“Yeah, okay. Thank you.” Marlene smiled ever so slightly, looking appreciative.

Dorcas kissed the top of her head, before getting out her wand and summoning a cloth and some disinfectant. She poured a little onto the cloth and began to carefully dab the wound on Marlene’s face, as well as the ones on her knuckles. Whenever Marlene hissed at the sting, Dorcas placed a kiss on the inside of her wrist. Having cleaned the wounds, she pulled her wand out again, murmuring a few spells.

“That should keep the wounds shut and assist with the healing process,” she told Marlene. “I might have something to reduce the swelling around your eye in my bag.”

“Not your first time doing this is it?” Marlene questioned, quite impressed by Dorcas’ knowledge and skills. Healing magic was difficult to master.

“No, it’s not,” Dorcas responded. Her voice seemed a bit sad, but as she turned around there was no trace of it on her face. She laughed quietly, “Do my friends seem like the careful kind to you?”

She opened up a bottle and dipped her fingers into it. The paste inside was a light glittering blue that gave the illusion of powdery snow. It used to remind her of Christmas. Making snow angels and hot cocoa. Snowball fights and kisses on cold lips. Marlene, asleep in her lap, the fire roaring in front of them, the wind lashing at the windows outside, and her friends scheming around them. Only now it reminded her of bruised skin. Barty's fights. Regulus' parents. Bloodied teeth and black eyes. The snow had turned to pain and suffering. Everything had turned to pain and suffering.

And the war had barely even started yet.

But she needed to focus on Marlene. Marlene who was hurt and in pain. Clinging to a mask of bravery with shaking hands. Dorcas could see her eyes watering through the cracks. It broke her heart. Let me hold it, Dorcas wanted to say. Let me hold it while you rest a while. But she would not let go. She would not drop the mask. If Marlene did not have her sarcasm, her confidence, her sass, and her pride, then what would she have?

Dorcas, Marlene would have Dorcas. She only had to realise it.

#dorlene #the marauders #marauders era #the marauders era #marauders headcanon #marauders #dead gay wizards #marlene mckinnon #dorcas meadowes #dorcas x marlene #my writing #lost writes #fluff and angst

[the-road-from-calvary]

Talking about the snake curse yesterday reminded me of this bit of writing that never ended up getting used, but I still like it. So. Fuck it. Antonia resisting fury frenzy be upon ye. From the rescue mission in Paris, when Henry, Antonia, and Jackie actually confronted Rohanne after finding and retrieving Rohanne’s removed heart.

There’s the split second where she sees her and it’s- 

The relief hits like a physical force - an act of willpower that kept her knees from buckling. Something clicks into place, some part of her that had been slowly hollowing itself out as cold, creeping certainty crawled into the parts of her heart that anxiety could no longer sustain. Mia is there, she is alive, and Antonia had not realized until this moment just how much of her heart the despair had laid claim to. 

It is, of course, followed by immediate, blinding emotion. Because it is Mia, and she is not ash but Antonia is old enough to recognize torpor, to know the kind of damage to send them into it. And it is Rohanne standing there, as if she has a right to- 

It is a phone call, and hearing all the cracks in the reassurances, the way Mia tries to make “took all my fingernails” sound insignificant, as though Antonia shouldn’t worry, as though there is any chance that Antonia would not make a coldly certain decision that Rohanne would regret this some night- 

It is a blasé admission from a thoroughly bloodied Mia, certainly not the victor in her engagement with a truck - “you know, if Zed’s curse fucked me up hard enough, I couldn’t be made to do what Rohanne is asking me, right?” And Antonia feels the tiniest bit sick, that she cannot fix this, can only be here and hope that is enough- 

It is Mia chattering on about the intrigues of the court in Cairo, her normal enthusiasm for petty gossip ever so slightly dampened by the knowledge of whose agent she acts as. And Antonia swallows back the hatred pressing in as she thinks of anyone using Mia - brilliant, passionate, endlessly charming Mia - as their puppet, as though anyone has the right- 

It is holding Mia as she whimpers, clutching her gut and they are laid out together they were reading and “you know, the old snake-eating-your-liver curse. A classic!” and all Antonia can do is hold her and whisper reassurances, as if I-Love-Yous could do anything at all- 

And it is arriving at the club, Henry bloodied and Mia nowhere, she’s been taken, she’s not there, the cold press of fear and the hot press of rage, both trying to send her anywhere as if she had anywhere to go- 

But now she does, and Rohanne is right in front of her, and Antonia can feel that last, frayed string of control and she can almost see it snapping but-

Not now. We can do better. We are better. She admonishes herself. Dismisses the brief, too-tempting fantasy of Rohanne’s vitae on her blade. The weight of Rohanne’s heart is still in her other hand and. She’d told Jackie and Henry that the intent was to use the heart to get Mia back. But... That need not be all. Perhaps it is Rohanne’s turn, to be the puppet.

#((ooc)) #((my writing))

[elliot-soot]

I wrote this based on Jubilee line from your city gave me asthma.

It was supposed to be for school but I'm also gonna post it here cuz I really loved writing it and it is related enough :)

*'----------------------------Jubilee line-----------------------------'*

1007 words

2 hours

its like the clocked had betrayed me. Like it had chosen to run

its thin hands of time just slow enough for me to feel it fade. To feel the rope connecting the

two of us as we moved threw the apartment tether and tie itself to only the objects left

behind.

The words spoken like daggers to the heart and mind stabbing deep and swiftly with no

regard. All missing the line I so desperately hoped would be cut to free the pit in my stomach

and the tightening in my chest.

I wished I could have said it surprised me. I wish I could have described the feeling as a

surprise and a swift cut. But the more I sat, the more we weaved around one and other

without a word as if only to coexist without mention or notice of one and other.

Those daggers if ever to be planted were supposed to uproot my being. Cause me to call

friends desperately trying to piece together what I was unable to build on my own.

But instead, I knew. From the moment you opened your mouth that night. The knives had

been planted, placed, dangerously from minute one. Wavering. Slowly pushing deep within

with every lack of words, lack of feeling, lack of attention drawn from one and other. The

sharp pain wasn’t new or sudden.

I held the door open that night. The apartment dimmed every step you took threw the old

musted and water damaged halls of the cheapest apartment we could find. At the time it was

easy to overlook.

The taste of soil and earth that drained itself, only ever cold from the kitchen sink was

only something I agreed to in haste. In condition. Now the condensation on the glass feels

wasted and irritating as I take labored sips of the stale and potent liquid.

the air that drew threw the cracked windows

always drew in the frigid cold. I tolerated it. On conditions alone. Promises of getting out

together. Now you leave not removed nor untethered from me. connected to the old jacket

you left in the closet, your painting you framed arrogantly and boastfully above the old

stained couch, and the shoes, you left simply because they would never get you where you

needed to go.

It had only been a day. You left to stay in a hotel till the subway could take you where

you needed to go. Yet I still couldn’t figure out why that couldn’t be here.

In this old stale apartment. Littered with only slightly good furniture and appliances.

Filled with cracks and leaks that we would hide behind wall decorations and under rugs.

Where I had spent my night throat sore and raw from yelling questions at the impossibly thin

and un-responding walls. Begging for the reasons you didn’t give me. Didn’t explain.

My lips were left chapped and salted by tears and dehydration as I fall asleep with a

pounding headache and tight chest leaving it hard to breath.

The next thing my dizzying thoughts comprehend is a message, clearly un rehearsed and

unedited written in haste on the way to the station. Sent at 11:58pm. The words spelt wrong

left without punctuation or poetic feelings that you used to weave in so effortlessly with

every seemingly normal and humane message lacking and seemingly unavailable now.

Without second thought my feet on the concrete side walks. Pounding and racing heartily

down deserted and empty walkways once bustling with the people of business that fitted so

seamlessly into the London atmosphere.

My throaty still soar and hoarse my cheeks still wet from the tears shed earlier that night.

Not much earlier. Only leaving for a hour of restless rest.

My legs seem to easily allow me to trip, and plummet distracted by them. Distracted by

what ifs. My knees now dented, bloodied, ruined and broken open and seasoned in the dirt

and dust of the somehow unrelentingly quiet city.

I pick myself up unwillingly. My body seeming to give up. To chose to truly undo what I had tried to desperately to do.

With heavy breath and blood tainting my blemished and beaten knees I continue my now

staggered pursuit of the underground rails.

They were about to leave, about to be gone. They had chosen someone else and yet all I

could do was move forward towards the spaces below the seemingly abandoned city streets.

I clammer down the stairs. It stings. It stings physically, it stings internally. The emotion

wells up in my eyes taking form of salted tears that soil my cheeks but not for the first time

since they had said they needed to leave.

The moist dirty smell so strong it corrodes and taints my palette forcing a cough and a

gage as I race out into the gate.

I see them.

Then I don’t.

The train begins to lurch forward and race its way around from the platform with speed I

could never match. With the person I could never let go. The only thing I can think is how

close they were. The way they had just stepped onto the shuttle to take them away from here.

From me.

How if he had just been quicker, he could have grabbed the edge of their green bomber jacket sleeve and at least said a untainted and genuine goodbye.

One meant to send them off to someone else with my warmest regards and my unwilling

understanding. With my hopes for them to be safe and that they take of themselves even though I wouldn’t be there to see or aid them. To tell them I rather die then wish them ill or

hurt them.

But they were gone.

Down the tunnel.

Gated off and bared just out of reach.

After all.

Maybe there’s a reason London put barriers on the rail.

#wilbursoot #jubileeline #angst #your city gave me asthma #theres a reason that london puts barriers on the rails #Wilbursoot x reader #wilbursoot fanfiction

[thegodthief]

The good thing about being a lucid dreamer: No matter what is happening, you know it's a dream and that you're going to wake up, eventually.

The bad thing about being a lucid dreamer: Super fidelity experiences, to the point where they feel more real than the memories that spawned them.

This didn't happen. This is a mashup of memories, but this didn't happen. My fellow church goers are kneeling around me as I'm laid out on the bench seat. It has been decades and I see their faces as clear as the day I walked away. They lay their hands on me, on my arms, on my legs, on my feet, on my shoulders, on my face. The pastor proceeding over this matter tells them to ignore any sound I make because the possession has me in full and until I am purged, nothing I do can be trusted.

She did say that a lot after I called her father out, didn't she. She tells them to pray for the release of my spirit, even if it took killing the flesh so that my soul could be whole. And she said that, too. I stuck around for how long? Bloody hell.

The fit threatening to dismantle my joints is quiet this time. Just a lot of contortions and muscle cramping from the demand to hold longer than the body has reserves to fuel. It's very unsettling to look at. The odd croaking and cracking from my mouth doesn't help. If they would just leave me alone, the fit will work itself out in just a few minutes and then I can rest.

But they don't leave me alone. I have no medical history of epilepsy, after all. When the fits started, I was encouraged to seek medical help, until that night I fell into trance at a home session and said some things about the head pastor that made all the dogs howl. Just because I was right didn't mean I had the right to say it, except he had been herding me into leaning into it. He kept telling me that as long as I was yielding to holy authority that it was okay to let go, okay to let the power flow, okay to be used as a mouthpiece for something that terrified me each time I felt it approaching.

It was okay until he heard something he didn't want to hear and now it's not okay and the mongrel has to be chased out before the disease spreads.

The fit eases and I'm able to move at will. Well, as much as I can with the twelve people pushing against me to hold me in place. I look up and see the glint of polished steel. A... Dagger?! Well that never happened ever! She's holding a dagger over me while preaching to the gathered congregation about the necessity of throwing the flesh to the flames of hell so the spirit can be saved. But I know I'm dreaming, so I try to see which memory this is a riff of.

In a flash I remember the memory represented by the dagger. The cold steel would hurt less. What will not yield to power, will be destroyed by power. She lays a hand on my chest and a lightning bolt flashes through the ceiling, through the suspended dagger, and into my chest, shattering my awareness.

The burial cloth is tight against my dead body, holding me in place. I am angry because they didn't bother to complete the rites and embalm me. So desperate to get rid of the seed of dissension that they skip treating the flesh in lieu of sealing the spirit in a leaking vessel. This didn't happen. I'm dead? Da fuq? Oh yea, dreaming still.

But it did happen, just not physically. I didn't have fits until I started going to that church, and it has taken a lot of work to undo the bindings and mental damage inflicted upon me there. In a way, they did succeed in killing me. I guess it's a good thing their burial rites were as shallow as their faith.

But why am I dreaming this now? Why like this?

My wrapped body lies still in a shallow grave dug in a ditch just off the dirt crossroads. One path is the back way to get to that church, but the intersecting path didn't physically exist. Without sight, I know that this area is visible from the back doors of the church, but only if you know where to look. They buried me here as a warning to the others.

Day becomes night. While I know I am dreaming, I have not attempted to free myself from the bindings, the grave, or the dream. Too many wounds in my soul have been ripped open and I am struggling not to suffocate in them.

In the sky, a figure ascends even as they descend. Forever suspended between heaven and earth, they watch. With my dream-sight, I see them and I am transfixed upon their being. They reveal themselves to my horror and I become as stone in my fright.

"How long do you intend to lie there, [Redacted]?"

I remember. I remember everything. I remember all that happened between the brutal beatings exorcisms in that church to what happened before I went to bed last night. All of it.

"Rot. Or not. But choose before the choice is made for you."

I feel the decaying burial cloth tighten around my thickening body. My death is being unwound and the fluids lost from decay are solidifying into flesh and veins again. Just because this was my past, doesn't mean it has to remain my present.

I have everything I need to move on, to dig out of the grave they left me in, to get away from the fate they wanted for me. I just have to accept it and go.

I am suddenly more afraid by the choice than I am by the one offering it. What will happen to me if I choose to live?

"You will be made a sacrifice, same as if you didn't. But you choose what you will sacrifice yourself for. That is the difference."

I'm so tired. So very tired. Tired of fighting for the right to sit in the same room, to be seen as an equal, to be regarded as anything but a plaything and a toy, to BREATHE. If I remain in this grave, I won't have to fight ever again.

But I know that not all dead are at rest. Every time I yielded control to someone who promised to protect me in life, I was made into a fetish by the one I yielded to and forced to fight for my freedom.

Not this time.

Not ever again.

I said nothing to the figure above me. Instead, I pushed out with reformed arms and dug up with filth stained hands until I was able to rip the soggy remains of the burial cloth from my face and fill my lungs with the sharp currents of the cold night air.

I looked up to the sky and saw them hanging from the stars. Their visage terrified me and comforted me at the same time.

"I choose to live."

"Then get up and go, [Redacted]. Leave this grave, and those who put you here, behind."

I pulled myself out of the shallow grave completely. My naked body was stained by the scars of exorcisms and marked by the mud I was reformed from.

I stood there, unsteady on remade feet, and looked down the path to the building that I know no longer exists and a field that was paved over a few years after I left. I knew I was dreaming, but I also knew I had to start leaving the past in the grave it dug for itself or I would be buried in it again and again.

I turned to look down the path that never was. The landscape shifted and rewove itself even as I attempted to fix it with my gaze. "Welp, the only way out is through." I stumbled from the grave onto the uneven and rocking ground that was the crossroads and then with great determination, left the crossroads along the path that never was.

The moment my feet left the path of my memories, the dream collapsed around me and I knew nothing more.

#dream #To say that I am a bundle of fury rage and sorrow is a vast understatement. #I have so many more words and none of them can be written.

[sexygrass]

5. Revenge Must Be Served Cold

genre: smut, supernatural AU, soulmate au, vampires au, werewolf au, Sub/Dom dynamics, angst, mention of traumas, mention of torture, deaths of some characters, and blood, explicit language, fluff, mature content, sadism, lots of killing, and many plot twists.

Stepping out of his jeep black car, Johnny narrowed his eyes at the destroyed house. It was as if a hurricane passed by and damaged only their house. standing by the doorframe, his super hearing caught low grunts and whimpers. a gasp slipped past his lips at the scene and the splattered blood. "oh my god..."

following the source of the sound, he found Yuta in the hall with his arms and hands, thighs, and abdomen punctured with five sharp pickets; pinned to the wall, while bloodied three wooden plates were on the floor. with his free hand, Yuta was struggling to reach for the ones that were punctured into his left hand.

"I got you, I got you. I got you." Johnny kept chanting as he pulled the pickets out carefully, taking the last one, the red-haired vampire fell to the ground with a groan. "Doyoung, he's upstairs. hurry,"

whooshing upstairs, Johnny prays silently for his friend to be alive. The view of the dark-haired vampire struggling to reach the picket that was dug in the middle of his back had him stumbling. doyoung let out a pained cry when he couldn't move— as Samantha had pinned him to the ground with a picket too, "goddamn it, get out," he cussed, desperately. 

hearing footsteps nearing him, Doyoung turned around, alarmed, "It's me relax. Don't move. I'll pull it off." sucking at a breath, Doyoung clenched his jaw, "Johnny... I think there's a splinter inside and I can feel it scratch my heart," he cried out. Johnny pressed his lips and knelt behind his friend, "Don't worry. you're not dying, not like this."

Yuta stood up with a groan after stretching his sore body, hearing some of his bones crack, he sighed deeply as he rubbed his shoulder" That original bitch," he hissed under his breath. hearing a muffled buzzing, he looked around the messy room and caught the lit screen of a cell phone twinkling under the mess of the broken furniture; picking it up, he pulled it away from his ear at the loud sound.

"Johnny, where the hell are you?! go warn Taeil, hurry, he's in danger! I called five times, why didn't you pick up? hello? hello?!"  Taeyong's irritated voice for receiving no word from the other line boomed in Yuta's ears. 

"It's Yuta, Ty. Johnny is helping Doyoung right now....she already took him, Ty, she took him..." Yuta said in a dull voice and a gasp boomed from the other line. sucking at a breath, he felt the room close with tension, "We're on the way, hold on." 

heading upstairs, he saw Johnny's hand deep inside Doyoung's back, the latter keep cussing and hissing every time the American missed the wooden shred. "Okay, all done. get up now and stop acting like a bitch," Johnny fell back with a long sigh.

looking up, he catches his phone that yuta threw. "so, mind telling me what exactly happened?" leaning his head at the wall, Doyoung took a deep breath and closed his eyes. 

"Black-haired, blue-eyed, angry ex-girlfriend happened. To sum it up, Samantha Mikaelson happened."

...

hearing the brown-haired man grunt, Samantha drowned her drink and stood up. "rise and shine, my moon," snapping his neck her way, Taeil widened his eyes and stood up — well tried to stand up.

when he couldn't move, he took a second to realize what was stopping his movement. looking down at his feet, he saw them chained up to an iron table he was on. looking up, he saw his wrists also chained up above his head firmly. trashing his body in every direction, he growled.

"you won Samantha Mikaelson. you got me, would killing me now make up for the two centuries I took from you?" he taunted her with a smirk. her loud laugh sent chills down his spine, "I see," she shook her head, dark locks swaying over her shoulder, "you've gone cockier since the last time I saw you Moon Taeil." she smirked.

"let me remind you who you are and who I am, Moon Taeil," pressing her hands on his temple harshly, she entered his mind forcefully and purposely. hearing him grunt, she smiled.

few moments, she opened her eyes. "that what you were before me, sweety, a peasant, a servant at the Italian palace. a musician the king felt pity for so he took you in. Do you remember how the nobles were treating you or do you need me to remind you?" she gripped his chin harshly, making him face her.

"The insults, the mistreatment, the beating and humiliation that you endured for ten years till I found you. till I made you what you are. till I made you a man." she wrapped her hands around his neck and pulled him up, making the chains tighten around his wrists leaving a red mark on them.

"I know you did not bring me here for chatting, kill me, and let's get this over with," he said in a dull voice making her bit the inner of her cheek. shaking her head, she sighed and pushed his head back.

"you are mistaken, Moon Taeil. mistaken at many points." she looked down at him. her eyes dancing with lust for hearing his helpless screams and desire for putting him in unbearable agonization pain.

" A: it was only a century, with a couple of years, more or less. B: you're going to beg for me to kill you and put you out of the exquisite pain I have prepared for you." looking at her with an expressionless face, he everted his gaze to the door that flung open.

seeing Taemin barging in, he started trashing his body in all directions, "Taemin!... you're on her side...? I thought you were our friend!" Taeil exclaimed, disappointment lingering in his voice. Taemin scoffed and handed his master a red box.

"she's and will forever be my sole ally, friend," the blond drawled, "recognize this?" Samantha held the bone blade in front of her face with a wide smile. Taeil looked at it horrified and shook his arms aggressively. 

"Stabbing me was the last thing I expected from you, Taeil," her voice dropped by an octave, hurt, and betrayal lingering in it. even her eyes color changed into a midnight-deep blue as if pain and disappointment were swimming in them.

"at some point, I start seeing you as a family, someone I could trust. I even start caring about you, I used to like you, you were a needed fresh air in my suffocating life. I told you that before, haven't I, Moon Taeil?" She sighed and held the blade above his chest. "I think saving you that day at Tuscany was a wrong idea." his breath caught in his throat watching the deadly dark magic object that was about to pierce through his heart. "Why?" he breathed out. 

tilting her head at him, she pulled her hair off her face, "Why did you keep me around?" placing the blade down, she looked at him. "that's a wrong question but I will answer it for you. I kept you around cause your purity and positivity about life reminded me, of someone, I used to love. I needed some light in my darkness. I need life in my death. I needed someone to trust. You claimed that you loved me...but that was a lie, no one backstabs someone they love."

Taeil felt his heart sink because, despite her hardened facade, he saw a glimpse of pain and betrayal in her stormy blue eyes. at least for a second, he saw a real feeling in them, a feeling other than bloodlust and power thirst.

"hope that answers your question; however, the right one should be 'why I saved you in the first place' ". she shook her head with a smirked, "Surely, you know why, do you?" she laughed, "Tell me, Moon Taeil...." she said taking in the startled expression that decorated his pretty face, "Do you know what happened to your parents?"

Widening his eyes, a brim of tears twinkled in his doe eyes as she had made him see a memory she kept in her mind, "You....you...it was you..." He choked on his words and started coughing, catching his breath after she threw his head harshly. "yes, it was me." She grinned proudly.

"I killed them. and wanted to kill you too but I decided to reserve you for later so I'd have more fun" she laughed softly, "you know my penchant for Shakespearean vengeance. To put it simply, I hold a grudge against your family. Nothing was personal against you though." she pursed her lips.

"Later on, I saw how handsome you had become, and fair to say I have a thing for handsome faces. They're so fun to toy with, so full of their thin arrogance, thinking they have every woman wrapped up around their pretty, thin fingers. I enjoy them. you know, because of all the fun I get when I use them for my own pleasures. and you, my moon, were no exception" She shook her head, grinning smugly.

seeing a stray tear cascade down his cheek, she bite her lower lip to suppress a grin, "Aw, I made a three hundred years vampire cry. What would be my prize?" she hummed tapping her chin with the pointy sharp edge of the blade, "I guess I'll take a few centuries of torture then!" 

"I hope you rot in hell, you sadistic bitch—" his words were cut and a loud gasp echoed in the big dim room. a pained scream resonated from him, blessing Samantha's ears. Taeil gasped loudly from the excruciating pain when stabbed with Papa Tunde's blade, in the eye blink, with the power that was imbued within it, it started to dig inside his chest on its own.

in the last seconds before the dark magic that was in the blade spread into his body and renders him unconscious in a state of constant and extreme agony. Taeil took a breath and closed his eyes. he was about to turn his humanity off as his final solution to not feel the pain. he focused on his unconscious mind then he found it—his humanity's switch. flipping it off, he opened his eyes again and looked her dead in the eyes, his body no more moving.

"Oh, no no no, no turning your humanity off," she hissed and pulled him by the neck, locking her eyes on his, "Turn it On!" She screamed angrily at him, "Turn it on and never turn it off! no running away from the pain cause you're going to feel every ounce of it."

"see you in five centuries, love. that if you stayed alive for the next three days," she stayed to have one more look at his dead-like state before leaving and closing the door behind her.

"a sealing spell would suffice and everything is done." Taemin flashed a grin, "Great, You did well, Tae." taemin beamed at her praise before casting the needed spell. walking down the narrow corridor, she suddenly halted and turned back, "You know what? I'm in a great mood today. How about you join me for a drink?" the blond smirked and shrugged his shoulders, "why not?"

...

under the starry night, Samantha had her walk around the city and enjoyed the fresh air on her skin, Samantha threw her head back, letting the wind play with her hair, eyes closed as she was walking barefoot in the middle of the road. Taemin chuckled at her before pulling her back to the sidewalk; "careful, you nearly got hit by a car." he shook his head at her.

"Not like a car can kill me," she said dismissively. running a hand through her hair, she grinned "I had an amazing day today. I found werewolves—an original werewolf at that. daggered my sweet, handsome ex-boyfriend and met Lee Jeno's brother. can it get any better?" 

meow. 

halting in her tracks, Samantha looked up. Taemin followed where she looked and released a throaty laugh, "Is it me or that cat look like you?" Rolling her eyes, Samantha walked to the tree and looked up.

meow. meow. meow.

"Do you think I should save it?" Taemin shrugged. pursing her lips, she tilted her head at the trapped cat that was at the highest branch of a lone tree. throwing her hair back, she pressed her weight on her feet' soles before launching up and catching the cat.

landing down, she held the black cat in her arms securely, "Oh, he's so cute. He does look like me, blue eyes and black fur," Samantha's laugh echoed in the empty neighborhood. " a 'he'? huh," Taemin walked next to her with her heels in his other hand. "I will name it Wes," the cat meowed and licked her finger and Samantha cooed, "Hehe, cute."

Taemin watched her with a small smile before catching up to her, "I'm kinda hungry." he blurted.

"you just ate." she side-eyed him with an arched brow. Taemin rolled his eyes, "And? your point?"

shaking her head, a smile stretched on her lips"Okay, fine." 

....

"I'm home," Samantha announced once she stepped into the grand room, "Matilda, kindly prepare me a cold shower." Matilda nodded and left. throwing her heels to the side, she walked to the couch with the cat in her hand. 

"Stay here and I'll see if there's something for you to eat" She patted it head and left for the kitchen. Two minutes later, Jeno came down to see Samantha kneeling in front of the cat watching her eat. He gasped loudly, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "Oh my god," he exclaimed.

"oh, evening, Lee Jeno," rolling his eyes mentally at her calling him by his full name, he sat on the couch watching them attentively. "uh. Evening. Long day, huh?" looking down at the cat, she grinned.

before leaving with Taemin, Samantha took off her jewelry and changed her garments into comfier ones; a light purple crop top with a white tennis skirt and let her hair down. "I thought you went to the founders' party?"

"Oh, I did. it's just that this day was so eventful. One thing led to another. then I found this cute thing on a tree," Seeing her excitement about the cat made his heart flutter. she looked cute and innocent. "I named it Wes, by the way. wanna pat it?"

nodding eagerly, Jeno sat next to the cat and patted its head and back, when the cat meowed, jeno chuckled. "I think he likes you," Jeno smiled, a genuine smile, his eyes turning a crescent moon when the cat climbed his shirt. 

"Oh wow..." Samantha let out under her breath.

lifting his head, he looked at her with knitted brows, "What—"

"—Do that again." she ushered her finger at his face, "With your eyes, do it again. It was adorable." clearing his throat, he felt his face heat up at the blunt confession. 

"it doesn't work like that— ah! shit, ow!" the cat bit his finger and when he tried pulling his arm back, it scratched his arm playfully. seeing and smelling his blood, Samantha's breathing faltered. 

today, she was too busy she didn't feed. her throat suddenly went dry. standing abruptly, Jeno looked up at her only to see her veins keep protruding under her eyes which were shifting from blue to red constantly.

"I think...you should leave to your room and clean yourself and patch up," her voice was low, and jeno got the hint. smirking, he squeezed his arm, making more blood ooze out.

"taunting me isn't a smart move, love," she warned before wetting her dry lips. the black-haired went as far as taking the cat and making her cut his neck. now drops of blood are running slowly down his neck. "...stop or I will dry you out. Leave!"

"Maybe I don't want to? plus, seeing you fighting not to feed on me is really heartwarming. makes me think you care about me someway," chuckling under her breath, in an eye blink, she pinned him to the couch and straddled his lap. sucking at a breath, he placed his hands on her bare waist. 

" not so brave now, aren't you?" Samantha said, ghosting her mouth over his bleeding neck. inhaling the blood's intoxicating scent, she let out a hum that vibrated against jeno's neck. feeling her hot breaths on his skin, he shivered and tightened his grip on her waist. drinking into his scared expression, she smirked when an idea popped into her head in order to distract herself from feeding on him; she ground her body on his.

Jeno's eyes shot wide open at the reflex his body made, "hm, someone is horny." she chuckled softly before lowering her head and licking the blood, sending goosebumps down his spine, "...god," he breathed out.

feeling his hard member, she looked down at him with a smug grin before clicking her tongue. pushing herself up, ready to leave him be, jeno's hand was fast to grab her soft thighs, pulling her back.

"Oh?" she looked down at him with a cocked-up brow. "you are enjoying this, aren't you?" he let a low grunt when Samantha lowered her bottom more, "Yes, you're so soft... I love it," he said, cheeks and ears red as he couldn't look anywhere else but at the playful grin she supported.

feeling him kneading her thighs when her skirt rode up a bit, she pursed her lips "You keeping me like this make me believe you don't mind me having a taste, say, am I wrong?" 

when he felt the sharp edges of her fangs running on his skin, he closed his eyes and start trembling, ready for the stinging pain. he was scared. Samantha smiled and looked back at him, "open your eyes," she demanded.

fluttering his eyes open, heat rushed into his face at the close proximity. her lips were ghosting over his, and her hands were behind his nape, smoothing his hair. 

"you're afraid of me." it came out as a statement more than a question, "You see me as a monster. You think I'm going to kill you." she clicked her tongue and shook her head. gulping nervously, jeno realized she entered his head and figured out his point of view about her. 

pulling him closer, she pushed his bangs off his dark brown eyes and made him look her in the eyes. "You're not afraid of me. you feel comfortable and safe around me. you're certain that I won't hurt you." placing the flat of her palm over his chest, a moment later, his racing heart slowed down. "I won't hurt you, eye-smile Lee Jeno. you have my word. Now go patch up your arm and put a bandage over your neck. stay in your room till tomorrow morning." standing up, she saw him leave. a minute later, Matilda appeared, "Your shower is ready, My Lady." running a hand through her hair, she stood up and left.

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#cute lee jeno #nct #moon taeil #vampires #werewolves #smut #dom fem reader #nct dream #wayv #nct 127 #mark lee #new thangs #soulmates

[seemslegitflapjacks]

Laying In Wait.

WARNING! This content could be disturbing and/or triggering to others. As this work contains mentions of violence, descriptive gore/injuries, swearing, and in general things that would give this and R rating. Please monitor yourself, as I am not here babyproof or censor things for those who need it. Enjoy with caution!

It was dark. That’s all that he could tell. If the boy was honest with himself he’d say he was in pain, but he’d never swallow his pride for that. So there he laid, under the bridge, bloody and probably on his deathbed. They’d really fucked him up this time. No amount of bandages would be able to fix this. That’s why he was satisfied, this time they wouldn’t get away with it, this time they’d actually be punished, this time he’d have his justice.

It all came is a fast kaleidoscope of memories. He couldn’t exactly recount what happened, but the beating was quick and relentless. He could feel his jaw throb in a dull pain, taste the blood in his mouth, how his brackets and wires were bent and mangled. His orthodontist was sure to become a billionaire after the damage done to his mouth. A cold sea breeze drifted through the overpass and washed over his exposed gums. His half lidded eyes looked up at the water stained concrete supports above. Now he was met with slight concern, would anyone actually find him? Fuck. No way was he dying like this. Not to that crooked faced wannabe frat boy. That would be so embarrassing.

Just when he was about to make the dangerous decision to crawl for help, he heard a gasp.

“Holy- oh my fucking god is that you Jeff!?” A voice wailed. His brother, Liu.

Panicked footsteps rushed over, the clatter of a phone came from his left. His view of the concrete supports obstructed by that of his near identical brother. In the moment he felt paralyzed, was he paralyzed? Surely they couldn’t have fucked him up that bad.

“Fuck- come on I’m gonna get you to the hospital, I’m gonna call mom and dad.” Liu rambled, his arms moved under his bloodied twin to hoist him up.

All Jeff could do was groan in pain once he was lifted. Now he was aware to the absolute agony he was truly in. The dirty blonde caught an audible choked sob from his twin, now the gravity set in, and it was heavy.

Liu did his best to run as fast as he could down the streets, as he was neither a runner nor a track star. Jeff coughed up what what meant to be a laugh, but all that came out of it was blood and tears in his eyes. ‘Wow, that was painful.’ Was his thought as he went slack in the arms of his twin. Jeff could feel the blood pooling in his throat and dripping rapidly down his face and into his hair. His lugs ached with every breath, sore and likely broken from the harsh kicks he remembered them sustaining.

“Don’t you fucking die on me.” Liu shivered out, before beginning a call with their parents on speakers phone.

That was about the last of what Jeff could remember before he blacked out.

Slowly, his eyes cracked open, everything came in blurs of color, before his eyes finally focused like a camera. Yep. Definitely a hospital, he was still alive thank god. He attempted to yawn, but his jaw refused the movement, panic flashing over as he abruptly sat up. Nearby he felt a set of arms push him back down. The blonde glaring over, but his face softened upon the realization it was his poor mother. The whites of her eyes a irritated red from tears. Her face bare of its makeup, reflecting how raw her nose and eyelids were from the bawling she’d done. His chest aches. He hated seeing his mother so distressed. He wanted to say he was ok, but it would be useless, as all would come out was a few unintelligible grunts and vocalized noises.

“My baby- who did this do you?” She pleaded, her soft hands rattling with tremors on his upper arms.

He wanted to say it, but he couldn’t form sentences, trapped within his own claustrophobic headspace. He hated this, he hated them. They did this to him. They made his mama cry. They’d pay. They’d pay every last penny and more if it meant she’d be happy. But for now all he could do was clamp his arms around her, clinging to his mothers form like a nice fabric. Her hand came up to pet his head, running through his seemingly endless caramel locks. The scent of her heavenly perfume putting his rage to a simmer, allowing him to relax against his mom. They hadn’t hugged in a while, and it sucked a loving maternal embrace had to be wasted on something as terrible as this.

“Don’t squeeze ‘em too hard Marg, detective still needs to come in for him.” His father chimed.

The woman pulled from her son, pushing him back on the hospital bed to calm down. His eyes followed her as she left the room for the hall. He wanted to cry out for her to return, but he knew his father wouldn’t have that. He wasn’t in the particular mood or position to be called a crybaby or wimp, so he opted to stay put.

After some odd long minutes, a few officers entered the room, their radios going off with steadily mumbles of other officers. But all it sounded like to Jeff was the teacher from Charlie Brown, whomp whomp whomp. They shuffled to get comfortable, grabbing clipboards and pens. His father promptly leaving the room.

“Hello Jeff, I’m detective Van Del and I’ll be in your case.” A cop introduced, shaking the boys good hand. “I’m gonna ask you some simple questions, until your jaw heals. I know this isn’t ideal, but it’s important we find out who did this to you and why.” She rambled.

Jeff could only nod in response.

Yes an no questions ran on for about half an hour. The detective filling out whatever paper was on her clipboard. The scrawling of the pen kept the room from complete silence when no words were spoken. The dull one sided conversation was driving him crazy. He wanted to spill everything in that moment, pour it on the floor like wax and wood stain, but no, he couldn’t. The blonde had something much more sinister in mind. Something that would keep his tormentors on edge, make them rattle with anxiety at every moment, something that would haunt them like an uncomfortable growing pain.

Thankfully the interview came to a close, and they finally left him alone. He rolled his body to the edge of the hospital bed, raising himself up, being careful of the broken fingers he had. Jeff guided himself to the bathroom, switching on the light.

He was not prepared for the horror that met him in the mirror.

His face. Good god his fucking face. The gnarliest stitched up Glasgow smile ran across his cheek. A piece of his top lip torn out to reveal the top of a tooth. His eyes observed more stitches, one on the bottom of his jaw, over his nose, and under his chin. His lips pulled back to reveal the mechanical metal mess that was his mouth. Everything within was held together by wires and bands. It looked like a trap from the SAW franchise. It made him want to cry. They’d destroyed his face. They mangled him. They made him ugly.

In anger, he barged out of the bathroom, slamming the door as he aggressively turned to his bed and crawled in. He waited a moment in silence. Tears welled in his eyes, his retinas gazing at the dull walls before him. A long, drawn out hoarse cy of anger escaped his throat as he slammed his head back on the pillow.

They’d pay. They’d pay for all of this. Every last fucking penny.

#jeff the killer #jtk #creepypasta #creepypasta jtk #jeff woods #homicidal liu #digital illustration #randy warren #randy jtk #alternate universe #liu woods #my au #alt universe #creepypasta homicidal liu #keith daviss #troy green #troy jtk #Keith jtk

[hell-o-kittys]

Some more sillies of some cryptic ish bullshit of my oc im reviving from @ghouljams 1fae1 au lore(ish) ig? no interactions here i mean

bonus! mizu doodle

idk word vomit may be messed up mobile tweakin so bad for me rn

babies first manipulation😞

Cold.

Mind numbing cold. Why was it so cold? Sure she was sensitive to temperatures, especially the cooler ones but why does it burn? Why does it sting and burn as if the frost along any exposed skin of her was slowing nibbling away at her flesh. Tiny flames being ignited throughout her nervous system. If she was so cold, why did it burn so badly? No, not just burns, it hurts. Everything ***hurts**.* *The fuck happened? Groundings, get your groundings.* A field. A gorgeous field nonetheless. Tall grass that was perfectly well grown and a healthy green blew with the warm autumn wind. The trees surrounding her almost seemed as if they were circling in, making them slightly claustrophobic as they shifted their weight to the other foot. The sun lowered in the sky as golden hour was upon her, the leaves, shrubs and grass emoting  a warm and gentle glow. It seemed surreal, akin to something of a fairy tail. Flowers grew throughout the field and into the forest as mushrooms grew up and along fallen trees. *Wern would love this place, I should tell them about it when I get home..* However, one of the most unnerving thing about the whole situation was the fact the white  flower right below her- daisy perhaps- leaves were tainted with splattered with blood. ***blood?***  A place so serene shouldn't be tainted with something so, so dirty. The smell, ***oh the smell***. Typically in such a woodland area the air should be crisp and clean, earthy, warm, with pollen from the flowers, sap from the trees, and a dewy and damp atmosphere towards the larger lake nearby. However for some strange reason it felt freezing. To the point it felt like she was burning. It wasn’t just that one poor daisy with drips of blood, it seemed every bit of greenery around her was doused in it, as if the murky red fell on a rainy day. The metallic and thick smell of it overpowered her poor nose as it wafted into her nostrils. *Guess I can cross nosebleed out.* Going against her willpower she decided to investigate around the woodland area. Her body screaming in protest, it felt like the bone in her right arm had snapped, like her eye had been poke out with a molten hot rod. Oozing with something, perhaps she was just teary from the smell, like when cutting an onion. Yeah, that’s why. Dragging her body across the field she heard a sickening crack only a few steps in. It would be assumed as a stick, and if not she could have easily ignored it if it weren’t for the sinking feeling in her stomach, chipping away at her resolve. Not only that, but her foot felt warm, warmer than usual, and-*It’s wet!* Pulling her foot out of the now assumed hole in the ——- she took a step back and squatted down to investigate.

Nothing could have ever prepared her for the sight she had to see, not even all that time trapped in the abyss. Moving aside the bloody grass as she fell to her knees. Her knees creating a splash as more blood splattered around, the puddle she kneeled in soaking into her bare feet as blood stained her skin once more. It was a body. Unnerving but so mangled she could hardly know who it was. It didn’t bother her that badly, just more work to do, but hey! she could fix this! right? Fully parting the long grass, flattening it with her left hand as she could hardly move the right due to pain and refused to look at how bad the damage on it would be. But hey, she knew this sword, she *knew* that medicine pack, and oh and those shoes! She knew that outfit and each freckle and scar, and..that face. She knew that face.

who is that..?

She tried to put her hand on the poor boy’s check but as soon as she looked at the stained fingers on the paling body’s cheek she wanted to cry.

not again. not here.

How could she have let this happen?! They wanted to find any body of water nearby; a puddle, a pond , anything reflective—but there was no point; she already knew how she looked if her hand was any hint to it.

Her right hand was covered in an reddish clear skin tone, a pure warped reflection, from sharpened fingertips to broken forearm as it slowly frayed out and up to her bulky shoulder, akin to something like food colouring in a water basin. As it splintered out and more patches of her normal skin peeked through, the veins there were infected with a mix of a dark navy blue. It seemed as if it was faintly glowing. It confirmed her suspicions, she knew what happened. If she closed her eyes she could see a fuzzy memory of a time when she first saw herself like this.

A smaller girl staring into a mirror. Back before she dyed her hair as messy and unkempt red locks framed her face. Her right eye was completely gone, in its place an alien-like mouth. A large, almost void looking hole patched onto her face as sharp teeth in strange tissue lined the strange mouth. However instead of a few sharp teeth here and there, two rows of large razor sharp teeth lined the inside of the entire inner mouth. Some ink- like substance skin to tar leaked from it and dropped down her face. Her left eye was red and puffy, she’d been without a doubt crying. Her right arm with the inky posion framed around it, but with no other skin being shown. It stopped and spread into the veins in her upper shoulder. Her arm was more muscular and her hand replaced with a large claw, razor sharp at the end. She couldn’t tell where her hand ended and nails began. Her mouth still had her normal sharper canine teeth being sharper than the others, but her teeth that were typically normal and flat were sharper; not the point of those on her eye. Er, past eye? She never really learned what it was did she.. there were two rips in her flesh, one on each cheek with more razor sharp teeth showing until it hit exposed muscle.

In her right arm was a small rabbit teddy, an older man crouched down behind her in the mirror with a heavy hand on her shoulder, reminding her of what must happen.

What she must do.

While some features had changed a bit as she got older, she knew how she looked for the majority of it. The largest difference that occurred from then to now would be her ears growing more *mangled*..and the rips at her cheeks being larger as her mouth grew.

Not too far away from where she sat kneeled to the ground laid a open journal. It must have been the body due to the fact the grass around it was slightly charred and it was sprayed in red.

Crawling over to it and taking it in her one good hand she inspected it closer. It had some unknown writings scribbled with doodles and various items pinned throughout the pages. Putting it in the large mouth on her stomach she knew it was safely with Pow Pow, Atlas would know what to do.

Wandering until she found a small pond she bent over and gently scooped some water in her palms, washing her face the best she could. It seemed as if the more she rubbed at her magngled face the more it just stained. She stared into the water, her complexion that of years younger as footsteps approached behind her— a heavy hand set on her shoulder and—.

*…*

She shot up with a gasp, curling in on herself and heaving for air, the small animated rabbit bumping against her arm on her knee as her face rested in it.

She’d bury that memory with him, it wouldn’t happen again. Dark yellow eyes with slitted irises glowed in the dark. She’d be sure of it.

#oc #tw blood #tw gore #gorish idk wtf to take this #bs #1fae1 #oc: mizu #AnM

[kashimos-hajime]

the colour yellow | jjk

summary: “You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right.”

WARNINGS: ANGST!! hanahaki disease but not an au, HOSPITALS, DEATH, DESCRIPTIONS OF DISEASE, UNHEALTHY WEIGHT LOSS, pining, unrequited love, complicated feelings, its just sad. there are some light-hearted moments, and happier/softer aspects in the ending but it is generally sad in the ‘what could have been’ department pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader, past geto suguru x fem!reader, mentions of satosugu word count: 29.9k lmao

a/n: i just needed to get the hanahaki out of my system. it did not work. i took liberties w the timeline because idc about actual jjk canon in this fic thanks. 

playlist for this fic

crossposted on ao3 x

Your Innate Technique always gave you a green thumb. Meaning, similarly enough to Yaga, you could plant cursed energy into objects.

Where it deviated, Satoru knows, is the type of object. Plants—trees, leaves, flowers. 

Ironic, he thinks numbly as he walks through the hospital. Shoko had told him that at this point it was palliative care until you died—nothing else would work. Cursed energy only fed your sickness, and even her technique could not heal the damage fast enough. Stupid. Idiotic. Cruel.

Cruel. That was the word.

He hadn’t seen it himself but from how his old friend had described it, it could only be cruel. 

His footsteps tap along the linoleum floors, urgent, but not too fast. A part of him dreads what he will see—his mind swirls with the possibilities, and of guilt.

Why didn’t he just come sooner? Why did he think it was okay to wait, to dismiss Itadori when he said you’d been checked in for your coughing fits?

“She’s strong. She’ll be fine,” he had said. Itadori’s small frown. “A little feather in her throat isn’t going to knock her down.”

Why? Why? Why? Why did he say that?

Because it had to be serious to put you in the hospital. For fuck’s sake, you were still that teenage girl who stood outside his dorm window in the middle of a thunderstorm to bring Fushiguro a birthday present before you left for a curse expedition a thousand years ago, and the woman who welcomed him into your home unprompted on December 24th, your cheeks dry, lips pressed in a brave smile.

You had held him tight enough he could not see the blood, scrubbed him in a bathtub, ran your fingers through his hair until the sweat and grime was gone. You took care of him because he knows the belief that no one should be left behind to suffer alone has been engrained in you since the day he’s met you.

He should’ve known. A girl abandoned for being cursed had turned into woman with a saviour complex who’d barely even think about telling him you were dying. 

Dying, of all things, from a disease no one knows how to cure. And you’re a sorcerer.

He could’ve laughed. The irony is enough to make him smile.

Your room’s in a tiny corner of the hospital, down the hall from a nurse’s station, and as he walks through, he can see the grey sunlight streaming through the window, glaring against his glasses. He lifts them to rub the heel of his hand into his eye.

He doesn’t want you to worry when you see him, and mostly, he needs to stall. His heart is in knots in his chest, and he spots a chair beside the door with your name in the plastic slate, so he sits down. His knees feel gummy and he leans forward, the visitor’s pass clipped to the front of his shirt hanging. 

Satoru tugs the glasses off his face, fits his palm over his brow and squeezes his eyes shut. It’s chilling in this dead end, and he swallows tightly. Everything tastes so dry as he looks up and shoves his hand underneath the sanitizer dispenser, rubbing it all over his hands just so he has something to do.

After a few minutes, he gets up and sets a hand on the knob. 

It can’t be as bad as he’s imagining. At most, you’re a bit sick, but you’ll still be spritely, warm in the lips and with arms outstretched and, “Satoru, finally!”

He opens the door. 

You’re sitting hunched over in bed. Silhouette outlined by the white-grey sunlight from outside your hospital room, you’re trembling as you hold onto a receptacle. An IV is hooked to your arm, a hospital gown is barely hiding anything, and it feels immoral to even look so Satoru doesn’t. Instead, he pauses by the doorframe and closes his eyes for a moment as your gaze flashes to him. 

He feels it, to be honest. The heat of your stare until it is wrenched away by a violent cough you instinctually muffle by your palm, blood splattering over your hand, soft, velveteen purple petals falling from your lips and into the receptacle in your lap. 

You’re supposed to have a green thumb.

Vines bend to your will if you command it, you can summon forth thorns to impale your opponents, send thick creeping ivy to barricade a doorway. It doesn’t matter if there is no greenery in your immediate area. At the sweep of your hand, the ground could rumble with the sound of trees twisting their gnarled roots into feet to march at your command.

Just as long as they’re within range and you’ve touched them in the past few hours, they’re yours.

So, why can’t you stop this?

Plants are supposed to listen to you, right? As he stares at your shaking body on the bed, curved over the plastic tub, thick globs of bloodied spit drip from your lips and soaked purple blossom petals entwine with your life essence. His heart plummets to his chest. You retch, spit, choke, and every sound stabs him in the chest as he takes a weak step forward, hand stretched out limply.

Your name flutters, barely leaves his lips before you’re looking at him again, a bit of a mortifying image but nonetheless.

Even so, you smile, despite the blood painting your face, the exhaustion morphing your body. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks, and your hands shake around the receptacle. You look battered, bruised along the arms where the needles keeping you filled with antibiotics, medicine you need, had punctured you.

And still, you’re beaming at him. He thinks he’s going to be sick.

“Hi, Satoru.”

His hand falls. Eyes wide, he cannot take another step. You wipe at your lips, tossing the tissue into the trash before pushing the plastic receptacle onto the table and swinging your legs off the bed.

“Don’t—“ he croaks but you don’t listen, sliding your feet into slippers and grabbing your IV stand to take a step towards him. Your knees nearly give in but you stick out a hand before he can rush to catch you. Then, you’re pushing yourself up and walking over to him. It’s more of a shuffle, but Gojo finds he can’t care as you land on his chest, hands pressing into his back.

You’re a bit cold in his arms, and he wraps himself around you, trying to rub the heat back into your skin as you shudder, but your heart is still racing as it always does around him, and you…

You’re the type of person who can shift how the air feels and looks to his Six Eyes with your smile or your tears or your frown, and in that moment, the air bleeds yellow with your joy. It’s so bright in his soul that it makes his heart skip as you shift on your feet against him, hands sliding down so your arms can circle his waist and haul him closer. 

“Gojo Satoru turning off his infinity for little ole me,” you murmur, voice raspy, as he closes his eyes, cradling your head. Without another word, he sinks into you. “Talk about the world ending.”

Why didn’t you just call him? Why did you let him stay away for so long? He doesn’t want to ask why it’s happening, or how. He already knows you’ll just lie. But he wants to know if you think so lowly of him that you thought you didn’t matter to him.

After Suguru…

How could you think that? He’s screaming inside his mind as he touches your back, feels the faint protruding ridges along your skin when he pushes down. It makes your spine a bit more pronounced along the knobs, your shoulder blades a bit bumpy, but otherwise, it’s almost normal. One wouldn’t even be able to tell without touching you and actively searching for it. How could you think I don’t care?

This isn’t the work of a cursed spirit, that much he knows. It seems much more seductive, sneaking yet unhurried in its nature. This is agony in effigy. There’s something rotten inside you, but he can’t tell what it is. The energy is everywhere.

You pull back to look up at him with a soft smile, then tap his nose and tell him to join you before turning around and climbing back into bed with energy that betrays your earlier fits. You grab your robe that you’ve left on your bed before getting up again and walking around, shrugging the fabric back onto your shoulders.

He sits down in a visitor’s chair that is still cold.

“It comes and goes,” you explain first with your new, croaky voice, stretching your arms above your head and rubbing your neck. It doesn’t look painful, but you clear your throat a lot to see if it helps. So far, nothing. “So, it’s just like a really bad coughing fit, to be honest.”

“How long has it been going on?” Your hip cracks and you let out a relieved sigh. Satoru arches an eyebrow as you animatedly stretch your face. “What are you doing, silly?”

“It got worse a few weeks ago, enough that Nanami insisted I check myself in around two weeks ago?” you say, after counting on your fingers. Satoru’s heart plummets. “But it’s levelled out since I’ve been moved here and off-campus. And I’m stretching. When I get back out there, I have to remember how to emote.” You flash him a bedazzling grin and a bit of the weight lifts off his shoulders as you swallow down another cough. This time, it’s successful and you only let out a short, raspy breath before shaking it out.

You aren’t even doing that bad. 

The blood, the flowers, that must’ve been just a bad bout, but otherwise, you seem quite normal.

That’s what he tells himself, and he believes it.

With relief, he stretches out his legs, leaning his head back on his hands. Your room’s pretty nice—much nicer than an average hospital room. Plants on the windowsills, some get-well-soon cards and a desk in the corner filled books that you look like you haven’t even begun to read, some paintings hanging off the walls. 

You wave a hand to grab his attention again.

“Don’t look,” you chastise, tying the robe around your waist. “Some of these are works in progress.”

“So Itadori and Shoko were just exaggerating,” he assumes. You look up at him, quirking an eyebrow. “If you’re attempting to paint, I know all that’s happened is that you’ve lost your mind.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, they made it out as if you were dying. If it’s just a lung issue, they could probably just fix it and we can get back to exorcising curses and making fun of Fushiguro’s teen angst,” he says, crossing his legs at the ankles. You step over them to go to the window and examine your plants, and he eyes you in his peripheral, watching you inspect one of the leaves before looking next at some blooming flowers. You don’t answer, and the grey light makes you look melancholy until you shrug.

“The doctors say I need to rest, save my strength and all that,” you finally say vaguely. “And don’t make fun of Fushiguro.”

“I’d never do that.”

You tilt your head and arch an eyebrow skeptically before flicking his forehead with a sharp donk. “I’m not above slapping the shit out of you.” He opens his mouth to argue and you hold up a finger, shutting him up. “And you can’t hit back as revenge. Ill hospital patient rights.”

“You can’t take the moral stand. Vengeance has no gender bias,” he exclaims, sitting up but you merely smirk, leaning over and shoving your face into his space before turning your head to present your cheek. His eyes widen as you poke your own face tauntingly.

“Do it, then.”

Gawking for a moment, Satoru stares but you only wink and he pushes you away lightly. You stumble a bit and he jumps to his feet to catch you but you manage to right yourself up, shooting him a foul glare. He glares back in response.

“Well, obviously, I wasn’t going to actually slap you,” he says, indignant.

“So you pushed me instead? Gojo, in your words, you are the strongest. You never know how to control the strength you push out.”

“Yes, I do!”

“One time, you patted Megumi on the back and you sent him into the pavement.”

“He was nine.”

“It still happened!” you cry, although an impish smile is already curling at your lips and it isn’t long before it spreads to Satoru, warm bright yellow and enough that it absolves any of the remaining pain in his body as you straighten up, holding onto your IV stand for support. The metal rattles a bit as the wheels roll. Your feet brush the ground. You lift your head up wretchedly.

It’s almost like that weakness sobers you.

The expression that overtakes you frightens Satoru to fucking death. 

His face feels like it numbs, staring at the darkness that seeps the light away. You stare at the metal pole your fingers are wrapped so tightly around, and then you look at the bag hanging there, clear and round and soft to your touch as you straighten up.

“Satoru,” you say softly.

“Yeah?” His voice is so quiet he’s not sure he even speaks. He can’t remember the last time you had looked so dispassionate at anything in his life. Even death had left its mark—black frowns, long streaks underneath your eyes.

Your apathy is dark purple, an endless void colour. 

“When I die, make sure Shoko’s the one who cuts me open to find out what’s wrong with me.”

Something prickles at his fingertips. He touches your shoulder and half-thinks his fingers will go right through you.

“You’re not going to die,” he insists firmly. “It’s just a bad cough.” You look up at him and blink. Then you touch your lips and shudder down another cough.

“We all die.”

“It’s not your time, yet.” His fingers dig into your shoulder. You don’t even wince even though you’re clenching his jaw but he can’t find it in himself to loosen his hold. It feels like the Jaws of Death. A crocodile’s bite.

So much for not being able to control his own power.

“It’s just a bad cough.” He ignores everything Shoko had said. Sometimes she’s wrong—sometimes, it’s not even that bad. He’d just seen it, hadn’t he? You were stretching, jumping onto your bed, acting like nothing was wrong.

Palliative care? As if you needed it—

You blink, then, and look at him. Stare at him as if you’d never said those words, and he had never reached out. 

You jerk your shoulder out of his grip. It stings more than it should.

“Right. But I’m just saying. You know how you always say I’ve got a few screws loose. It just makes sense someone will wanna crack me open to see what was going on up there and I want it to be her.” 

You smile, and the yellow cancels out the purple. 

Colour theory. 

But Satoru doesn’t smile back.

“What about the flowers?” he asks after a while. You’ve climbed back onto bed and he’s sat back down. You’re blowing into a spirometer, and every time, without fail, the ball shoots up to the top, clattering against the plastic. He watches, hoping that the next time, it’ll do the same thing again.

You stop and look at him. “What about them?”

“Is it some optical illusion? Why are they in your throat?”

“That’s a harder nut to crack,” you muse. “I don’t really know. It’s like when you’ve got food in your esophagus and you’re trying to cough it up so it doesn’t feel stuck anymore except it keeps building up. That only started a few days ago, though, so maybe, someone drugged me or something.” He doesn’t laugh and you frown. “Not funny?”

He shakes his head. “It’s freaky.”

.

He sits on the bench on campus. 

He’s cancelled classes because he didn’t come up with a standard lesson plan and his students are glad to have a Monday afternoon off, even if they’d never say it to his face. In truth, he’d spent the whole weekend at the hospital until he reeked of antiseptic and pollen. 

You coughed up five petals, and without fail, a nurse would come in hourly intervals to collect them. Shoko came once, to check up on you and to collect the samples. If she was surprised Satoru was sitting in the corner on his phone, she didn’t voice it.

“She’s not even doing that bad,” he says to the air, more accusatory than anything. The woman standing by him doesn’t answer and sits down beside him uninvited. Turning to look at her, his eyes narrow behind his blindfold. “You said she needed palliative care until she died. The doctor said she could leave tonight.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive concepts,” she informs, not looking at him. Shoko looks a bit out of place in the warm colours of the garden. Half a corpse herself. Waif-like. “The doctor’s letting her relax in the comfort of her own home before she dies. That’s all.”

“She’s not going to die.”

She snorts. “Denial isn’t a good colour on you.” The words could’ve been delivered colder. Satoru is grateful that they weren’t. 

Shoko rests her hands on her knees, tilts her head up, and sighs. Her long hair is like warm chocolate in the sunlight, spilling down her arched back from the knot she tied. “If you have any idea on how to fix this, I’m listening with both ears.”

“I don’t even know what it is,” he says. “Coughing and flowers? I’ve never heard of a sickness like that before.”

“Nanami pointed out that it could be a curse someone placed on her. I don’t know why, but it’d be an explanation.” Satoru spreads his legs, plants an elbow on his knee and leans forward to look at the ants travelling along the cobblestone before his shoe. “It manifested on some negative emotion lingering inside her and it’s growing every day, but she won’t budge.” Shoko sighs. Her purple eye bags look worse in the sunlight, but he would never tell her that. “Maybe you’d have a better chance digging into her. With Geto gone, there’s no one else to ask, is there?”

“What about you? What happened to girls and their little secrets?” he jokes, trying to ignore the ache that begins to bloom in his chest. Shoko eyes him wryly.

“I have suspicions, but there are some things girls don’t ask other girls,” she retorts. “It’s never been my business anyway. My job is to treat her, and I’ve given her options. It’s up to her to take them. Grief is a birthing ground for curses, and if she’s letting them feed on her freely, you know what fate is waiting for her.”

With that, she gets up and leaves as quickly as she arrived. Satoru swallows the smell of flowers and feels sick.

.

Monday night, Satoru pulls up his laptop and looks through, searching up words he can string together in a coherent sense to get the answers he wants. As rare as it probably is, some research wouldn’t hurt, would it? Some curses had a trademark affliction—maybe this one does, too.

So he searches up flower coughing to see if there has ever been a record of strange deaths that have made the news. If not, he’ll go to the jujutsu databases, but for now, maybe some publicity could put some answers to this question.

He is surprised when one of the first results is flower coughing disease. 

When he hits enter, the white screen blasts into blue irises with numerous results all repeating the same two words.

HANAHAKI DISEASE

And Satoru reads, and reads, and reads. He reads two weeks to three months, he reads unrequited love, and removal, and disappearance of romantic feelings and capacity for romantic love.

He reads fictional disease and wonders how much of it really is fictional. 

His phone pings with a text, and he grabs at it, tilts it just enough to get a glimpse of the screen. It’s from you, and he hasn’t read a text from you in so long he almost doesn’t recognize who it’s from except he does because… who else could it be?

[Greenbean] 11:02 PM

hey!!! guess whos finally fucking free oh my god

ugh out of the hospital and forgot how actual air smelled like lol bitch im so hungry i could eat a zoo

Letting his phone clatter, he sighs and rubs his face roughy, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before snapping his laptop shut and getting up. His phone buzzes again and he reaches for it blindly, the screen lighting up as he goes to bed.

[Greenbean] 11:03 PM

we should get smth to eat!! i wanna go to that new ramen place in ikebukoro

[Satoru] 11:03 PM

fine but you good???? who picked you up from the hospital? still insulted you didnt let me tbh

also what did the doctor say???

[Greenbean] 11:04 PM

bc ur a menace who doesnt know how to drive 

he said itd get worse before itd get better so still gotta go for checkups but yeah dont worry and nanami came bc he didnt trust me not to try and walk home lol but he did buy me dinner

wasnt enough though!!!

…

[Greenbean] 11:06 PM

ok but fr does he think im insane

clearly id flash some skin and hitch a ride duh

…

[Greenbean] 11:10 PM

youre just gonna leave me on read? yikes

[Satoru] 11:12 PM

i was getting ready to sleep silly

and yeah ill come pick you up on saturday for lunch?

[Greenbean] 11:15 PM

sorry making instant noodles rn but yeah that sounds fine

wait youre sleeping so early lmfao

[Satoru] 11:16 PM

im old :/

  [Greenbean] 11:18 PM

u sure are

(image sent)

look!!! my babies are still alive!!! idk how but miracles do exist im tellin ya

[Satoru] 11:24 PM

inumaki, maki, and fushiguro broke into ur home to water them but dont tell them i told u

[Greenbean] 11:24 PM

wtf

[Satoru] 11:25 PM

yeah idk when but i think u teaching inumaki how to pick locks has opened up too many possibilities but also its really funny thanks

now go to sleep u need to rest

[Greenbean] 11:28 PM

whos gonna make me lol youre not my dad

[Satoru] 11:29 PM

lol 

remember how i can teleport 

lol so cool

[Greenbean] 11:30 PM

dude

wtf

fine 

goodnight hoe </3

[Satoru] 11:31 PM

goodnight knock off poison ivy <3

.

“You’ve looked better,” Shoko says. Satoru raises his head wearily as he pushes off the wall. Shoko’s holding a cup of coffee, her lab coat fresh on her shoulders and eye bags looking more printed on rather than natural swelling. Satoru can’t help but feel the same exhaustion. “Definitely looked worse. What do you want? It’s early.”

“Have you ever heard of Hanahaki disease?” he asks. She shakes her head, and he pulls up the page on his phone and hands it to her. She takes it from him and her eyes scan the screen as he continues, “It’s this fictional disease, something that stems from unrequited love, and I think it could be related to whatever she’s experiencing.”

“I thought you were set on willing her to survive,” she replies dryly, shooting him a quick look and adjusting the coffee in her hand. “But this is definitely one of your stranger theories.”

Satoru ignores that last part. “It’d make sense. With her Cursed Technique, maybe it manifested in a way that links to it.”

She pushes into the office, setting the coffee on her desk and sitting down. Satoru sits down on the exam table closest and leans forward eagerly as she continues to read the page, scrolling down occasionally before scrolling back up and sighing. “This is a stretch. The timeline doesn’t match up to what this is saying.”

“This is a curse. It doesn’t have to follow fiction.” His body feels sore, janky even, everywhere. He barely got a wink of sleep last night and he knows he’s paying for it, now. “Hell knows life rarely does, anyway. But the symptoms matches too well, doesn’t it? The flowers—you’ve done scans, haven’t you?”

She deliberates his words carefully as she looks to the file cabinet and pulls out a binder. Satoru catches a flash of your name on the spine before she moves her coffee and his phone out of the way to flip it open.

“The scans we’ve taken have only just begun to show small growths in her trachea,” she allows, “and we don’t fully understand how cursed energy affects our bodies, so I suppose it could be something like Hanahaki, if the negative energy stemming from December 24th was what brought this on or if these symptoms started when we were still students, but she’s been experiencing shortness of breath a few months before Christmas.” Satoru’s lungs squeeze the last of the air out of them at that, and a cold sweat drops down his spine as she hands his phone back to him. “It only started getting worse Suguru’s death, which meant there had to have been a trigger before that.”

In the back of his head, he hears your voice, light and yellow, saying a few weeks. It got worse a few weeks ago. 

“Worse?”

“The first petal fell some time after Christmas. It’s been a slow, but steady progression since then. Sometimes, it’s two or three. When it’s not a good day, there can be as many as seven to ten.” Shoko switches on the lamp on the corner of her desk and adjusting the direction of the white light before flipping the page. “But if we can find the original trigger and alleviate that pressure it’s putting on her, we could buy her more time.”

“So it’s been nearly six months since the first petal,” he says. Shoko nods. Satoru is grateful for the blindfold—she can’t see how blank everything looks on his face. “It said sometimes, the disease can last for eighteen months.”

“As you said, this isn’t a fairytale.” She half-spins on her chair to face him and leans back into it, crossing one leg over the other and jiggling her knee. “I saw that one of the solutions is excise the growths at the cost of the attachment. That was one of the options I gave her when the growths first appeared. She said she wanted more time before she could decide.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because she’s smart, and likes to push her damned limits. And if this is truly the basis of the curse”—she gestures to Satoru’s phone. Her expression flickers—“those flowers are feeding off cursed energy. Cutting them out would remove those negative emotions, but at a cost of something else. Maybe whatever feelings she has regarding the trigger.”

Satoru looks down at his phone. It feels heavier than a thousand cinderblocks in his clammy hands. His fingers are numb as his screen dims and finally locks itself. Pressing the button, it illuminates again to reveal a picture of a cactus you gave him for his birthday years ago, blooming with delicate purple petals. 

His heart rends. That cactus is long dead now.

“But, Suguru’s dead.” 

“That’s why I asked you to ask her,” Shoko mutters. 

Turning to her binder again, she picks up a pen and clicks it, lowering it to the paper before pausing, and Satoru looks up as she stares at whatever words are printed into the page distantly. A strange affliction is on her face, almost tormented, and Satoru is not-so-kindly reminded that before Suguru and Satoru, Shoko was your best friend first. 

“Tell her how idiotic she’s being,” she enforces quietly. “The longer it lives, the more permanent damage is inflicted. With the unpredictable nature of curses, that won’t take long and by then, it’ll be too late to consider removing it.”

.

Saturday comes too fast, yet not fast enough. By the end of the week, Satoru is all but finished with teaching, and is waiting outside your apartment, leaning against the car as he scrolls through his phone. He’s done a bit more research on this Hanahaki disease, but even the word makes him shiver with the implications. 

“Satoru!” Turning, he catches you loping easily towards him. You’re dressed in billowy, wide-legged dark mint green pants and a pretty white top that makes you look more nymph than human, with a canvas tote bag hanging off your shoulder. You flash him a smile as you fiddle with the fabric tie at the waistband of your pants nervously. “Hi.”

“Hey. Hope you don’t mind I brought Ijichi along for the ride since someone claims I can’t drive.”

“You don’t have your license, sir,” Ijichi says wearily as you bend over to wave through the window. "It would be illegal for you to be on the road in any capacity—oh, hello, ma’am. It’s nice to see you doing so well.”

“Thanks, Ijichi. I think I’m doing better after getting out of there,” you say as Satoru opens the car door for you and he smirks, eyes crinkling behind his sunglasses. You straighten up, looking at him before poking his chest and it’s almost just like the good ole days as you break out into a grin that crinkles your entire face. “What’s with you being a gentleman? It better not be because I was in the hospital.”

“Of course not,” he admonishes. “I wouldn’t dare dream of being polite to you of all people.” Still, he sidesteps and sweeps his arm, gesturing for you to climb in first which you do, exhaling a bit shakily as you settle in and slide over. By the time he’s settled in beside you, you have a fist over your lips and you’re clearing your throat testily.

A worm of unease wriggles into his stomach as he clips in his seatbelt, pulling the lapels of his unbuttoned green shirt free from the strap. Legs spreading, he lets his hands fold in his lap as Ijichi begins to drive them to their destination. You’ve lowered your hand by now, looking out the window, and it’s not bright enough that Satoru can read your expression on the glass.

It’s clear you don’t want to talk about it, but still, that nagging feeling bites at him as he rolls the divider up between the backseat and the front—a mock of privacy.

“The place we’re going to gives me the same vibe as that family-owned restaurant we went to when we were students. The one in Kagurazaka,” you say after a while, turning back to look at him. You’re wearing a bracelet that jangles when you move your hand to adjust the seatbelt across your chest. “I think you’ll like it.”

“Have you been?”

“One time, before I checked in,” you tell him, smiling still. “It was really good. The perfect last meal.” Satoru does well enough to hide his frown at your choice of words as you meet his eyes. “You know, you can ask. I’m not fragile.”

“I don’t have anything to ask,” he lies. “I’m just glad you’re out of the hospital.”

“Me, too. I’ve missed so much and it drove me insane. Yaga-sensei insists that I don’t work until I’m sure I’m feeling better,” you add. “But to be honest, there’s nothing much that can be done to make me feel better.”

“I see. So you’re still coughing up flowers?”

“Petals,” you correct, “and a bit. Don’t worry. It’ll get better soon.” You wave a hand and turn to look out the window and Satoru’s appetite all but vanishes. He doesn’t know why you’re so intent on lying to him about the severity of your condition, but as your knee jiggles relentlessly the whole car ride with unbridled excitement, he wonders if you’re even aware of how sick you could be. 

His Six Eyes scan your body for signs of a curse. Normally, those plagued have their little burdens hanging off their shoulders, prying their head open, biting into an arm or leg, but he finds yours lives inside your chest, just barely hidden by the yellow light brimming from your body as you reach forward to lower the divider and talk to Ijichi.

They reach Ikebukuro before they’re dropped off after Satoru insists on walking the rest of the way.

“Give us some privacy, Ijichi! We both know you’ll just eavesdrop for the juicy details,” he exclaims loudly, leading to the man to blush furiously, stuttering that he’d do no such thing, and earning Satoru a smack on the back of his head, knocking his sunglasses askew.

“Thanks for the ride, Ijichi,” you say warmly as if you hadn’t slapped a concussion into Satoru. The Assistant Director dips his head. “See you later!” With that, he drives off and the two sorcerers are left in the busy street. Satoru looks around curiously, but you tug him along up the main road of the district and immediately turn right into one of the smaller streets. A few cyclists race past, as well as cars, but the traffic seems relatively slow despite it being the weekend. There are people walking along the white lines separating the lanes, chatting merrily as you lead him to the restaurant.

“I forgot how actual sunlight felt,” you sigh, stretching your arms high above your head as if to touch the wind breezing through. Inhaling deeply, you close your eyes. Satoru waits for you to begin to cough, and you hold it in, throat tensing a bit. 

He looks away, and pretends he doesn’t hear your sharp exhale, the soft cough you try to muffle with your hand. Instead, he looks at their surroundings, traces the green roads, watches a man park his bicycle and take the plastic bags out of the basket before rushing into a store. The air smells faintly of smoke, and Satoru waves in front of his face to see if it’ll help dispel the scent, but it’s so engrained with the hint of meat, honey, sweets, and flowers, that he can’t.

“I saw Suguru here once,” you tell him suddenly. He blinks, head snapping to you, and you’re already regarding him with a faint smile, eyes a bit dimmer. The warm yellow energy has faded to a burnt orange as you look ahead. “A year or two after he left. It’s why I moved closer a few years ago. I guess I had this weird hope that I’d see him again, but I never really did.” A faint grin graces your lips again, as if you’re not even aware you’re smiling. Fondness overtakes you. “I think about him a lot these days.”

“Me, too.”

“Of course,” you chuckle a bit, rubbing at the back of your neck. “I’m being insensitive.” 

“No, you’re not. He meant a lot to you, too. I don’t own him, or his memory.”

“I know, but he was still your best friend.” Unbidden, a voice in Satoru’s voice finishes it for you. My one and only. 

“Did you guys talk about anything?”

“Not really anything important,” you say, shrugging, but by the way your eyes shift in the light, glimmer differently, he knows you’re lying. He knows it’s none of his business, but a part of him hungers for new parts of Suguru and it’s powerful enough to take control of his tongue.

“Nothing’s not important. He was a wanted criminal.”

“I think we both know somehow that part never mattered to us.” You look at him, and run a thumb under the strap of your bag. “To any of us. But…” You tilt your head to him and your smile grows tender. “…since you asked, we talked about us. He told me about what he wanted, the kind of world he was determined to create. He paid for my dinner, kissed me goodnight like it was normal, and then he was gone. Never saw him again until last December.”

It shouldn’t sting as much as it does. 

He remembers that day ten years ago in Shinjuku. The coldness in which Suguru had looked at him. He can’t imagine that same poison directed at you. He couldn’t even imagine Suguru looking at him like that in the first place until he did.

“Are you the strongest because you’re Gojo Satoru or are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest?”

“I used to have nightmares about it,” you continue distantly. “Because I could’ve left with him, but I didn’t. And I could’ve killed him, but I didn’t do that either.”

“If you want to kill me, kill me. There’s meaning in that, too.”

Satoru’s chest tightens. His heart feels rotten to the core. “I didn’t, either, until I did.” You smile a bit more, at the irony. “Would you? Have gone with him, that is.”

“I didn’t, so what’s the point in debating it?” you ask before shrugging thoughtlessly and answering anyway. “I think tackling curses at the source is important. I just didn’t like the way he was doing it. If I thought I could somehow change his mind, just a bit, on his methods, maybe, but by then, he was too far gone.” 

Your eyes, chips of glinting sunstone, mellow as a cyclist trills at them with a bell to get out of the way. You step out of the way, away from Satoru for a moment, before returning to him, and when the back of his hand brushes yours, he’s startled at how cold your skin is. 

Satoru is quiet as he absorbs all of this. He doesn’t really know what to say, and you don’t prod him for a reaction as they turn the corner again. 

“It’s just over there,” you say, pointing to a small restaurant, people milling by the door. There’s a sign hanging over the door, off-white with black kanji painted on and your arm falls. “There’s a line. Huh.”

“We can wait,” Satoru says when they stop at the edge of the crowd. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay. I’ll go put our names in then come back.” You disappear into the crowd for a moment before resurfacing and joining his side again, something in your hand. “It should be, like, fifteen minutes. I said the bar was okay.”

“That’s fine.” Shoving his sunglasses up into his hair, he cracks his knuckles and migrates to the wall. You follow, and he slouches against the concrete pillar. You adjust the tote bag against your body and lean against the other side just around the corner. Their elbows brush, and you tilt your head to look at him, smiling. Your face has caught the sun perfectly, and Satoru can’t help but smile back.

He wonders how to bring up this Hanahaki disease theory. You look so perfect, so happy in this moment where their eyes meet, that he can’t bring it up. Maybe it’s selfish, but it feels like it’s been so long since the two of them even managed to see each other for more than an hour. With how overworked jujutsu sorcerers are, it’s hard to recall the last time they both had downtime at the same time that wasn’t spent catching up on sleep.

You look away, shoulders shaking, as if that’s enough to hide your coughing, and he thinks, Later. There’ll be time for that later.

“Here’s the menu,” you tell him once you’ve calmed down, extending your hand. He takes the paper, unfolding it as you cross your arms and tilt your head back on the concrete. Reading down the list, he keeps an eye on you out of the corner of his vision, and your fingers play at your lips as you swallow. Reaching into your bag, you twist the cap of a water bottle and chug half of it down.

“Do you have any medicine? For your coughing?” he asks casually. You hit your chest with a firm fist, clearing your throat and looking at him in surprise. The water bottle returns to your bag.

“Oh, uh, no. It doesn’t work. Just gotta keep hydrated and avoid any possible triggers,” you inform. You turn up the street as you speak, crossing your legs at the ankles and sinking against the concrete. 

“And what are those triggers?”

“And you say Ijichi is the one digging for gossip,” you snort with short, choked huff. Satoru rolls his eyes, but keeps looking at the menu. “Don’t worry about it. I’m avoiding them.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“If I wanted your dry wit, I would’ve gone to the original.”

“I don’t copy off Shoko. I take bits of everyone’s personality and twist it to make it my own.”

You shake your head. “Whatever you say.”

Your name is called a few minutes later and the pair push off the concrete pillar, heading through the crowd and into the small restaurant. It’s not too dimly lit, a bunch of natural light from the street streaming in through the open windows, and the air is rich with the smells of the kitchen as they sit down at the bar.

It’s not long before they’ve ordered, and Satoru has gone through his first bowl and is well into pouring his second into what remains of his broth before he remembers to even check up on how you’re doing. You’d been right—he loves this place. The atmosphere isn’t overly loud, but the mumbling of nearby patrons is enough to make him feel like he isn’t quite alone. It’s sheltered away from the world, and although he’s used to girls staring, no one has gone up to him which is giving him time to his own thoughts and food. Everyone here seems to mind their business—everyone likes to stay in their own bubble. 

Here, he isn’t the strongest, or quite so special. It honestly feels kind of nice.

You’re sipping on your broth, tilting the spoon towards your mouth and your lips are pulled into the warmest smile he’s seen since they were kids. The light’s hitting you just perfect again, more cool than warm, but it’s got you on the cheekbone, illuminated your lips. Satoru wonders if you know how to manipulate light, or if that’s just your natural blessing as you tilt your head towards him, eyes squinting from your own joy.

For a moment, another image flashes in his head. Him along the end of their group of four—you and Shoko, Suguru and Satoru. It’s almost poetry how much of a glimpse he can see in your smile. You would always be laughing, and Suguru’s cheeks would always be red, and Shoko would charm the guy over the counter to hand over a bottle of shochu. Satoru would tease his stupid best friend, and pay for their meal because “I’m friends with a bunch of goddamn freeloaders.”

But that moment ends as quickly as it came, and it’s so fucking heartbreaking that Satoru never thought their last meal together would be their last meal together. He would’ve cherished it more—done anything to make them stay in that ramen shop in Kagurazaka.

“Do you like it here?” you ask. 

He blinks. You’re studying him behind that smile of yours. Watching. Always watching. “It reminds me of when we were kids,” he replies. When he realizes that didn’t answer the question, he adds, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

You grin, delighted. “If I knew how stupid you’d look sucking up these noodles, I would’ve brought my camera like when we were students. I still have it, you know.”

“Next time, then.”

“Yeah, next time.”

Satoru pays. He insists despite your protests, and snatches the bill from you anyway, swiping his card as quickly as he can. 

After, they walk slowly around the district, looking at the other restaurants and stores for desserts or souvenirs to bring back, and it makes him so nostalgic, his heart wilts a bit in his chest. 

He is saying something about buying some soymilk for Megumi when you stop suddenly, deviating to the side of the road to cough. It grows so intense so quickly that your eyes widen as if you’re surprised, too, and you place a palm flat against your chest as he comes to your side. You wave him back, and he frowns, running a hand down your back as you finally manage to dislodge the petals in your throat and spit them into your palm.

Satoru sighs, staring at the cursed things. The energy emitted from the petals are raw, potent, and his nose wrinkles at the stench that comes from powerful curses as he softly asks, “Do you know what Hanahaki is?”

“Flower vomiting?” you whisper through your raw vocal cords. You shake your head, slamming your sternum with a tight fist and flinging the drenched petals to the ground with a wet slap. “Itadori… said something about it, once. Never really paid attention, I—”

Satoru squeezes the back of your neck gently. “Whatever this curse is, it could be something like that.“

“You don’t want to open that can of worms, Gojo, of what is causing this.” Straightening up, your eyes widen and your cheeks puff up as you choke down another bout. Wobbly, you spit out, “It’s under control. I swear.”

“Are you sure?” His fingers brush your chin to turn your face towards him so he can look at it more clearly, and the instant their eyes meet, you lurch over, slapping his hand away and succumbing to the wracking. Hands shooting out to grab your elbows, Satoru barely eases you to the ground as your legs give in.

You collapse to your knees, hard. A hand is slapped over your mouth but your whole body shakes with the seizing of your lungs. Eyes widening, your cheeks puff up as Satoru grabs your shoulders, falling to his knees beside you.

“Hey! Hey, breathe!” His fingers dig into your shoulders and your nostrils flare, trying to follow his instructions. Bloodshot eyes and blueing lips, your inhales are shaking and incomplete, gasps for air that do not take in any oxygen before you’re kneeling over, hand falling from your lips. Blood splattered over your palm, you let out a low noise of pain. Satoru’s hand glides down your spine, rubbing in soothing circles as red spit falls to the pavement in thick globs. 

People all around stop to stare, eyes masked with concern, but he can’t care less at that moment despite the burning scrutiny. He shoves a hand into his pocket, speed-dialling one of the top numbers of his list.

“Ijichi, I need you to take us to the hospital, now!” Letting his phone drop with a clatter, he scoops you close but you slam your bloody hand against his chest, pushing him away. You throw yourself away, hands twisted tight in the fabric of your white shirt and Satoru looks down at the red handprint on his tee before blinking. “What are you doing? We need to get—“

“I’m—I’m fine!” Your voice, broken, is drenched with ice as you continue to wheeze, grasping at your chest as if you could reach and tear out the growths with your own hand. “Gojo, I’m fine!”

“No, you’re not!” Grabbing his phone, he hears a loud car horn, and looks up to see Ijichi leaning out of the driver’s seat, waving his arm frantically. Without another thought, he scoops you up and runs out into the street, ignoring the tires screeching, the cars horns blaring at him and the angry shouts as he jumps into the car and slam the door shut. 

Ijichi sets off at a drive, no directions needed. Satoru is sure he’s breaking as many laws as he can as he pushes you back against the seat to buckle you in. Blood dribbles down your lips in bubbles as a thick, gurgling sound begins to grow in your throat and he wipes at your chin with his sleeve, clicking the buckle into place just as you pitch forward. He jerks back just in time as you retch, and, slowly, torturously, you gag out three petals, one after another. Your fingers claw at your own throat, panicking and desperate as you struggle to breathe.

The petals fall in wet pools between your feet, landing on the carpet, and he spares them not even a glance before forcing your head between your knees. You’re still hyperventilating and as Satoru sweeps a hand down your back and up to your neck, his fingers come into contact with something sticky. 

Sweat. It drenches through your shirt so suddenly that Satoru reels at the wet marks spreading through your shirt, making the fabric translucent. Your heart is racing, tripping over itself. When you finally stop coughing, you breathe in harsh pants as he keeps your head between your knees.

Your fingers lace at the back of your head and he grabs them firmly, reassuring that he’s still beside you. 

.

“She’s stable,” Shoko announces to the waiting Satoru and six students. The latter came when their teacher had told them of what happened, and Itadori still clings to Fushiguro’s arm by an iron hand, fingers clawlike into his friend’s bicep. Kugisaki chews on her thumbnail, a bit paler than usual and there are crescent indents along her forearm where she had dug her nails in. Maki’s hand rests on her shoulder. Inumaki’s on the phone with Panda, and he turns the screen around so he can see the Strongest Sorcerer who does not feel quite so strong.

Satoru’s assurances that you would be fine had done nothing but send them into a quiet that scared even him. 

“Is she okay? When can she get out?” the kids demand suddenly.

“We’re waiting for the updates on her scans from the doctors, but she’ll need to stay here under observation.”

Satoru runs a hand through his hair, smiling in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Guess that means she gets a few more days off while the rest of us are working our asses off,” he teases. Maki shoots him a glare and his eyes close in a way he hopes arranges his expression in one of joy as he shrugs helplessly. “Well, that means I have another girl I have to spoil.”

“Aren’t you too busy with the four already blowing up your phone?” Kugisaki mutters sourly. Satoru pretends not to hear. His phone has been silent without your texts, and it’s cold and heavy in his pocket.

“Can we see her?” Fushiguro asks. Shoko nods, but holds up a hand and the kids skid to a stop.

“She’s resting. I’m unsure if you know, but certain topics of conversation or trains of thought can lead to more attacks, so stick to talking about your curriculum. Topics you think are safe.” The woman shifts on her feet, a wisp of brown hair swaying in front of her eye. “It’s unavoidable, but use your judgement.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The students walk off down to the dead-end hallway, and Satoru turns to Shoko who has her arms crossed over her chest. She steps up, scanning him like he’s got contraband, and he raises his eyebrows innocently.

“What?”

“It’s getting worse. I hope you managed to get answers,” she says. At once, Satoru’s facade drops, and a sober sensation overtakes his face.

“No, I didn’t. She’s heard of the disease, at least. We talked about Suguru, but it wasn’t like it was under lock and key.” The brunette shakes her head at his words, gesturing for him to sit down beside her. Doing so, he leans back into the uncomfortable chair as she crosses a leg over the other. “She said she thinks about him a lot.”

“She still loves him,” Shoko says bluntly. “She gets that far-off look when she talks about him. You two should trade secrets some time.” A shake of her head, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I healed what damage I could, but I can tell those growths inside are expanding. The attack only seems to have agitated and prompted them to take root.”

“How…” It’s hard to formulate the question. Luckily, Shoko knows him well enough.

“Without seeing the scans, I won’t know. Based on her last ones, I thought at least four months. Now?” Her lips press into a thin line. “She’ll be lucky if she gets two.” Shoko’s eyes flicker down Satoru’s front, and her lips press into a wry line. “And change you shirt. You look like a murder suspect.”

Glancing down, he looks at your dried bloody hand print, stark against white, and he gets up abruptly. Shoko doesn’t stop him.

He walks down to the dead-end hall. He can hear Itadori through your open door cracking jokes, Kugisaki relaying every detail of her shopping trips, and you’re wheezing your laughter despite Maki scolding you to save your strength. Satoru stops just outside your door, out of sight, and rests his head against the frame, content to just listen.

“Tuna mayo.”

“Is that right?” you ask Inumaki. “Lay it on me.” 

You sound exhausted, beaten to the bone, but still, when Fushiguro says something too quiet for him to make out, you still have the strength to tease him for worrying.

.

The night is warm, and he sets the last plant back into its place on your window sill before cracking the window a bit at your request. He’s busied himself making this place as homely as possible as quickly as possible, and in the process, had walked in on you staring at your own scans on the lightscreen mounted on your wall.

“Thanks, Satoru,” you say over your shoulder. He joins you by your side to stare at the scans. Granted, Satoru didn’t cheat his way through medschool like others have, so he doesn’t understand much, but he can tell what is and what isn’t supposed to be there. The floral-like growths situated right where the main bronchi meet the trachea, for one.

The roots spreading across your chest like cracks in concrete, for another.

“The doctors want to monitor this,” you explain, pointing at the roots, “to see whether or not it’ll grow around my lungs or continue outward, around the ribs and spine. If it’s the former, I’ll slowly suffocate and die. If it’s the latter, I’ll slowly suffocate, become paralyzed, and die.” You smile grimly. “Not quite a win-win.”

“Exactly the opposite.” He inspects the growths and through the blue-white-black imaging, he spots the tiny stems emerging from the main growth, sprouting into your lungs. He guesses, with time, those will grow into flowers of equal size before sprouting more shoots.

He wonders…

As if sensing his hesitance, you scratch your collarbone and look at the scans with a new glint.

“The doctors say if I avoid another attack like today, I’ll probably have two months, three if I’m blessed, but because of how big the growths have gotten already and its volatile nature, it’ll be impossible, so we’re looking at a month. Maybe a month-and-a-half?” You smile at him, throat bobbing. “Guess it’s good to have a number,” you add shakily, a short puff coming at the end of each breath as you struggle to fight the cough. “Being a sorcerer, too much uncertainty, I think.”

“You should tell Nanami that. Maybe this time, it’ll convince him to stay away,” he retorts, turning away from the scans. They’re burning his eyes and he doesn’t want to look at the real thing for much longer. You turn with him, walking back towards bed and climbing in. “Are you sure you don’t want the operation? Shoko could do it so fast you wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“No, not yet. There are some complications that’ll definitely occur and I don’t want that to happen.”

“But it would save your life,” he argues. “What risks are frightening enough that you’d even consider not having it?” Your gaze flickers as you take another wheezing breath. The strength seems sapped from your limbs—you’re a scarecrow hanging off its pole as you swallow tightly. Satoru leans against your window sill and crosses his arms over his chest so you can’t see the frustrated fists he wants to make. “If this is about Suguru…”

Resolutely: “It isn’t.”

“You’re going to die if you keep going down this road. I don’t understand why you’re hesitating.” In the back of his mind, klaxons begin to scream.

“Satoru, some things are just beyond logical reason.” He jerks his gaze away, pushing his glasses up his nose pointedly. You sigh. “I know it’s hard, but this is my choice. I just want you to be here so you know it’s okay.” 

Your hand stretches out. Blue eyes flash to your outstretched fingers and he takes it before he can stop himself. Your fingers curl over his palm, tugging him closer and he lets you, sneakers dragging over the tile until he’s sliding into the chair by your bed. It squeaks against the tile.

“Please don’t be angry with me.” That’s all. That’s all I ask.

A hard, heavy sigh, this time from his end. He tightens his hold on you as you sit there, smiling hopefully. His heart thunders in his chest. “I’m not angry.”

You perk up a bit, and his index finger unfurls to rub your wrist. It feels colder than normal. “Promise?”

He wishes he could lie half as well as you. Either way, he tries his hardest: “Promise.”

By the time it’s quarter past nine, you’re already getting ready to sleep. You have enough pillows to surround your entire body, and he fluffs them up, helps you arrange them until you’re sighing against the white sheets, burrowing in with a sedated smile on your face.

Satoru sits down again on his visitor’s chair and you watch him lazily through the dim orange light stemming from behind your bed.

“You don’t have to stay here and watch me, creep,” you mumble, turning your face away to stare at the ceiling. You cough dryly, but it subsides moments later. Your voice is nothing but a croak as you let out a tired groan, and Satoru smiles to himself, cheek to his fist. 

“I feel robbed of our afternoon together. Making up for it now.”

You look at him again incredulously. “We’re not even doing anything.”

“I don’t know when you were told that every second of us being together had to be us doing something,” he huffs. “I like being in here. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s too much. You’re annoying me.” Even so, your voice turns fond as you roll onto your side, away from him to settle in to sleep and Satoru’s warm gaze lands on your shoulder gently rising and falling as you slowly drift off. 

He already knows you’re gone by the time he’s standing up and gathering his jacket. Walking around the bed, he glances at the bathroom to check the light’s off and catches a glimpse of his shirt. A coil wraps around his gut at the muddy red handprint pressed into the fabric and he turns away to look at you instead.

Your face is in perfect peace, half-buried into a pillow you’re hugging into your chest, and he only soaks in those features. His hand twitches, and his infinity wavers as he raises his hand as if to touch you. Your eyelids flutter and he freezes, fearing he might’ve woken you up, but you only mumble incoherently and turn into your pillow.

Satoru watches on silently just as a breeze sweeps into the room and he looks up where the window he had cracked open. The breeze takes hold of the plants, uplifts them until they sway like a tender dance. 

His chest begins to hurt. The smell of the antiseptic is starting to sting, so he moves his hand to the light switch instead. Flicking it off, he turns to leave.

.

Every time Satoru walks down to the end of the hallway, a different memory will play in his head until he’s playing a movie over and over every single day. Of the first time he met you, although that one is blurry. Your sixteenth birthday when the four of them had piled into your dorm room to drink themselves stupid.

One-and-a-half weeks go by before he realizes that he only replays the moments where you feature. Like his brain is preparing him, reminding him. For what, he doesn’t know. 

He can’t come every day—considering the low number of sorcerers has been taken down by one more, it means besides teaching, he still has to work for the Higher Ups as well as his own personal agenda—but when he does make it, he always makes sure that he soaks in every second. Even the horrible parts. Maybe, especially the horrible parts.

You have scans taken every other day to monitor your progress, so when he arrives at an empty room, he isn’t surprised. It’s when there’s movement in the bathroom that sends his nerves prickling until he catches a slab of golden hair and reading glasses flashing in the sunlight.

“Nanami,” he greets.

“Good afternoon.” His jacket’s off and his sleeves are rolled up. With a quick sweep of the room, Satoru notes that the windows are cracked open and the aforementioned jacket is folded over a chair sat in a square of sunlight.

“Do we need to be so formal?” he complains, bypassing the bathroom and searching for another chair. The one Nanami’s taken by the plants is still warm and Satoru isn’t keen on the idea of sweating so soon. During his search, he stops by the windowsill and his eyebrows rise curiously at the new plants and trash bin pressed up right underneath. “What’s happening here?”

“We were planting new seeds when she had to be taken for her scans. She insisted I finish potting the plants.” Noting the empty terracotta, Satoru bends over and prods at the moist dirt. “I have to go soon, though. I had hoped it wouldn’t take as long as it did and she would be back by now.”

“They started taking MRI scans when the branches continued to grow outward rather than inward,” Satoru informs. “It takes around forty-five minutes, on top of the CT scans they’re taking, too. That’s if she doesn’t start coughing in the middle of it.” 

“I’m guessing she does.” Nanami adjusts the glasses on his nose, wiping at his hands free of the last of whatever dirt might’ve been clinging to his hands.

“Yup.”

“I see.” Satoru looks at the plants again. The blond man across the room throws the towel into the dirty clothes basket.“Has she… spoken to you of what to do with her effects?”

Gaze hardening, he doesn’t move at the question. Of course, he’s thought about it, but those bouts of weakness have never been longer than a few minutes. There’s no use in wasting time on a reality that won’t come until it does.

Hopefully, it never does.

“I’m so sick of everyone talking like she’s signed a death sentence,” Satoru murmurs, turning around to look at the blond man at the door to the washroom. “She still has time. Not a lot. It’s not convenient, but it should be enough.”

“She’s already considered the benefits of taking the surgery, and yet she actively decides to postpone it. You know she’s stalling,” comes the steady reply.

“And what about you?” Satoru asks. His words are biting, icy, but Nanami seems unfazed as he begins to loop the tie around his neck. “Would you do it?” Blue eyes meet a stoic face, and the coldness seeps into Satoru’s body. Nanami sighs.

A part of Satoru wonders why he even bothered asking. He already knows the answer—

“No.” Eyebrows shoot up. His mouth drops open and a strangled noise escapes his throat. Nanami merely continues on, quiet as death. “Perhaps it’s because I’m willing to accept my death, but, to be honest, I don’t know how to let any part of Haibara go. I’ve accepted it, but he’s still in my heart and my head.” Lips parting, Satoru takes a step forward as Nanami slants his body away, continuing to fold the fabric into a tie. He looks statuesque, unmovable, and something tightens in Satoru’s throat at the stone-like mask taking over his face. “I’m unwilling to do anything to taint that memory.”

Wordlessly, the blond walks over to Satoru to take his jacket from the chair, rolling down his sleeves and slapping his watch back onto his wrist. Standing less than two feet apart, the two men finally meet eyes.

“Gojo,” Nanami murmurs. “I can’t say I understand your burden, but I am by your side. I do not always agree with your choices, but I still respect them. As your kouhai and as your colleague.” His lips pull in a facsimile of a wry smile and there’s an understanding Satoru doesn’t understand haunting his handsome face. “However, she is your friend before mine. I think your opinion matters much more than mine. Don’t abuse that power.”

Satoru’s eyes nearly reflect in the lenses of Nanami’s glasses. He wishes his friend would take the damn pair off. 

In truth, the reason he’s so irritated is because he knows. If he insists enough, begs enough, there will always be a chance that he can convince you. That you will give in, not because you are selfless, but maybe because you’re too selfish to let him stay mad at you.

An unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and sometimes, the force wins.

But he’d promised, hadn’t he? To not be angry with the choices you’ve made?

“Jeez, it’s somber in here. Who died?” you tease as Shoko pushes the wheelchair in after you. Both men look away from each other. You’re still walking steadily, but an IV is hooked into your chest now, and it’s so obvious you’ve lost unhealthy weight that looking at you is hard sometimes. Satoru does, anyway. 

Noting Nanami, you straighten up. Surprised, but pleased: “You’re still here.”

“I was just leaving,” he says. You frown, but don’t protest. A jujutsu sorcerer’s work is never finished until one stops breathing. “I finished planting the seeds you asked me to, and watered them.”

“Thank you.” He dips his head to you, then to Shoko, before departing, and you watch him go for a moment before your eyes land on Satoru and you smile. The air around you shifts immediately to a vibrant yellow. 

“You’re early, Satoru.” You head towards the bed as Shoko parks the wheelchair by the door. “It took way longer than I thought.”

“That’s because you threw up pistils today,” Shoko replies dryly. Satoru straightens up and looks at Shoko more carefully. Placid lookimg—usual for his mortician friend in the jujutsu world—but there’s a blanching in her knuckles that isn’t usual. “The CT wasn’t good. You know that.”

“Well, it’s still more time than I could’ve asked for, you know.” Shoko shakes her head, and meets his eyes before leaving the room, presumably to talk to your doctors. “Party pooper.”

“First day knowing Shoko?”

You laugh sarcastically, adjusting the hospital gown on your body before climbing into bed slowly, as if your joints ache. Satoru’s feet shift on the tile when he realizes his body moves to help and he freezes. You’re breathing audibly by the time you settle in and you meet his eyes, wondering if he’s noticed.

Of course he has, he wants to tell you. He notices everything about you.

Then, you sigh, and the yellow energy around you flickers into something darker, something grey, something that reminds him of summer thunderstorms.

“The roots have reached the edge of my rib cage and are encroaching on my stomach now,” you inform bluntly. “I probably won’t be able to keep food down in the next couple of days so they’re going to up the ante on this thing.” You gesture to the catheter by your clavicle. “So that’s not really fun. And, they want to start taking scans every single day because the growth is increasing exponentially. The doctors think something triggered the flowers to begin blooming in earnest. Like spring has come to my body, and I’m having the worst fucking time of my life.”

Despite your admission, your smile only falters in that it no longer reaches your eyes. Satoru shoves his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what else to do.

The word Hanahaki still burns, whispers coyly in his ear. It teases the tip of his tongue as he watches you look to your windowsill where your new plants are and get up, walking over to inspect your friend’s work.

He wonders if he can bring it up again. If he can insist that there’s a way to save you—

But Nanami’s words linger, too, and he bites his tongue until he tastes iron. 

“Oh, look.” He blinks at your voice, turning to look. Your fingers sink into one of the pots and before he can ask, blue energy flares up around your hand and into the soil and a shoot breaks through the dirt, unfurling as it grows higher and higher into the air.

“What is it?” Petals are beginning to form, the shade of a warm, gentle red that fades in shade as it reaches the stem. Satoru comes up next to you as the first flower blooms and his eyebrows rise. “Tulips. Huh.”

“I used to love them,” you tell him, picking it off and extending it to him. Eyebrows furrowing in surprise, he takes it as you sink your fingers deeper into the soil, sending more cursed energy into the seeds. More stems to replace the one you had picked continue to grow and you pull your hand out, wiping at your fingers with a towel.

Satoru tilts the flower towards his nose, taking a whiff.

“Used to?” he repeats, and you nod.

“Trees and flowers have their own language.” Your eyes do not meet his as you watch the plant continue to grow. Your muscles go slack, and your fingers touch the petals, mind not quite aware of how you’re moving. “Red tulips mean eternal love, and fame.”

Blinking, he looks down at his own bloom. 

Suguru. He hears you say his name, even in the silence, and remembers years ago, walking through Tokyo. A neighbourhood he doesn’t remember, his best friend looking at the florist’s shop and immediately perking up to head inside and buy a bouquet after something had caught his eye.

“For a girl,” he had admitted sheepishly. 

“Only one?” Satoru asked, horrified. “You can’t settle down! We’re meant for so many more women than just one!”

A sharp nudge to the ribs. Raucous laughter. “Shut up!”

Quietly, Satoru’s fingers tighten around the stalk as you tilt your head to the sun, inspecting something he won’t understand. He doesn’t have a green thumb, and although you say you aren’t the smartest, he’s seen you grow the college’s gardens in a way that has amplified the beauty already lingering on the grounds. You had dismissed it as a little side project, but seeing you water your plants dutifully, spread feed and root out weeds, makes him wonder if you know how to put half-efforts into anything.

When you garden, you never take the easy route. You labour for the satisfaction, and pour sweat and tears into the soil.

When you love, you love with all of yourself and more. 

It’s what makes whatever he wants impossible.

Because he is the same, and they will never change.

When Satoru goes home, he places the tulip in a vase and the cursed energy prickles at his fingertips.

.

You get worse and worse with every visit. 

Each day brings him another raw wound, salt on blood. You slowly grow more and more ragged, even though you stay in the hospital, confined to your room. 

There are days Satoru walks into your room to you hunched over the toilet, spitting blood and flowers into the bowl and vomiting all you ate the night or day or hour before and he already knows what he has to do. A cold, damp rag to your forehead, a crouching stance beside you as your grip on the toilet seat becomes rigid like steel.

Other days, you’re still asleep because the night before, you’d been hacking up half a lung and half a bouquet. Sometimes, you’re curled around a plastic receptacle already full of your half-attempts to dislodge the pressure building in your chest. 

Or, you’re crying into your hands, breath coming in rapid bursts as you try to force your head between your knees to stop the world from spinning and Satoru holds you when you beg him to, and stands in the corner of the room when you push him away.

Afterwards, you always grab onto his sleeves, his arms, and sink against him, shivering. For hours after, he’ll curl around you on your hospital bed, no matter how much his body cramps, until you insist you’re fine.

“It’s a little like touching death,” you told him once, voice raw and fatigued. “When it’s a pretty bad day, and I think I’m going to die alone, it happens, so all I have to do is not think about it.”

There’s a flawed logic there, but Satoru was too busy pressing his nose into your hair and feeling the warmth of your body to reply any more than, “I’ll be there. I promise.”

Two weeks pass (fourteen sets of scans, a different pair hanging from the lightscreen every day tell him that) and Satoru watches as the branches spread through your body, past the reaches of your ribs, and the flowers have spread to your lungs so quickly he’s sure the time for you to decide is running out. 

You’re near-passed out against him on the bathroom floor one evening, and although it’s not closet-sized, it doens’t make the arrangement any less awkward. He’s up against the bathtub, legs sprawled all around you as he holds you in his arms. On the edge of the tub, there is a bar of bodysoap and a bottle of lotion he recognizes as the same one Shoko used to buy when they still had time. Your sink counter is filled with your toothbrush and cup, handsoap and a microfibre towel hanging off the edge smeared with lipstick, foundation, and black streaks of who knows what.

Shoko must have spent the night while he was out hunting a curse in Sendai. Good. He doesn’t like the nights when you’re alone and he can’t be there.

His fingers brush over your shoulder blade, and he travels over something rigid cloaked by your skin. Your eyes are closed, and you’re nearly asleep as you curl deeper against him. Looking down at you, he presses curious fingers into your shoulder blade only for you to let out a soft groan.

“Did that hurt?”

“No. It just feels like you pressed down on a big sore muscle,” you mumble slowly. He trails his fingers over, feels the bumps of the roots curling around your bones before following it towards your spine. It disappears the closer it reaches the trail of knobs that go down your back, and he moves back to your shoulder again. “Doesn’t hurt, though.”

“Does anything?”

“Mostly my stomach,” you tell him. “I’m so hungry all the time, but I can’t eat.” He glances at the IV stand, the only other witness to the events in this bathroom. It leads down through your gown and past your clavicle. Monitored every day in case the growths dislodge it, it’s one of the only things keeping you alive. “And my throat. It feels like I’ve scratched it out until it’s bleeding.”

He tilts his head. His lips barely brush your sweaty scalp despite how cold you feel in his arms “No surgery?”

You shake your head, what remains of your strength slowly coming back. “They say the flowers and roots have taken up sixty-five percent of my chest cavity. It’s not only inhibiting my lungs, but my heart and stomach, too, so it’d be kind of hard to get rid of it all. Not impossible, but it’s really risky. That, on top of the already-present consequences—”

“So let’s say we start with the lungs,” he cuts off, trying to not sound too desperate but these past few weeks have worn him down to the bone. Although he thinks he’s managed to hide it from his students, Shoko has offered multiple times to prescribe him sleeping pills just so he can shut his mind down.

He said no every time.

Your legs draw up and he squeezes your shoulder carefully, looking down. “Are you ready to get up?”

You nod. “I think so.” He wipes at your lips with the rag he left on the counter and you roll your eyes as he makes sure no blood is left on your face before throwing it back up and carefully adjusting you against him.

“Do you want my help?”

“My answer does not matter to you,” you shoot back teasingly and he lets you pull away from him before reaching up with one hand to push yourself up. Your arm wobbles, your feet kicking back underneath you and slowly finding theirselves on the floor. Satoru withdraws, ducking underneath and back up so he can stand, hands floating around your body as you draw the IV stand towards yourself and grab on. When he’s sure your knees might give in, he grabs your elbow, but you shake your head. “I think I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” you breathe, raising your head to look at him. Your lips curl in a soft smile, and you clasp his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t even do anything this time,” he says.

“Not everyone stays for the pathetic girl on the floor of the bathroom floor,” you quip. Turning around, you begin to head back to bed and he trails behind you carefully.

“If the girl’s you, then I think exceptions can be made.”

“Hospital bonus.”

“It adds that you’re in the hospital, too,” he agrees. “My morals are just.”

“Isn’t that a relief?” 

It is. It is a relief that you still have the strength to joke with him. 

You climb back into bed. Satoru returns to the bathroom to make sure the bathroom is flushed and it’s clean before returning and perching on the edge of your bed. Pulling out his phone, he shuffles his shoes off and tucks his legs to his chest, leaning against the foot of your bed and scrolling through his messages.

Not much to miss, to be honest. 

“There’s supposed to be a lunar eclipse on the morning of the 28th,” you say suddenly. Satoru looks up. You’re leaning back on the mountain of pillows, exhaling and inhaling measuredly in a way he now knows is your way of fighting off another bout. Squinting against the orange glow of the sunset, there’s a longing in your gaze. “I want to see it. Outside and everything.”

“You’re not supposed to leave the hospital.”

You don’t miss a beat. “Oh, we’re abiding by rules, now?”

“If it keeps you around, yes, we are.”

“When did my best friend turn into such a party pooper?” Looking at him, an impish glint lives in your eyes. He balks.

“Don’t you dare insinuate that I’m not fun.”

“Then… take me to see the eclipse.”

“No. There’s nothing to even see.”

“I want to see the moon disappear, Gojo,” you declare. “And if you won’t take me, I will definitely sneak out.” 

It paints a pretty pathetic picture, and he can’t help but arch his eyebrows at your determination. The air purifier drones on. The nurse turned it on after dinner, he guesses, and he has the strange urge to kick it as you fix him with a fierce stare. 

“You probably won’t be able to walk by then,” he says.

“That won’t stop me.” He knows it won’t. The corner of his lips pulls into a slight smile as you continue, “I just want to go outside one last time. Is that really too much to ask?” Your words are tinged with a fine dusting of humour, and he shakes his head.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Big word for you, Satoru.”

“I still mean it.”

“And I learned that from you.”

He rolls his eyes and sighs. “Fine,” he caves. Your face lights up, and he sets down his phone, legs unfolding to brush the floor as he leans over to flick your forehead. Your eyes squeeze shut at the contact and you slap his arm away sluggishly before he soothes the smarting spot over with a smear of his thumb. “I’ll come by, and we’ll sneak out.”

You beam and he slips his feet back into his shoes and pockets his phone so he can focus his attention on you. 

When visiting hours end, the nurses offer to set up the cot for him like they always do. You pretend not to look at him out of the corner of his eye, awaiting his answer behind your laptop screen, and he spares you a quick glance before saying yes.

“She likes you,” you tell him after one particular nurse with dyed purple hair who always wears a fishtail bids them goodnight. Satoru fluffs up his pillow ceremoniously, having shed his jacket and taken off his jeans to hide underneath the blankets. The fabric is cold against his bare chest, and he pulls his glasses off, sets them on the stand right behind him.

The black frame holding up his mattress rattles a bit as he punches his pillow one last time and lies down. He turns on his side and looks at you. You’re turned on your side, too, and your brow is furrowed as you fight the sleepiness.

“Is that so?” he asks carefully. “What do you think about it?”

“I think if you wanted someone with a hectic schedule, you could pick someone else,” you say vaguely.

He raises an eyebrow. “Does she have a bad attitude or something?”

“I dunno.” There’s a subtle fire igniting in your words. You look a bit more awake, and your eyes are shifting the air into a smouldering red. He squints up. Your face is shadowed, but you’re still silhouetted by the orange light behind your bed as your shoulders rise and fall greatly in staggering, weighty breaths. “She wouldn’t understand. I guess.”

He hums. “So I should find someone who understands me but can’t be there for me? Sounds like the set up to every tragic love story ever.”

You laugh, and it’s the saddest sound in the world.

.

Friday, July 27th arrives in clouds.

Satoru scouted a spot before where they can watch the eclipse. He settles on one of the highest buildings on campus with a balcony where they can sit against the railing and watch the moon disappear. You can’t eat, but he still buys your favourite food from all over Japan, travelling to different prefectures in hopes that they still have your favourite dessert or drink that you mentioned once—he even gets you a new polaroid camera. He doesn’t know exactly how well the eclipse will show up on it, but, memories, right?

Maki makes a dry remark about how much he’s running around lately, probably to make amends to a girl he’s scorned. Satoru deflects and says he’s actually trying to impress one this time.

It’s been a five days since his promise to bring you. You lost your ability to walk steadily two days ago and to speak effortlessly only yesterday. The roots have extended through your body, pushing the muscle of your back and shoulders, and it’s made even moving painful, so he intends to carry you everywhere he can, holding your IV bags if he needs to. 

The doctors say eighty-five percent of your chest is now occupied with foreign growth. Satoru wishes they’d just tell it how it is—you’ll probably be dead by next week.

He arrives at the hospital and walks the path he’s walked so often over the past few weeks that he is sure he could do it with his eyes closed. The nurse’s station, and there’ll be the purple-haired one and the one with a double helix piercing on call at this time. Then, twenty-five steps to the end of the hall where the window often lets a lot of natural light in. Today, it’s grey and not much, but it’s enough to cast his shadow long and blurry.

He stops in front of your door to sanitize his hands when he hears voices within and hesitates.

Your door is closed, which means you don’t want people to interrupt, and he moves away from the rectangular window, back pressing against the tiny slab of wall between the frame and the corner of the hallway. Glasses slipping down his nose, he tries not to listen but he can’t help of himself.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” you say weakly. You sound awful. Satoru wonders if he’s missed one of your panic attacks and curses himself. “If I don’t sound sure, it’s because I’m dying… and sounding like a fragile piece of shit… comes with the territory.” Your words are coarse, and a harsh anger grates his ears as you cough violently, a terrible retching sound ending with a splat following right after. 

“I wasn’t doubting you,” Nanami replies calmly. “But this could be done in so many other ways.”

“Look, Nanami. I’m not… brave enough to say any of it. Now, sit down. Your standing… it’s making me nervous… Thank you.” Satoru’s legs feel numb as he sinks down to the floor, tilting his head just enough to listen clearer through the sliver underneath the door. Resting his elbows on his knees, he runs a hand through shaggy white hair. It feels dry and lifeless. 

He can’t remember the last time he took a shower that was longer than ten minutes and more than ice-cold bordering on just beginning to warm.

“Take care of him for me,” you croak and his fingers tighten against his scalp. Nanami doesn’t answer, and you let out a sound that can only be described as pure agony as another bout grasps you tightly. You’re wheezing by the end of it, gasping painfully for air, and the monitors start beeping rapidly, a dinging that echoes in his head as Nanami’s low voice soothes you, tells you gently to calm down. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Breathe with me,” Nanami orders, and everything falls silent. Satoru stares at his lap. His head is beginning to pulse with the monitors when the beeping finally starts to fade. “Good. No sense to waste your strength.” 

Wobbly, spitting: “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” A pause. “It’s not your fault.”

You laugh, as if Nanami’s cracked a funny joke, and it’s gut-wrenching. “Remember how… we can curse each other? Ourselves? True curses.”

Faintly amused, immeasurably strained: “I thought it was still a hypothesis regarding those who don’t have the correct bloodline and the ability to curse through their own will.”

“No…Not a hypothesis. Real, Nanami. Real. No one knows how cursed energy affects us. Not really. Since, in my opinion, it’s entirely based on how we process things… it’s so difficult to say but when you know someone…” You break off to clear your throat. “The curse of adulthood… some of us got that too early… but we can survive that and even if it’s not a curse by… definition, we still feel it, right?” 

Satoru clasps his hands together just so he doesn’t rip the door open at the hinges.

“Right.”

“And… knowledge… can be a curse. Even if we can’t see it.” A ragged breath. Then, another laugh too loud for the grey light outside, too bright, a spark before it fizzles into, again, pained choking. “Nanami, remember last year… the job out in Yama… Yamaguchi?”

“Yes.”

“And we came back… Okkotsu was beginning his first year at the college… what I—what I told you?”

“…Yes.” A beat passes. A chair shifts on the linoleum floor and Nanami clears his throat. “I see.”

“I don’t want him to be so alone. I know I was never the strongest or the smartest or the most talented but I liked to think he let me in because I was there. Not because I understood. Maybe… Maybe because I didn’t. Nanami, please… he always try to stay so far away from the people he thinks he can’t love. Tell him… tell him—“

You break off and Nanami assures you with a steadfastness Satoru has counted on so many times before: “I will.” 

“…thank you.”

Eyes shutting tight, Satoru rests his brow against the heel of his hand. His head is aching, and a hard fist grabs his chest, squeezes his heart until it feels like it’ll burst. So this is how you’re really feeling. When you’re not smiling, this is what you are. Angry at the world, and heartbroken.

So terribly heartbroken.

And you couldn’t trust him with it? Because you thought he couldn’t handle it? 

He can take it. It’ll be okay because he’s the strongest. He has to be. 

I’m the strongest. I should be okay. I’m the strongest.

I’m the Strongest.

The headache gets worse so he gets up from that corner in the dead-end hallway, all the while three words replay in his head like a goddamn gramophone.

Nanami doesn’t come out of the room for a while. When he does, Satoru walks down the hall with takeout and a smile plastered on his face as if he had heard nothing at all.

.

At just past one-thirty AM, Satoru sits up from his cot and rubs at his eyes. After dinner, the both of them had forced themselves to go to sleep in order to have enough energy for their little late night excursion. He glances at you, a slumbering shape on the bed, and gets up, slowly sliding on the lights. They burn a dim orange, glowing on your face, and your eyebrows furrow as he touches your cheek.

“What?” you mumble, vexed, and he smiles.

“Are you ready?” he asks. A backpack is situated at the end of his bedframe and he reaches for it, unzipping it carefully as you crack your eyes open. “We’re going to go see the eclipse, remember?” Pulling out clothes he robbed from your room in the staff facility from when you used to work full time, he grabs your shoulder and shakes you gently. The gnarled roots under your skin feel strange against his fingers as you groan weakly. “Do you want five more minutes, Sleeping Beauty?”

You don’t answer, burying your face into your pillow and he shakes his head to himself. It’s going to be all right, he thinks. I planned for this setback.

Slipping into a dark long-sleeve, he parts the black-out curtains to let light come in. He checks his reflection in the bathroom mirror before running a hand through his hair and washing his hands with a cold stream of water. By the time he leaves the bathroom, you’re sitting up already, heel of your hand rubbing against your brow as you groan. In your other hand in your lap, there’s a splash of blood and a lone petal, and he rushes to your side instantly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t even hear—“

“It came out easy,” you assure as he grabs a tissue to pick it off your hand and throw it into the receptacle at the table just beyond the foot of your bed. Wiping at your mouth roughly, he hears your complaints and your hand shoves against his shoulder to tell him to quit it. “Ah, I can do it myself!”

“Shh! Do you want every nurse storming in here while we conduct our super secret getaway?” he whispers, and your eyes fix on his. Dark circles mark your face like bruises, but that light is still the same—glimmering, bright, like twin suns and just as warm. Making sure your hands are clean, he wipes the invisible streaks of blood just to be sure before grabbing your clothes and setting them at the end of the bed.

You glance around the place sluggishly, at the paintings you never got to finish, and the books you haven’t finished reading, before settling on him. “What are we going to do about the… about the machines? And my IV…” 

“Oh, trust me. I may have bribed a nurse or two,” he confesses and you send him a scandalized look. He shrugs. “What? You told me a woman liked me and I couldn’t help but turn on my natural charm.”

“You’re awful,” you say without meaning it and he smiles as he moves your bed into a sitting position. You cough lightly, but sit up straighter as he carefully unhooks the huge bag and pump from your stand and gently slides it into the pocket in the backpack, resisting the urge to squish the pouch a bit. Strapping the pump in, he makes sure it’s secure as you peer around him to catch what he’s doing. “Is this… safe for me, you—you know, medically-speaking?”

“Nope.” He adjusts the tubing to avoid any kinks. “But, Purple gave me this backpack and she will come as soon as we come back to make sure you aren’t dying. And, if anything goes wrong, I promised her I’d come back as soon as possible.”

“Promised her?” you echo “I see. So that’s what Purple… was doing before my afternoon nap. I thought you guys traded suspicious looks.”

“Yeah. I’m pulling big strings. Now, c’mon, silly. Let’s get you dressed.”

You roll your eyes with a whistling breath. “Watch the tube… and c’mere, then, Gojo.”

He grabs the jacket first and does exactly as you order. Wrapping it around you, he helps you thread your arms through before zipping you up carefully as your shoulders begin to shake. Bending over, you reach blindly for the receptacle at the end of the bed and he hands it over to you.

A wad of saliva mixed with blood slips between your lips and you let out a low noise before forcing yourself to cough harshly again and again. Satoru watches. No matter how many times he sees you rip your throat up just to breathe with a bit less pressure in your chest, it doesn’t get any easier.

You manage to get up a whole magenta blossom. It blooms from your mouth like something out of a horror movie and lands in the receptacle before he’s wiping your mouth.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

They continue on.

Coat, next, zipped up, and a scarf, then he’s scooping up your legs to help you twist on the mattress until your feet are dangling off the edge. He weaves your legs through the sweat pants, careful not to let his gaze avert from his task even as the hospital gown trails up your legs. You shiver at the exposed skin and gooseflesh pimples your thighs as you lift up your hips to help with the effort. He pulls the hospital gown free from the waistband and lets it fall over the hem so you’re completely covered before falling back.

In a crouch, he pats your knees and makes the mistake of looking up only to find your eyes already on him, searching, nearly mystified. Satoru’s throat tightens. The faint light streaming from the window catches half of your face, as if half-divine. There’s a curiosity there, lingering, and the way you look at him makes him freeze in his spot.

Is this how Suguru saw you a thousand times before, a thousand lifetimes ago? Is this what he felt? 

Did he see the way your pupils dilate, the flare of your nostrils as you exhaled so quietly that it felt like a feather against his lips despite the distance between them? Did he see galaxies in your irises, home in the softness of your stare? Is that why he kissed you the last time he saw you? To memorialize their love for himself, to remember what it looked like when you loved him?  

Did he feel like he could fight dragons, crush demons, rip their world apart at the seams and rebuild it again with bloodied nails if it meant you would never cry again? Is that part of why he did it? So you would never be lonely again? 

Because if so, Satoru understands. 

Because if so, Satoru would do the same.

Because he always saw you as just pretty, because you had always been just his friend, and then his best friend’s girlfriend, and then his best friend, so there were always lines drawn in salt, scuffed and distorted over the years, but…

But in the light, tired and lost in his gaze, you’re nearly ethereal. The only reason he knows you’re not a goddess is because he’s still touching your knees, and your breath quivers, as if you’re just as disconnected from the world as he is in this moment.

Lips pressing together, he looks away, and the moment’s gone. 

He glances at the clock. 

How long has it been since he moved? It feels like hours.

Twenty-seven seconds.

Twenty-seven seconds of temptation, and then Satoru turned away. 

He slants to grab a pair of thick woolly socks to give himself something to do. You’re still watching him, head tilted down just so, and he carefully takes hold of your ankle.

He focuses on the little things: the iciness of your skin, the way you pick at the fabric of your sweatpants absently as you watch him work, the way you shiver a bit when he touches you.

He rubs heat back into the arch of your foot as you reach into your jacket slowly to carefully remove the nodes monitoring your vitals. You seem stiff to the bone, and your fingers are rigid with anticipated pain as you peel off the stickers. In the back of his mind, he remembers the days that feel like yesterday when you weren’t hooked up to so many machines to assure both you and him that you’re still alive.

Removing the cap for the oximeter from your finger, you shake yourself out a bit, clearing your throat. He slides one sock on, and then the other.

“How’re you feeling?” he finally utters.

It takes you a moment to answer. “Bottom half feels tingly. Usual these days. My body feels like a big giant bruise,” you inform quietly. Your voice is nothing more than a rasp. “Very warm and toasty, though… Thank you.”

“Just gotta get the shoes on and then we’ll teleport there.”

“Okay.” He helps you slip your feet in, something straight out of Cinderella, and then he stands up to take your hands. Your fingers slip into his palms, and he holds you so tightly as you slide off the bed. The instant your feet hit the floor, your grip intensifies and your head snaps down to the floor. You find your footing after a moment, and he lets go to crack open your window. Moving your plants aside, he climbs out to glance around. 

The air is crisp and cold, but not too bad for him. Even so, he’ll probably slip on a hoodie before they leave and he ducks back in to your room to do so, tugging it down his waist before grabbing the backpack.

“Arms through,” he instructs, slipping the backpack onto your shoulders. Guiding you closer, he helps you shuffle as close as possible towards him before turning around and bending over. “Alright, climb on. We’re going.” 

Your arms touch his shoulders, his hands shoot out behind him, and you fall.

Fingers hooking on your thighs, he boosts you up and your arms wrap around him, your own fingers wrapped so tightly around his collar that it nearly chokes him. Haphazardly stepping through the windows, his fingers sink into the fabric of your sweats. Your breath is warm against the shell of his ear, and he can feel your heart pulsing against his back as he turns to look at you. 

He smiles. “How’s it feel?”

“I’m still not sure if you’re going to let me die.” You press your face closer to his head and your arms tighten. “But the wind feels so good. So, so good.”

“That’d be too undignified,” he teases, and then he jumps. Time seems to slow as it always does when he’s about to teleport. He imagines the staff facility on the campus, quiet as a cemetery at this time of night, and his heart lurches forward. For a moment, his senses leave him all at once. He can’t taste or feel or see anything for a fraction of a second, then it comes to him in blinding speed. His hearing, as always, is first, then his eyes, smell and then touch and smell.

His foot lands on stone, as if he’s just finished a small skip, and he grins as he sweeps the courtyard. No one, as planned. The building’s to his immediate right, and he climbs the steps, using your knee to nudge the door open.

“That was fun,” you comment. “Convenient, too. Blink of an eye, and you’re somewhere else.”

“You can’t even begin to imagine how many lines I’ve skipped because of it,” he comments. The lights are all off, and he heads for the kitchen immediately to grab all the food he’s bought. Setting you down on the kitchen counter, he takes out another canvas bag and stuffs all of the food in.

Daifuku with of all kinds of fillings in the fridge, fresh dorayaki, canned coffee and aloe drinks, sweet soymilk and other wagashi they used to feast on when they were younger. Mostly because Satoru would buy enough to feed a kingdom so he always had something on hand for his overactive brain. You watch him with wide eyes as he moves around with such purpose one could think he was preparing to fight an army, but as soon as he finishes, he flashes you a smile.

“I think you’re going to like where we’re going a lot, silly.”

“Didn’t have to buy stuff,” you mutter, fingers playing with the tube leading into your backpack for a moment.

“You haven’t eaten in weeks. I thought maybe we could at least try. Maybe not now, but at the end of the night, before we go back. Just in case.”

“I can’t eat, though.”

“Don’t know until I stuff it down your throat,” he replies cheerily, and you smile at him so brightly it’s almost like you aren’t sick. Then, that smile turns into a cough, a fist in front of your lips, and your expression is frozen into one of exasperation before it flickers into strained. He sets down his bag, already knowing what comes next.

You make a hacking sound, deep in your throat, and he shifts you closer to the sink so you can lean over and throw up. Gagging, it comes in red and clear torrents, the cursed energy spilling out of your body nearly making it incinerating to even touch you as you clutch the edge of the sink basin. 

You fall to your elbows, and Satoru eases you off the counter so he can hold you up instead of the cramping body contortion you sink into. Cupping the juncture of your shoulder and neck, his thumb sweeps soothingly over your root-invested spine, tossing the ends of the scarf over your shoulder and out of the way.

Settling a hand on your hip, he presses you against the countertop so you don’t fall, and hopes your legs can hold you up long enough for him to reach for the hand towel. You spit just as he manages to grab it, snapping back into position and peering over your shoulder to inspect how much you’ve coughed up. You shudder and a tortured moan wrenches out of your throat as you sink, forehead against the cool metal.

You’re scorching to touch, but he tightens his hold on you anyway, setting the towel aside for just a moment. Carefully, he pulls you back up and you let out an drained whine, but he shushes you quietly, turning you around and guiding your head over his shoulder so you don’t stare at the rot any longer.

Satoru knows you would, even if you pretend like you aren’t plagued with morbid, self-destructive curiosity.

Looking into the sink, he counts a few petals and three whole flowers, and you’re quivering against him as he wraps his arm around you. 

“Alright, lean back for me,” he whispers into your ear, and you obey. His arm around you crooks so he supports your head, the other grabbing the towel again. Exhaustion seems to have sluiced through you, and your eyes are nearly unfocused as he dabs at your mouth carefully. His blue eyes focus on the gentle curve of your lips, and your cheeks puff up before you swallow tightly and let out a shaking breath.

“You’re really close,” you mumble in that exhale. He tilts your chin to the light to make sure he hasn’t missed a spot, and your eyelids flutter as the corners of his lips quirk up. His Six Eyes pick up a muted yellow emanating from you, and it’s so warm against his skin that he can’t help but relish in the feeling. “You smell nice.”

“Good. I took a shower before I came today. Well, yesterday,” he amends softly. “Alright, let’s go before you hack up your other lung.”

“Funny.” Nonetheless, he scoops you back up onto his back and he rinses down the sink as you rest your head against his. He feels you breathing steadily, much easier now than before. Red swirls down the drains, and he watches the magenta petals slowly reveal their true colours. There’s a flash of white in the center of each one, and he wonders silently what flower it is and what it means.

Maybe he’ll find out some day.

When the kitchen’s back to the state they entered, he grabs the bag of food and holds onto your legs tightly as your arms around his neck shift and pull him closer. 

This time, when he teleports, it’s not as jarring. Walking around the balcony, he makes sure no one’s in the area before checking that the door to the roof is locked and heading back out into the night air, towards where they can see the moon clearest.

“Hey, open your eyes,” he whispers over his ear, and your head shifts.

“Hm? Oh!” He feels you wriggle, but he doesn’t let you go as he walks closer to the spot he’s set up. Near the railing, a blanket surrounded by pillows is laid out surrounded by a few space heaters. The moon is hanging perfectly in front of them, and the light illuminates the forests in silver as a gentle wind whistles through. Tranquil, the only sound is his footsteps on wood as you manage to pull your legs free with a harsh twist of your torso. Your hand slaps against the railing and he whirls around to hold you up but you grit your teeth. “I can do it.”

Breathing in deeply, you pull yourself past him using mostly your arms. Your feet drag as if they’re not really attached to a living body but you still move steady onward, and he walks ahead to turn on the heaters and set the food down as far away as he can so it doesn’t spoil too quickly.

“Satoru,” you breathe as if for the first time,” it’s so fucking beautiful up here.” Looking up, his heartstrings twinge. Your face is bathed almost entirely in silver, and it drapes down your body like silk, illuminating the cord of your throat he can see above the scarf, the strength of your hands. A smile brighter than even the most blinding sun rays comes across your face and he finds that the moon pales in comparison as your knees begin to give.

Reaching forward, he helps you sink down slowly, and then sit down, legs hanging off the edge and then you’re leaning to rest your elbows on the middle bar of the wooden railing. You can’t stop staring at the moon, and Satoru can’t stop staring at you as he opens the box of daifuku and pops one into his mouth. 

“The eclipse should be starting in a few minutes,” he says, checking his watch. 2:10. Four minutes to go. You finally tear your eyes away from the moon to look at him.

“I forgot…” you muse. “I forgot how bright… the moon was.”  

He settles in beside you and offers a canned coffee, but you shake your head. He cracks it open for himself. 

“We’re about to watch the moon change,” he notes. “But I read that it’ll last six hours.”

“Really?” Excited, you look up at the moon again. The lunar rays outline your already-pronounced eye bags but it also makes you look more beatific. “That’s just proof… our time here on Earth is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It really makes you—makes you think how much we really matter. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, compared to things like a… fucking lunar eclipse.”

The moon’s opinion doesn’t matter more than mine, he thinks. “Well, while we’re waiting for your next epiphany to hit you,” he says instead, “you never answered my question.”

You smile, intrigued. “What’s that?”

“What if we removed the flowers bit by bit, rather than all at once?” he asks. Your gaze snaps to him, but he only regards you honestly. “That gives you a fighting chance.” Your eyes widen imperceptibly, and he grabs another mochi ball and takes a bite.

“The roots and flowers are too entangled in my chest to be removed safely. It’s either they remove my lungs completely, or not at all, and finding a… match for one lung is hard enough, much less two perfect lungs…” You trail off and shrug. “Well, that’d take forever… and I wouldn’t get much… longer, anyway. I’m a sorcerer. I always knew… I was going to die, so why not die on my own t-terms?”

He frowns. “Why not try?”

“Give me your phone.”

He does so, and watches you type in a query you must’ve typed before with how quick your lethargic fingers fly over the screen before you’re shoving it back towards him and leaning forward on the railing, chin to your forearms. You don’t even look at him, as if you don’t want to watch him crumble.

He reads: The first year after the transplant is the most critical period wrought with surgical complications, chances of rejection, and infection… Although there are some reports of some people living for 20 years post-transplant, many people do not make it past 10 years and only half make it past 5…

His stomach curdles. “Five years is better than nothing.”

“Five years worrying when my lungs are going to… kick it,” you correct. “Besides, my ribs are mangled by the roots. And my heart. My stomach. My spine. I’m undernourished, exhausted, and everything in here”—you gesture slowly around your abdomen—“is doing overtime. My body’s too weak to handle any kind of surgery that wouldn’t heal me… immediately.” 

Your eyes find his, and it’s as if lightning strikes through him like a spear—piercing cold and electrifying. You’re beginning to blue in the lips like you’re freezing to death, but he’s sweating under the blast of the heaters. 

Pulling off his hoodie, he drapes it around your shoulders. You don’t react anymore than: “Sucks, but that’s how it is.”

A few more minutes pass by in silence. Their knees knock into one another, and Satoru can’t stop looking at you as you breathe in the home you left months ago, head lifted to the inky universe.

“You know I can tell when you’re—when you’re angry with me,” you utter, not looking at him. “No matter how much you smile at me, you’re still too passive aggressive to cover it up.”

The words spill out of his mouth as you lower your gaze to him. “I’m sorry.” No sense in lying. 

“That’s okay.” You smile for a moment, like he hasn’t said something worth ruining a night over, but when you look up at the stars, it fades. Wistful, you cock your head at the moon that hasn’t gone away just yet and lower your chin to your arms again. “It’s not really something that was… fair of me to ask anyway.” 

.

Just as the moon turns yellow, he remembers something. Bending back to root through your backpack, he excuses himself. You frown. “What are you—“

“I got a camera for this occasion,” he announces, withdrawing the camera and a plastic bag, leaning back to snap a quick picture of you. You squint at the flash, mouth opened in an incredulous smile and face half-turned away, before the photo rolls out. “Like the one you used to carry around.”

“Some memories to hold on to, huh.” You reach for the camera and your fingers wrap around it, aiming it right at him. A flash and two peace signs later, another image joins the one of you Satoru slides into the plastic zip bag. “Hold on. I want to take another one.”

“We should do one of both of us.”

“Ugh, fine… I don’t look good at all, though.“

“Too late.” He snatches the camera from you and sticks out his hand, dragging an arm around your shoulders and you lean into him, temple against his cheek as he snaps another photo, and then another of him making a stupid face. Another of you mid-laugh. You’re wheezing for air as he keeps grabbing the polaroids as fast as he can with the arm that’s around your shoulder, leading to a bunch of jostling that has you in stitches at his frantic panic whenever the new photo chugs out of the slit.

When he’s had his fill of making you laugh, Satoru leaves you alone to look at the moon. He can’t stop grinning stupidly with every photo and while you watch the moon slowly descent into the earth’s shadow, he shuffles through the photos he just took of them together, trying to brand them to memory.

The way he looks at you in these photos makes him believe in something. In something that could’ve been there if they had more time, and he could convince you to open your heart up to a new possibility.

.

Another hour passes. The moon hangs a strange transition between black and blood red and a paler peach orange. A glimmering yellow dot sparkles below it, and he wonders if that’s Mars.

The forests seem almost hauntingly quiet, and no one has spoken in the darkness. You regard the moon, so enraptured, and more photos have joined the zip bag, but they’re mostly of you. He’s managed to sneak them in by turning off the flash and upping the brightness settings so it’d still be visible, and he hopes you never realize that he’s got them. 

Satoru has never been interested in astronomy, but the stars in your eyes are changing his mind.

He’s dug his hand into the bag of dorayaki already. He remembers it’s supposed to be for you, too, but his hands are too empty without the camera, his brain going a mile a minute and the air absolutely quiet with nothing. 

Twenty minutes ago, you asked him to help you take off your coat so you can pull on his hoodie, and haven’t moved since zipping yourself back up. The air smells only of canned coffee and the stinging wind carrying the scent of cedar. Feet swinging, he drapes his arms over the railing and looks up at the red moon.

It is pretty. Magnificent, and ominous, almost. The night is so much darker without the moon. Sheesh, colder, too. I wonder if you’re feeling okay. Maybe I should check, but you don’t seem to be shaking. Worst comes to worst, I could up the level on the space heaters…

“I don’t think I ever got to hear his last words,” you muse quietly, voice cracking, rousing him from his monologue. His head swings to you. Your eyes are barely open as you rest your cheek against your forearm, and you don’t look at Satoru despite your head turned towards him. Instead, he can watch the pieces of you fall apart without your scrutiny. “I used to think… that I didn’t care.”

“Do you want me to tell you?” he asks slowly as you continue to stare blankly over his ear. Your chest stutters in its inhale and the exhale is just as shaky as you smile a bit to yourself. He takes that as answer, and as he speaks, he sees Suguru’s smile—bright against the darkness of the alleyway, and a reminder of a simpler time. Satoru’s heart quickens from the memory “‘At least curse me a little at the very end.’”

You’re quiet for a moment, as if soaking that in. Then, you draw yourself up and sigh. “That sounds like him.”

You say it fighting off a laugh, even though it wracks your body with such intense pain you can barely breathe. You begin to wheeze not even a second in, and still, your face is cracked into an agonizing smile as you blink, tears slipping down your cheeks. Your eyes squeeze shut and your body goes stiff as you cough, hands flying over your lips. Your shoulders shake so uncontrollably it’s like an earthquake in your body, but Satoru cannot find it in him to calm you down as you hunch over yourself.

It comes in its own course, until you’re nothing but a gasping body, crying into bloodied palms cupping purple flowers, and the low sobs that spill and stutter out of your throat makes Satoru wish he never told you.

“‘At least curse me a little at the very end,’” you repeat to yourself, voice raw and iron-like, and your eyes finally rise to meet his. Nothing but hollow purple pierces through him once more. “Yeah… Yeah, that sounds like him.” 

An apology bubbles at his lips, but you continue before he can even begin. Your hands fall to to your laps, and you look at the decaying flowers, thumbs stroking the petals. “I could never make him truly happy… could I? Just like he said… nothing would’ve been good enough for him while we lived in this kind of world. No matter how many times I sat by him while he swallowed… swallowed those curses, held his hand, held him, I would have never been… enough to make him laugh from his heart.” Your tears cast dark shadows. “I held him, Satoru, with all my might… and I still felt him slip away between my fingers.”

That’s how Satoru learns you were there that day, December 24th, not a snowflake in sight. Just a few metres away, you stood for only a moment before you walked away from the man you loved so he could die without any regret, at the cost of your own guilt eating you alive.

No one speaks after that. Satoru cleans your hands slowly, carefully, giving attention to each finger, before swiping your lips, and then he wipes your tears away but you’re not crying anymore.

You just look up at the moon emptily and he scoots closer in hopes to keep your returning trembling at bay.

“Ten years is a very… long time to love someone.” You break the silence. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Fifteen, thirty minutes? He looks at you, and your lips press into a thin smile. He lifts his arm so you can scoot up close next to him. Your eyes never leave his face, regarding him with new clarity. “I just… realized.”

“Ten years is a very long time for anything,” he replies quietly, their faces very close. Their noses brush, and a warmth spreads through his cheeks as he presses the tip of your nose against his. You don’t pull away. Instead, you almost lean closer. Your nose is cold against his hot face, and he rubs it slowly with his own, trying to send heat back into your skin.

“A very long time to… wait.” Your eyes flutter shut, and your breath is warm over his lips as you slowly tilt your head so their foreheads meet. His hand squeezes your waist. You smell like the hospital, but there’s still the fragrance of the fresh-cut grass and herbs clinging to your skin as he moves his head just to the side so his nose presses into your frozen cheek. Your arm moves as if dragging through honey until it’s wrapped around his neck, palm flat against his shoulder, just as their brows press against one another. 

Something ignites inside his chest, incinerating the rot that seems to grow inside his own chest—it’s his dread, he realizes a moment later. An ugly knot of dread for what’s to come, the guilt, the cold grief that’s just out of reach. 

It’ll unfurl soon, he knows, but for now, he welcomes the relief you bring him.

In this moment, you are his, and he is yours, and that is all that matters.

His eyes close. His cheeks are burning hotter than the heaters surrounding them, and he feels a smile pulling at his lips as your fingers curl against the back of his neck.

“When will people… stop waiting?” you ask him, hushed like a secret.

Eyes opening, he answers you in the same soft voice, “Probably when they die.”

Your eyes crack open once more and he catches a sliver between your heavy lids. You’re so close he sees every detail of your irises, the pores of your eye bags, the way memories flicker through your pupils like fish in a river.

Your exhausted smile grows more genuine—something inside you seems to rear its bright little head, but it’s sad, and he realizes, then, what you must’ve been thinking. Words fumble at his mouth, but he doesn’t let anything slip as you lift your face away to rest your head against his shoulder.

.

You’re dozing against him. Satoru is staring up at the moon in your stead. It’s nearly fully that famous shade of dark blood red, but not quite. He can’t hear anything except the buzz of the space heaters and your breathing. His arm is still wrapped tight around you, holding you flush against him. He’s wished he’d done it so many times before that now, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

You’re dying. Even as you rest against him, he feels it. The weakness in your body, the way you’ve turned ghost-like. The strength of your Cursed Energy has become more prominent now that you don’t have the energy to channel it properly, and it’s centred so strongly in your chest that he can feel it poking curiously at him, leaving little marks, a souvenir for when you’re gone.

His fingers dig into your side. You let out a noise, head shifting, and he rips his gaze away away from the sky as your hand falls away from where it had rested around his neck into his lap.

“Satoru?” you whisper brokenly, and he nods, smiling. He pulls you closer, but their bodies are so pressed against each other that it only serves to make you huff a bit.

“Hey. You’re still with us, don’t worry,”

“Not worried,” you mumble, lifting your head with difficulty. “Just glad you’re here.” You tilt your face to the moon. “It’s still… red, huh…” You shake, your hand at the hem of his shirt twisting tightly. He reaches to squeeze your arm and hopes it’ll be enough now. “Pretty.” Throat dry, he does not answer. His white hair falls into his eyes as you look up at him, and he decays at the vulnerability in your gaze. “Aren’t you glad… that we saw the eclipse?”

Jaw clenching, he nods and tries his best to smile. Your hand lets go of his shirt and you shuffle up close enough that your other arm sneaks around his waist. Touching his chin with trembling fingers, your eyes glitter in the darkness of his shadow.

“I’m going to miss this. The moon, stars, how… fucking short… ’n’ beautiful life is,” you finally whisper, throat tight. “Makes shit worth living for. Maybe… won’t miss it… the most… but, top three.”

“Top three?” he echoes. “Top three sounds pretty good to me.”

“And, y’know what, Satoru?” you continue in the same low, husky tone, as if you’re about to change his world one more time.

He drops to the lowest, quietest voice he can manage and moves his head closer. Their noses nearly bump into each other again, and you smile as he quirks an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“You’re… going to miss me… more.” 

Your hand on his waist travels up his shoulder and he feels the last of your strength in your muscles as you pull him towards you. Letting you, his arms wrap around your waist as your other arm shoots around his neck, clinging on so hard that he’s sure his spine might break. 

Flattening his palms against your uneven back, he closes his eyes and slides a hand to cradle your head close.

“And promise… me something,” you breathe into his ear. Your lips brush the shell of his ear, and a shiver shoots down his spine.

“Anything.”

“When I kick it,” you whisper, “take my body, and bury me… yourself.”

Throat swelling shut, Satoru’s glad you can’t see the way the blood drains from his face as he nods and holds you tighter. “I will.”

.

“One more photo for the road?” he asks. You lift your head from his chest, and he looks as you reach to sweep his lips with cold, trembling fingers. He smiles, his hand on your thigh squeezing meaningfully even though you can barely feel it now. Your arms are bundled between your chest and his, and he hauls your legs on his thighs more securely up his lap, arm tightening around your torso.

“Satoru,” you murmur, tilting your head to him. His eyes never move from yours as he picks up the camera, and your hand falls from his lips. “I’m glad… that it was you.”

He snaps the shot and the only sound that fills the silence is the camera chugging out the polaroid. Your eyes are dark, murky and unfocused, and he feels your stammering inhale in his very lungs as he presses his forehead against yours.

“I’m happy it was you, too,” he whispers. You search his gaze for only a moment, and then turn your head to the moon once more. 

Lowering the camera to the floor, he sneaks his other arm around you and rests his chin atop of your head, eyes sliding shut.

.

Nanami, Yaga, and Ijichi approach, dress shoes tapping against linoleum floors. Satoru and Shoko say nothing to them as they join in watching through the glass doors.

Satoru doesn’t like the room they’ve moved you to. It’s too full of machines, too open to passersby who could just look in if the curtains aren’t drawn, and even then…

It smells too clinical here. Too full of artificial light. The ICU is a mechanical sort of silence than the quiet peace of the dead-end hallway. There is no warmth, no books, no paintings. Your plants have been removed, and Nanami has taken all of them into his apartment except the red tulips which rest on the dinner table in Satoru’s kitchen.

You stopped being able to breathe on your own only a day after the eclipse. That was two days ago, and the ventilator is doing nothing more than prolonging your agony. Soon, the growths will block your lungs entirely, suffocating you from the inside out. 

The doctors have stopped taking scans.

“It’s only a matter of time, now,” Shoko had said. “Her directive says we let her go as soon as she can’t come back.” Quieter: “Her pulse ox has been dropping. It won’t be long.”

Ijichi’s face is stony. Satoru doesn’t know why he focuses on him out of everyone. Leaning against the nurse’s station, he stares blankly at the Assistant Director’s. Maybe because he thought he’d be a wreck. Out of all of them, Ijichi’s the most emotional, but his lips are set firm from where he stands between Nanami and their principal.

Maybe Satoru’s just looking for permission to fall apart, but that’d be stupid. 

I’m the strongest. I’ll be fine.

“I’m going to go in,” he announces. No one protests. Nanami sits down and crosses one leg over the other, fingers steepled and eyes indecipherable. Shoko sits beside him. There’s the faint scent of smoke clinging to her lab coat. 

Ijichi dips his head, but doesn’t sit and Yaga excuses himself to talk to the nurse about your condition.

Satoru sanitizes his hands, approaches the door, and pulls it open before stepping in and sliding it shut behind him. 

Click. Hiss. 

The sound of the ventilator is the only thing that occupies the room. That and the monitors. It’s very dark, despite it being the middle of the day. Mostly because you can’t open your eyes wide enough to withstand the sun anymore, so Satoru had asked the nurses to bring the same blackout curtains from your room here. The lights are dimmed until it’s only an orange glow right behind your bed. 

Click. Hiss.

Sitting down, he doesn’t take hold of your hand just in case you’re sleeping. The intubation tube rests on a pile of towels on your chest, and it takes a long time before your eyes open and your head tilts just enough to look. Your hand twists on top of the covers until your palm is tilted open.

He slips fingers in, takes hold. The feel of your skin making everything worse. You’re colder than you should be—it’s sweltering in this room, enough that Satoru is already beginning to sweat even through his short-sleeve—and your fingers just barely twitch against the back of his hand, tracing strange shapes.

You blink, tapping his knuckle, and he frowns.

“What’s up?” Withdrawing, he feels your nail scrape against his flesh and he looks down. Curiously, he takes your hand and places it on top of his so your fingers can touch the lines of his palm. “Are you spelling something out?” he asks, amused, glancing up again.

Another blink, slower this time.

He leans forward on his elbow to touch your cheek before resting his cheek against his fist.

“Alright, give it your best shot.” 

Your eyelids flutter, lips trembling in a weak smile. Your index finger begins to trace shapes, kanji, into his palm. Your chest rises and fall slowly, pumped full of air by a machine hooked to your lungs, forcing breath into you as your writing grows sloppy by the passing second but you still persist.

ANGRY?

“Angry?” he repeats, and you blink slowly again, fingers insistent on grabbing his palm. Folding his fingers over yours, he arches his eyebrows. “If I was angry at a terminally ill patient, that’d make me the asshole here.” Your eyes squeeze shut, eyebrows rearranging in what he recognizes as your laugh in silence. More seriously, his hold on you tightens and he lifts his head to brush his fingers over your brow. You tilt your head more to him, gaze murky warm. “How’re you feeling?”

It takes a while, but he feels your hand shuffle back to trace your answer on his hand.

BETTER

“Better. Yeah?”

Another lethargic blink. Yes.

“It’s because of me, right? I knew it. I knew it. We should tell Shoko—I’m the newest medical innovation in town,” he proclaims, and his smile begs to slip off his face but he only forces it back on, shoves it into place. Your eyebrows move again, like you’re struggling to hold back your laugh. Your eyes slip shut and do not open again. 

Your face goes lax a moment later, and your fingers loosen a bit, but he doesn’t let go. He just wants to touch your face and trace the lines into his memory. 

Satoru stretches his thumb along the swell of your bottom lip while carefully avoiding the tube. He runs his knuckles down your cheek. His fingers brush your pulse point along your neck, and he feels the slow, weak beat.

Click. Hiss.

He thinks you’re asleep for a while, until your finger drags over the flesh of his palm and he looks down, hand lifting from your face. 

“Hey, I’m still here,” he whispers, and your face turns towards him slightly, the tube in your mouth shuffling. He reaches forward, cupping your face and holding you still. “Hey. Don’t move. Your lungs are weaker than the rest of you and I’m not about to watch you die.” Something grabs onto the front of his shirt near his stomach and he looks down to see your fingers hooking on the cotton of his tee, twisting it weakly. “Oh, sorry.”

He draws back and slips his palm back into yours. Your index finger taps against the heel of his hand before your nail drags deliberately. One stroke. Then another, and another. Gojo wishes your eyes were open, because then he would be able to determine what the rest of the sentence could spell out before you’re done, but he’s patient. 

HERE

“Here?” You tap on his hand. Yes. “What’s here?”

YOU AND ME

“You and me,” he repeats thoughtfully. “Yeah, I get that. At least… now you can see Suguru again, right?” Your hand goes still and he looks at your face, reaching to touch your cheek again. You’re placid—doll-like, eyes shut, living dead. “I’m a bit jealous of that, but you should rest easy. It’s been a hard few months, hasn’t it?”

Another weak twitch of your finger on his hand.

“No matter what happens, don’t think I’m angry at you, or the choices you’ve made,” he continues. “As long as you let me stay here, I won’t waste a single second of it, okay?” Tap. He squeezes your hand so tightly your eyebrows twitch, even as you slip away from him. “For all your saying that you’re weaker than me, I never thought that. Not really.” Satoru raises your hand to his lips and he closes his eyes. “Being the strongest is pretty lonely. Used to be so fucking cocky about it, huh. Thought no one could touch me or the people I cared about because everyone would be too scared.”

Your fingers curl against his palm and he lowers his head to press your knuckles against his brow.

“I was wrong. I’d give anything to have you both back, but I can’t, and I hate it. You’re supposed to be with me at the top. I don’t want to be alone again.” His eyes are burning from the strain of keeping them open, but he refuses to miss a second of you being alive when the time is trickling like sand in an hourglass. He feels it like a heavy stare on his back, wondering if this next breath will be the last one before your brain finally decides to shut down. Your organs have been shutting down for nearly weeks now. He knows it’s out of pure selfishness that they’re dragging precious moments into agonizing hours. 

He knows you’re exhausted. 

Resting his chin on your fingers, he swallows. “I don’t know how to let you go. I wished I’d come sooner. I was careless. I know that. We could’ve had more time…”

Your fingers squeeze his as tight as you can before letting go. Somehow, he hears your voice in his ear. Something about being grateful for the time they did have.

“You were right, silly.” He chuckles to himself, bitter, anguished, and lowers your hand back to the bed, not letting go yet. “Ten years is a long time to wait. I let you down, but I’ll make sure you go easy. I promise.”

Satoru lays his head down on his forearm and he swears he catches your lips pull into the faintest smile. He stays there for hours, watching your face, stretching up to touch your unmoving face. The only sound is his steady breaths, the beep of your monitors and the click-hiss of your ventilator. 

It’s 1:04 PM when he falls asleep to the sleepy circles you trace into his wrist

It’s 6:22 PM when only one of them wakes up.

.

At 11:00 AM the next morning, during one of the hourly tests, they declare you brain-dead. With the announcement of your directive being honoured by your chosen proxy, Satoru himself, classes are cancelled and they are scheduled to take you off life support at six.

Ijichi brings them lunch and dinner. Satoru doesn’t eat. Only sits by your side, leaned back into the chair and looking at you while he still can until the clock ticks and ticks and ticks towards doomsday. The kids come to say final goodbyes while he watches on. Inumaki, as always, brings Panda through his phone, and Satoru wishes there could’ve been some way to sneak Panda into a high-class hospital just so their last moments together aren’t cheapened by a screen.

Shoko enters five minutes before it’s time, hand finding his shoulder and he looks up just long enough to catch her blank stare resting on your face.

She doesn’t say anything, only moves to the other side of the bed and sits down in the other chair.

The doctor pumps you full of sedation drugs, so you won’t feel any of the pain, unhooks the machines, and extubates you, explaining all the while what he’s doing just to fill the silence. As he pulls the tube from your throat, something in Satoru turns icy when a purple petal is plastered to the side of the plastic, but the doctor does not acknowledge it any more than murmuring that he will give them privacy.

Your rattling breaths echo in his ears as he watches the numbers slowly drop, but even your inhales fade to nothing more than soft, slight wheezes. The tape has left a strange mark around your mouth, and you’re unmoving otherwise. Shoko gently reaches and touches the eye bags that are, for once, worse than hers before shaking her head and pulling back. Everyone else waits outside.

Hours pass by in torturous years. 

Satoru wears the same stony expression the whole while, finally surrendering into his desire to hold your hand. 

His heart hardens. He goes completely still. Shoko talks but he can’t really hear anything except the slow beeps of your monitor once you pass certain thresholds. 

There are nurses waiting outside. They’ve grown used to the company, he thinks. He thinks one or two are crying. Soon enough, they’ll come in to turn off the machines tracking your vitals so the sounds don’t drive them crazy, banging in home that you’re dead, dead, dead.

After a while, Satoru realizes you aren’t quite breathing, although your chest moves. Sometimes, there’s a gasping sound, like someone surprised the breath out of you and you’re inhaling sharply to replace it, and he imagines your fingers twitching against his hand one last time.

It’s very slow. Much slower than he imagined it to be. Maybe you’re still fighting. Maybe you don’t want to go.

Satoru can’t imagine why. Where you’re going, there’s no pain, or exhaustion, or blood. Where you’re going, Suguru waits.

He leans against his hand, elbow on the slight incline of your bed. Letting go of your hand, he touches your face, feels the soft puff of your breath, the curve of your jaw. You’ve lost so much weight from the sickness you barely look like yourself, but you’re still you. The cursed energy is still yours. His Six Eyes sees it. His soul feels it.

It tangles with his own where he touches you, and a wave of exhaustion washes over him. 

He wants to sleep, let time pass, and wake up to you dead.

It seems a much better alternative to watching you slip away, but he’s always been selfish when it came to personal affairs.

.

You die two hours later.

Shoko closes her eyes and leans back into her chair as the nurse comes in to turn off the droning monitor. Her face is dry and she takes long, measured breaths as if trying to temper something swirling inside her. Satoru’s hard heart cracks as he squeezes your hand to see if you’ll wake up. It doesn’t quite sink in, even though he can hear someone crying outside, and when your limp hand doesn’t react at all, he shakes his head and gets up, pulling his sunglasses off the collar of his shirt and sliding them back onto his face.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and rakes his face over your body, your face.

He’s seen a dozen dead bodies before, maybe more. You look just like he did on December 24th. At peace, younger. Like you’re glad the suffering is over, and Satoru turns his face away sharply and leaves the room. He doesn’t know what to say and he’s not sure if his voice is still here. 

Everything feels dry and dull and grey.

“Sensei,” Itadori whispers wetly, reaching out a hand, making him stop. The students are all sitting in a small area, but they stand upon seeing him leave the room, and he gives them a plastic smile that makes all of them flinch. Maki is scowling furiously at the ground as Inumaki takes hold of her bicep but she flings the hand off and stalks away, hiding her red face.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tells them as Kugisaki runs after Maki. He watches the two go before turning his attention back on the students. “The important thing is that she didn’t suffer. Arrangements will be made, but there won’t be any rush, alright?” The words feel lacking, but he still manages to smile. “It’s been a long day. Go home. Rest, shower, eat. Let’s remember that she doesn’t want us to be here, slumping around looking like idiots. She wants you to all to take care of yourselves.” He arches his eyebrows insistently at his students, but they don’t seem to hear him.

They’re only looking through the glass doors at your coolling corpse, at Shoko who stands, and speaks to the doctor when he comes back in.

Fushiguro is the only one really looking at him, and the teenager has a silent question in his stare. 

Satoru shakes his head, and Megumi nods.

“Classes are cancelled for the rest of the week,” Yaga adds. “Ijichi will drive you all back to the college in thirty minutes. Make sure you tell the girls.” He directs this to Inumaki, who nods.

“Salmon.”

Later, Megumi finds him smoking a cigarette leaning against Shoko’s car. Satoru’s never liked the taste of the stuff so he doesn’t really know why he’s smoking other than the fact he doesn’t know what to do. 

Up is down, left is right, and you’re dead. 

Nothing seems right, but Megumi gives him a good excuse to stop. Flinging the cig to the ground, he stomps out the ember and re-arranges his expression into that shielded smile of his, but it feels a bit weaker. Sharp, janky, wrong.

“Why haven’t you gone home yet? Ijichi should’ve taken you all back by now,” Satoru says wearily as Fushiguro stops before him, hands shoved in his pockets.

“I stayed behind to look for you,” informs Megumi. He looks a bit fractured, but the boy’s never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. Satoru makes a mental note to dig into his psyche at a later date, and stretches an arm out to wrangle the boy into a hug against his side.

For all of his complaints and mumbles and scowls, Megumi’s body still relaxes a bit against his, and even though he doesn’t hug him back, when he tells him, “You should go home and get some sleep, too. These past few months haven’t been easy on you, either,” Satoru feels a part of his old self raise its bloody head. 

Glancing down at a head of spiky hair, he knocks his knuckles into his student’s skull. “Have you been keeping an eye on me?”

Megumi crosses his arms, glares over Satoru’s elbow, but even his voice is quieter. “You need to take care of yourself.”

Satoru smiles again. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “But you’re not worried about me, are you, Fushiguro?”

Megumi ducks his head and doesn’t answer any more than, “Someone has to pick up the slack, now.”

.

“Thanks, Ijichi,” Satoru says with a huff, digging the shovel into the ground and stepping on the metal edge. “Not every day you help me carry a dead body and dig a grave, huh.”

“No, sir,” Ijichi replies. He sounds a bit hoarse and tired as he wipes at his brow.

It’s been two days since you’ve died. The college grounds feels a lot less lively. He took a walk in the gardens yesterday, and saw Yaga planting new flowers. He had strode past and ignored the tears on his sensei’s face, and absently wonders now why he hasn’t cried yet as he grabs the shovel and yanks it out of the dirt, tossing it to Ijichi.

It feels kind of stupid, but despite how eviscerated everything inside him feels, he just can’t.

Either way, he’ll deal with it when it becomes a problem.

Satoru wipes at his brow, too, with a heavy sigh, and heads to where a cloth-covered shape is resting on the ground. Your corpse is light in his arms as he bridal carries you to the hole he’s just dug into the grass. It looks suspicious as hell, but it’d probably be even worse if he’d been walking around with a dead body over his shoulder, stitched back together after an autopsy by your best friend. 

Good thing they’re only in the forests outside the college campus. There won’t be any civilians for miles.

“You can go,” he says over his shoulder, setting you down by the hole they’ve dug. He takes in a deep breath to calm himself and Ijichi’s footsteps hesitate before beginning and fading away moments later. Falling to his knees, Satoru begins to carefully unfold the cloth just enough that he can see your face and chest. 

He squints behind his blindfold at the ripples of energy still seeping from the stitches along your chest. Sinking his hands into the lush, cold grass, he twists the blades with rigid fingers at the stench of rot coming from the curse before he draws back.

Hands on his lap, he stares at your face. You look frozen in time, eyes closed, skin clean, and there’s that unnatural stillness about you that only comes with the dead. It’s strange. He probably couldn’t have imagined someone so vivacious could be so motionless if he hadn’t seen it first with Suguru.

He had asked not to hear the results of your autopsy. Not now, maybe not ever. It’d be fresh lemon juice in a weeping wound. All he knows is that the curse clings to your corpse, and Shoko could only remove the growths that were no longer being fed for examination.

“Weird that this is where we’ve found ourselves,” he begins humourlessly. “With how we were living, Suguru always said I’d die first. Doing something stupid, being too cocky.” He slides a hand into his pocket and withdraws something he’d snipped this morning from the last plant you had grown with your Technique. A red tulip with a short stem that’s a bit crushed, and beginning to decay, but… everything can’t be perfect.

“I never thought I’d outlive you.”

Reaching forward, he places the tulip gently on your chest, takes your cold arms that are just beginning to loosen up again from rigor mortis, and folds your hands over the stem.

“Eternal love, and fame,” he repeats to himself. The energy nearly swallows up the tulip, but as it radiates from your chest, flickers in the slight breeze, Satoru sees flashes of red and green, much brighter than everything else around him, and knows that it won’t be consumed. Sitting down, he hugs his legs to his chest and stares at your dead body blankly, chin on his knees.

He had had a plan. He was going to just… put the flower there, exorcise the curse inside you, and bury you so you could finally rest. He wouldn’t hesitate because this is something you entrusted him to do.

But this is the first time in months he hasn’t had a cloud hanging over his head, and his body feels so much ligher without the burden of your disease hanging off his shoulders, that he can’t help but relish in it. Speak to you without worrying about saying the wrong thing, of people overhearing. He’s finally… free. 

It feels fucking awful.

“You were right, by the way.” His voice is dull, resonating deep in his chest. There is no August sun breaking through the trees above, only from behind him, and the golden beams touch your chin, down your throat and chest. It sets the red of the tulip on fire. “I miss you. And I wish I could’ve said so many things, but we ran out of time.” A faint smile. “No matter what you think, Suguru loved you. It’s why he came to see you one last time. I knew him better than I knew myself, and I know he was happiest knowing you were at his side.” Closing his eyes, the ache in his heart swells as he utters out, “So was I.”

Burying his his face in his forearms, a cup inside him seems to tip over and everything feels too hot for him to breathe in. Ripping his blindfold off and tossing it away from him blindly, his eyes snap open wide as he tries to breathe. His ribs constrict his lungs, and he presses his eyes into his arms, hands shaking as he sinks his nails into his biceps. 

Harsh pants puff against his face as he tries to reign in his shuddering, but he can’t. The knot in his heart twists until he thinks he might die, and distantly, he hears soft footsteps so faint he’s not sure if he imagines it. Gritting his teeth, he stifles the bruising feeling welling up in his throat.

Gentle hands brush down his shoulders soothingly, sending a wave of nausea through his body, and he jerks away.

“Damn it, Ijichi, leave me alone!” Wrenching his head up, his eyes widen at the figure crouched in front of him.

Arms falling lax to the grass and his knees widening, his jaw drops as a thumb teases his parted lips. You step between his legs and crouch down, limber and strong. You look healthy again, bright eyes and full cheeks, young like spring, and when you smile, it fills him utterly with light. In your hands is his blindfold, and you ruffle his hair, tilting your head curiously.

“I’m not Ijichi, but… do you really want me to go so soon?” you ask as he rakes his gaze up and down your body. There is still a purple shell encasing your legs, but as you shift your weight on your feet, it falls like fragile eggshells to the ground and sinks into the dirt, disappearing for good. Peering around you, his eyes widen when he sees shards of a purple shell in shatters all over your corpse.

He’d only seen this once before, eight months ago, with a certain student of his and the cursed spirit of the girl he loved and who loved him.

Face burning, his gaze snaps back to you as you poke his cheek and continue to grin. Leaning back on his hands, he tries to stop the intense shattering of his walls by clenching his jaw, but the shudders overtake his body, his chest, his throat until he’s letting out an ugly sound and blinking hard as if that’ll hide it away from you. Something devastatingly warm immediately shoots down his cheeks. Covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow, he turns his face away but your warm hands cradle him carefully, thumbs brushing underneath his eyes.

“Yuuta, you’re right. Rika isn’t cursing you.”

“No,” he whispers, arm falling. His fingers sink into his shoulder as if that would be enough to wake him from this nightmare. “No. I can’t—Did I—Did I kill you?” You squint studiously, not letting go of his face as he lifts the hand from his shoulder and reaches to touch you. It shakes, and he snaps it into a fist to stop it, looking at his fingers that have done so much harm—shed so much blood. “Did I do this to you?”

“You cursed Rika.”

You chuckle fondly, like he’s said something silly, and set a hand on his fist, pushing it down firmly. “You can’t control how other people react to your words, Satoru.” Your voice changes, and your eyebrows draw together in something bittersweet. “And you can’t change something you didn’t know. The chances of you cursing me and me cursing myself are irrelevant. It doesn’t change anything about where we are, now.”

Satoru watches you, lips parted, as you tie the blindfold around his neck. You feel so real, so close, and as you slide your hands down his shoulders, to his chest, he jerks his head down to stare at your shoes in the grass. 

So he did. 

“I see,” he murmurs.

That’s it, then.

“Satoru, please look at me,” you whisper, fingers stretching to his chin. With the gentlest of pressures, you prompt him up and he finds your face, your smile, where all colours begin and end. For a moment, the world seems to inhale all of its life back into its core—the leaves whistle, the sun is warm and golden, and he lifts his hand to touch you again, but you pull back before he can. 

“I can only thank you for being my friend. For staying with me until the very end.” You laugh quietly to yourself and lift your hand from his face. “I would make a joke about a curse, but I know it still hurts, so I’ll save it for when I see you on the other side, okay? When it heals a bit more.”

“It’s never going to hurt less,” he croaks. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know how much you mean to me.”

Your smile softens. Satoru tries to eternalize that expression forever. “I’m honoured, but, I hope it does heal. I don’t want you to learn how to carry so much pain around. I don’t want you to be numb.” You touch his cheek again, as if you’re trying to soak in as much of him as you can, too. 

“Do you have any last words?” he manages to ask raspily, and you chuckle, tilting your head and running your hand through his hair again. His eyes flutter shut at the scratch, the sensation of your nails against his scalp, and then there’s your hand at his jaw, holding him all together. He wants to hold you so badly he thinks his muscles might cramp into stone at the desire.

“What does it matter?” you ask curiously. “You already know how I feel. That will never change. And if you ever want to know what I think, or what I’d do, you can just ask Shoko and think about it yourself. You know me well enough to not need me nagging about it.”

“But, it won’t be enough.”

“It never will be,” you agree. “But isn’t it wonderful that we even got to know each other at all?” You lean forward, and his eyes flutter shut as you hold him to your chest. He can’t hear your heartbeat anymore, but your warmth is almost the same. The echo of your voice rumbles in his head as you speak, and maybe that is enough. “If you want my last words, you already have them.”

You draw him back, and give him one last smile. The air shifts golden yellow to his Six Eyes, for the last time. 

“Until we meet again, my Satoru.” 

You fade without giving him a chance to answer, taking all the colour with you. 

Staring at the empty air where you had been just a moment before with wide, burning blues, he whispers your name brokenly before burying his hands in the dirt, squeezing his eyes shut, and letting boiling tears scald his face red.

.

“If you want my last words, you already have them.”

Spinning the key ring on his finger, Satoru looks dully at the door knob he had just unlocked. There’s no one in the hall, and he debates whether or not he should turn around, but Shoko had insisted. There’d been something left for him in your old apartment, and according to her, it would be spoiled soon if he didn’t go.

“Oh, what the hell,” he mutters, catching the key in his palm and shoving it into his long coat. Tugging it tighter around himself, he twists the knob and pushes it open. He can’t remember the last time he was in here. Maybe five or six months ago, when they both had a day off that didn’t need to be spent at the college.

There aren’t any plants anymore. He supposes Nanami, Ijichi, maybe even Yaga have taken them. He swears he’s seen a few in the gardens lately, but who is he to say? Toeing off his shoes, he makes his way down the hall. 

 Everything is just as you left it, with clean counters and empty tables. The curtains are spread, letting in so much September sunlight. It hits random display pedestals of different sizes, all the surfaces big enough to fit a pot on. Your watering can sits by the sink. There are photos hanging on the walls, propped up on the desk, on your shelves, polaroids taped to the walls. 

Reminders that someone did live here. That there is a whole life unknown to strangers but evidence enough that whoever used to be here, they had people who would miss them.

Walking up to the counter, he drags his fingers along the surface, feeling the dust collect up to a square of pale light. A clean circle is all that’s left as a clue that there used to be something there, and his heart twists.

Who knew he could miss fucking plants of all things?

Sweeping his gaze around, he brushes off the dust on his jacket and hooks a thumb on his blindfold, sweeping the area with an eccentric eye. The TV is off, your bookshelves are in their usual untidy state, but even the reaching vines of the bean plant is gone from the highest shelf.

 “They really scooped this place dry,” he muses dryly to no one. He can still hear the music you’d play for late nights, the smell of dumpling soup. He walks down the hall and still remembers how many steps it takes to reach the bathroom that guests would use. 

He had hunched over that bath on December 25th, and let water soak through his hair as strong fingers worked the sweat from his scalp and skin.

Four more steps to the guest best room on the right, and another three to the end of the hall where a door leads to your room. It’s already open, and he steps in easily, tugging his blindfold all the way down off his face. Hair falling over his eyes, he sweeps it aside and surveys the room. The walls are still that pretty shade of cream, and your bed is made carefully, dark olive blankets resting atop your white sheets. He smiles to himself, despite the twang in his chest.

Walking deeper, he approaches the cabinet by your bathroom, and picks up the photo you have by your jewelry stand.

A smile curls his mouth. He remembers this one. First year, their first September. All four of them had gone together to Sapporo for the autumn festival. 

He sets the photo back down and looks into the bathroom. Your toiletries are all lined up, waiting for their next use, and he swallows as he raises his gaze up to the mirror. His blue eyes look a big too big on his face from the past month alone, and there are red-purple half moons printed onto his face that have only just started to fade. He swears it only looks worse because of how much pale light is streaming in from the windows, and he tugs at his collar uncomfortably, clearing his throat.

Turning around, he looks at the offenders for making him look so awful, and finds a medium-sized pot sitting on the window seat. It’s the only thing sitting on the flat, wooden surface, in partial shade and almost unfurling before his very eyes.

Satoru frowns, walking around your bed to inspect the plant. 

The flowers are a warm magenta colour, and his eyes widen at the flash of white he can see leading to the center of each bloom. Brushing a thumb over the petals, his jaw sets as he tilts his head to get a better look at the plant. So this is what was growing inside of you. Huh.

There’s another slip of white near the dirt, and his eyebrows furrow, fingers seeking the thing. It crinkles when he touches it, and his frown deepens as he manages to grasp it, pulling it free underneath the leaves and stems of the plants. Sitting down beside the pot, he dusts off the dirt clinging to the paper, and reads his name along the front in your print before flipping the envelope around. There’s something sticking out of it, a sloping shape that’s hard but not too big.

Curiosity peaked, he tears the envelope open carefully and peers inside. A binder clip is inside, holding something together, and he flips it upside down, letting everything fall. The letter slides out first, followed by whatever the binder clip is holding together and he squeezes his thighs together so it doesn’t fall to the floor.

Setting the letter aside, he picks the bundle up. 

Polaroids.

They’re polaroids of different sizes that have him smiling despite the heavy sorrow twisting his entire chest.

Various pictures of Satoru, Suguru, Shoko, and you together, and he finds most of them are of him and you. Pictures of him hiding behind plants of various sizes, a picture of him drinking soju, because Suguru liked it the most and insisted he try, while leaning against Shoko who was knocking back a shot of tequila. There is a shot of Suguru, wet with mud and smiling like sunshine, while a drenched Satoru was in the background, flipping the camera off in the middle of a storm. 

More and more pictures, enough to spill out of his lap, and he picks up each one, desperate to remember when or where you took them.

And, sometimes, he can’t. Sometimes, they are just moments that he’s lost because he never thought they’d be important, and now moments he’d give anything to remember.

There are pictures of a fern he had named their first year, little annotations on the bottom of some others. Dates, but with no context otherwise. Names scribbled in black ink. 

You’re in a lot of them, your smile timeless, your joy infectious even through film.

Arms slung around Suguru, face smushed against his, artfully blurry perhaps on accident, and annotated with scrawl that read: I call this masterpiece “Dumb Sweethearts” by Gojo Satoru :)

A picture of him and Shoko and Suguru, of them in one of Tokyo’s night markets, you behind the camera, the lights flashing and warm and pink, making them all look like they’ve transported to some other kind of cyberpunk world. 

You and Shoko lounging in the gardens, having a tiny picnic at your insistence, and in Suguru’s handwriting in black: JUST GIRLS BEING PALS

Satoru stares at Suguru’s writing the longest, not even at his words, just the strokes of his pen. This is a new part of him Satoru thought had been destroyed, and he starves for it. It’s like his one and only lives and breathes in the ink, in those snapshots of him caught in eternal youth. When they’d been happy and unaware and not innocent, but cocky enough to think they could rule the world. 

It’s hungry, the way he goes through each photo, searching for another glimpse of you, of him, of them together, until Satoru is all out of moments to feed on, and still, he feels empty, flicking through the last few photos.

You in a pool, arms wrapped around Shoko and beaming like the sun.

A shot of Satoru and Suguru climbing trees shot from below, your eyes and skeptically raised eyebrows in frame, captioned big dumb monkeys

And the last one…

He holds it to the sunlight and his gaze softens.

A selfie of you kissing Suguru on the cheek. It’s mostly dark, but they were definitely in the bathroom, and the flash made Suguru’s outstretched arm look pale as a ghost, but even so, there’s no mistaking the happiness captured there. He was sticking out his tongue, winking, and red as a beet so he was either drunk or you had said something or both. Your arms were wrapped around his neck, nose squished against his cheek, eyes squeezed tight as he took the shot.

Turning it over, Satoru’s heart plummets into his chest. In Suguru’s clean, blocky writing:

THE GIRL IM GOING TO MARRY ONE DAY <3

And crossed out is your reply followed by a little note:

dummy doesnt have the nerve to propose SHHH!!!! ONE DAY C:

One day.

It sounds so much emptier now.

He lowers the photo back to his lap, and glances around him, at all these scattered moments captured forever. Gathering them up again, he relives them all over again, looking at each photo for longer to see if he’s missed anything, but mostly his stare lingers on your face, and on Suguru’s, and his own, too, because he can’t remember what it felt like back then, but he is sure it feels so much better than now.

The polaroids come together a neat stack and he is careful not to scratch any of them when he clips them together. The top photo is of you with your arms wrangled around Suguru and Satoru, your face split in a maniacal laugh, their mouths open in shock, eyes bulging in how you must’ve scared them witless. 

Shoko’s messy writing at the bottom, for it must’ve been her who had taken the photo: BREAKING NEWS: Japan’s Strongest Conquered by a Woman.

A smile cracks his weary face and he runs a thumb over their faces before sliding the photos back into the envelope for safe-keeping. 

Then, he grabs the letter. His name is written again on the first flap, and he reads it three times over before unfolding the paper, not quite ready but also not sure if he ever will be.

Immediately, a faint, herbal-like scent slashed with antiseptic flows from the page and his stomach curdles as your script pours down the page. 

Swallowing, Satoru shifts and leans against the wall, hiking a foot up onto the seat and holding your inked characters to the light. There’s a date inscribed at the top.

Thursday. 

The first Thursday after you had been released from the hospital. Your last Thursday before you were back in for good.

“Shit.”

He folds the letter again and tilts his head back against the wall, staring at the ceiling.

Does he want to read this? Does he really want to fucking read this? 

Taking a deep breath, he clears his throat and lowers his gaze to stare determinedly ahead of him. The purple flowers greet him warmly and he shakes the shiver out of his body before tightening his grip on your letter and unfolding it again, forcing his eyes on the page.

My Satoru,

I sent all the pictures I had of Shoko to her, and she has some of Suguru, too. Now that I’m gone, there’s no use if I keep them. Maybe you two could share some time, laugh it up over these old memories. I know she says she can’t stand you, but to be honest, who else is there that will remember us now? Who else is there to remember Suguru for more than his bloody hands and me as more than that girl too sick to do anything but die? 

Some legacy we said we’d leave, huh.

I don’t think I told you this, but with this disease catching up to me, it’s hard not to form hypotheses on why it’s happening or how. I have quite a few theories, and, unfortunately, none of them are pleasant or unriddled with angst. By now, you’ve probably figured out it’s a curse, and if you’re smart enough to ignore how much I’ll probably deny it, that it’s some love bullshit. If you didn’t know, now you do.

I know it’s weird. Suguru is dead. It shouldn’t be happening, right?

That’s what I thought, too

You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right. I don’t want to curse you by dying, but I can’t help but wonder if we can control who we curse. If I hadn’t heard you say that, would I still be here? Healthy? Okay? 

I don’t know. I can’t predict alternate timelines, because I got to live one life, and that’s more than most people get. But, because I know you, you want me to entertain you. I’m sighing as I write this.

Look, I know the pain would still be there. I know I still wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for what I did, even if it was what had to be done. I know I would still miss him. I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.

If you didn’t curse me, I cursed myself. It drives me crazy that this is how the die was cast, even now, even after months where I could’ve accepted this, but at least this physical manifestation almost makes me… calm. Like seeing what this life has done to me makes me brave enough to fight it. If anything at all, the curse brought me a greater understanding of how powerful our world is in comparison to people who… are normal. The people we have to protect.

I’m sorry. Reading this back, it sounds like I’m the one cursing you now; telling you all this knowledge that can only bring you more anguish. I promise, this isn’t what it is. I just want you to understand. You couldn’t have saved me, Satoru. I couldn’t have given you the absolution you wanted, and if that’s how it is, then I just hope that one day you can look back on this and it won’t hurt anymore.

It’s always been so complicated between us, after what happened to Suguru, and after what he did, even ten years ago. What we couldn’t stop and what we had to do that day. There was always a line that I thought I couldn’t cross, or a line you didn’t want to cross, and it was shaped a lot like him. I don’t know if it was just in my head, but there was something holding us back, and I was fine dancing around it because I saw how you felt about him and I understood. Your eyes always changed when you looked at him. When you spoke of him. Even after.

Always after.

Don’t think I’m angry. I’m not blind. I know how much you two meant to each other, and I could never be angry that Suguru is so cherished. Missed. It makes everything so much harder, so much more painful.

Look, in the end, I loved him, and you did, too. And if we both still do, that’s okay. He deserved love. 

I guess it just feels like a stab in the back that it wasn’t enough. 

But life isn’t a fairytale. None of it really matters. To be honest, I wouldn’t trade any of it for a second, and I hope you wouldn’t either. 

Maybe life isn’t supposed to be lived happily, but lived contently. And I did. I am satisfied with what I’ve done, even if I wanted to do so much more. 

I’m so grateful to have known you, to have had you by my side. I hope you can say the same. 

Don’t regret my death. Remember how much fun we had when we were stupid kids, and smile. Because I don’t want you to think your best years are behind you. I want you to be happy, even if I can’t be there to see it. I want you to be excited for your future, even if I can’t be in it.

I’ll always be watching over you, so smile for me every once in a while. Even if it seems like you’ll never feel anything again. One day, I promise you will, and it won’t feel so bad.

Yours forever and ever and ever,

(Name)

.

Throat crushed, he reads one line over and over the most. He’s memorized your letter heart, but he still carries it around with him, anyway.

“I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.”

Sometimes, he just wants to imagine your hand whispering over the page, the pen tapping against your chin, your face as you wrote, the sigh that you said you heaved. Because he’ll never hear you laugh again, see your smile. Your voice will never tease his ear, your fingers will never touch his face. There is no more laugh-wrinkles set in a face always perfectly hit by sunlight, and this is all he has left. His memory, and what you’ve left behind.

It makes him laugh how almost lovestruck stupid he’s being, but… he doubts anyone blames him. As long as he’s still doing his job, as long as he’s still the Strongest, what does it matter if he carries a dead woman’s letter in his pocket everywhere?

“Warm weather, even in the evenings. That���s a bit unusual,” Nanami observes, startling Satoru and he looks up at the blond who stops by him in the gardens. The man is wearing his grey suit, as always, and his watch glimmers in the fading gold light. “How are you?”

Satoru’s fingers tighten around the letter in his hands. As usual, the urge to crumple it up, throw it into the garbage to never see it again, has reared its head after his latest re-read, but he’ll stave it off. He always manages to.

“Fine,” he replies, glancing at the startling blood red and burnt orange leaves casually. Colours seem a bit brighter, and Satoru still squints a bit against them, despite the soft light of the sunset. He doesn’t know when his Six Eyes got so sensitive to that kind of stuff, but it almost feels good to be distracted by something so trivial as sensitive eyesight. “It is a bit warm for October.” 

Nanami hums. “How are your plants doing?”

“Mine are doing good,” he says, smiling. “The tulips have gone dormant, so nothing to worry about there. The one with purple flowers, though. It’s a tough one. It took me a while to figure out what it liked, but it didn’t go dormant or anything as long as I gave it enough water and paid attention to it.”

“That’s good.” Nanami adjusts his green lenses and sighs like he’s bracing himself for something difficult. “Gojo,” he begins, but Satoru merely folds your letter up and slides it into his breast pocket, holding up a hand.

“Whatever you’re going to say, Nanami, I don’t need to hear it.”

“Are you sure?” he asks skeptically, gaze following as Satoru stands, patting his jacket. Adjusting the lapel, he turns to his friend and when he grins, it feels like it reaches his eyes behind his sunglasses for the first time in two months.

“I’ve done this before, Nanami. I’ll be fine.” He waves it away. Nanami frowns. “I’m gonna get some dinner, though. Care to join? There’s a real good ramen place in Ikebukuro that you have to try.” The blond man observes him for a moment, before shaking his head, saying he had dinner already. “Suit yourself. Next time, I’m treating you, though.” 

Lips puckered in a whistle, Satoru turns around and begins to walk away. 

A breeze sweeps through the gardens, rustling the leaves in a discordant harmony, and sneaking into his jacket, sending a slight shiver up his spine as Nanami’s voice follows after him.

“The flower she left you is the sakurasou.” Satoru stops, hands in his pockets, but he doesn’t turn around as Nanami continues, “I wasn’t certain if if you knew.”

“Nope, I didn’t. Thanks for the info.” Lifting a hand, he barely looks over his shoulder before saluting with two fingers and smiling cheekily. It’s not as forced as it used to be. In fact, it comes quite easy as he reaches into his pocket for his phone. He knows what he has to find out now. “See ya later, Nanami.”

“Good evening,” he replies, and in a blink of an eye, Satoru is gone.

On the windowsill of his empty apartment, the sakurasou soaks in the last remnants of the day before wilting against two photos.

One of four students, arms entangled, and faces framed in eternal youth.

And another immortalizing what could’ve been longer than a few shaky months if someone had been just a bit braver.

a/n: satoru’s google search result: the meaning of sakurasou - desire and long-lasting love. 

and yes, there was an actual lunar eclipse on july 27th, 2018 (28th in japan time). it was very pretty. i researched a bit about both the lunar eclipse and the medical stuff, but excuse any inaccuracies! tis but a work of fiction <3 also, fun fact: the polaroid camera is supposed to be the instax mini 90 but ive never used it so excuse those inaccuracies as well SKNDALSDKN

ngl i did wanna write an alternative ending, but i can’t see this ending any other way. this is it. this is the canon, and we got a bit of happy feelies at the end as a treat. thank you for reading!

#fic: the colour yellow #gojo satoru #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojou satoru #gojou satoru x reader #gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojou x reader #gojou x you #jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen fic #jjk writing #jujutsu kaisen writing #jujutsu kaisen gojo #my writing

[saphirered]

We've all seen fics where Caleb's SO dies and gets resurrected, and we seen Caleb accidentally hurting his SO, but what about Caleb accidentially killing his SO? Maybe Reader got burned by one of his fire attacks? The revival's successful, but damn, the angst.

Angst was requested and angst you shall receive. I hope this is to your liking. 😘

Trigger warning for death and grief themes.

Caleb sits on his knees, head bowed, whispering pleas in Zemnian to the gods, the world, to you, your cold hand encased between his own, occasionally pressing a kiss to it in the hopes you’d just wake up. But you’re not going to wake up. Not in the way you would in the morning when you’ve had a particularly late night and Caleb has to drag you out of bed, you being stubborn or pretending to still be asleep so you maybe could convince him to join you for a little more. Not in the way after you got knocked out in a fight, when you sit up and rub your eyes with a grunt like usual. Nothing within his capabilities will wake you up.

So here Caleb sits, begging for it to be a nightmare, some sick and twisted tricks played on his mind but there’s no denying this is real and this is the truth. You’re dead. You’re dead and it’s his fault. You ended up as collateral damage in his reckless attempt to kill the creature. You got stuck in the crossfire of that. He hadn’t realised you were doing so bad already, you even sent him a wink right before when he asked if you were okay. Why did you? Why didn’t you just tell him you weren’t? Why did you lie? Not lie, omitted the truth.

He knew exactly why you did it but that doesn’t make it any easier. You’d known the other’s weren’t doing great and barely holding on already. You were severely outmatched and couldn’t get away from the creature. Not without it chasing after you and running you in an even more perilous situation. Anything Caleb could do would affect anyone close to the creature. With Yasha having dragged Beau out of the fray you were the only one left to hold it at bay while the clerics worked on patching them up, Fjord and Veth offering them cover. You were the final line of defence. At the end of the day you had to keep the clerics alive.

Caleb took a calculated risk. A fireball to send the creature dropping into the ruined depths of Aeor. He had tried to keep you out of the range but wouldn’t have been able to strike the creature without putting you at risk. The spell worked and the creature got hit with full force. It was your attack right before the fireball struck that had send it stumbling, then with the blast, it lost its footing and stumbled off the edge.

But you too, dropped. and when you did, the creature’s tail lashed out, grabbing onto your body, dragging you with it. The creature had hit the platform below in its fall and the impact had made it release you, saving you from the full drop. Caleb had rushed to the edge, fear, pain, anger and guilt riddling his mind thinking he had truly lost you but there you were, bloodied, bruised, broken and burned. Because of him. All because of him. How could he have been so stupid and reckless. When he brought your body back to the others, he wasn’t quick enough. You’d already faded into the cold embrace of the Raven Queen and the clerics had expended their last resources.

So that leaves Caleb here, sitting at your side a day after you died, body preserved by the graces of Caduceus and the Wildmother. The clerics set up their ritual, working around him and you as the others help where they can. Beau and Veth had tried to console him, tell him it wasn’t his fault and if he hadn’t they might all have been dead right now. He appreciates his friends trying but it’s of no use. He already made up his mind and it’s not going to change anything. You died because of him. He murdered you and how is that any different than his actions in the past? How does that make him any different than the lives he’s taken in the clutches of his former mentor? Is there truly no redemption for him? You’d slap him for even thinking that way.

“Mr. Caleb? Why don’t you try talking to them? Persuasion has worked in the past to coax someone back.” Caduceus places a hand on the wizard’s shoulder but it barely registers. Yet the firbolg knows they did not fall upon deaf ears when the whispers stop for just a moment.

“I-. I do not think they’d want to hear from their murderer.” Speaking the words make them so much more painful. By the looks of it, Beau is ready to unleash in a degrading rant about how wrong Caleb is, breaking him apart only build him back up but she’s held at bay by Yasha. This is not the time and place. Caduceus doesn’t claim to know what Caleb’s going through, nor may he be the brightest mind here but he understands and can empathise.

“I know no matter what I say it won’t change your feelings so instead I will offer you this. You owe it to them to try. Not for what happened here but for the countless times they’ve been there for you, have had your back, and for the unconditional love they’ve given you. You owe them to try.” The wizard looks up over his shoulder to the firbolg, pain in his eyes, and the trails of silent tears that have long since run out. Caduceus is right. He owes it to you to save you and right now it is within his power to try. If he doesn’t, if he fails he’ll have condemned you to this fate. If he succeeds with this part, he’ll be able to look into your eyes again. You may never forgive him but he hopes to see you smile, hear your voice even if just once more.

Caleb nods looking back at you, bringing your limp fingers up to his lips and pressing them against your knuckles. He takes in a deep breath and tries to find the right words as Caduceus steps back. What are the right words? He cannot afford to fuck this up. He cannot afford to fail. He must succeed. He must.

“I know I might be the last person you want to hear right now. I want you to know I’m sorry-“ Caleb’s voice cracks as he feels the eyes of the others on him. He brushes some of your hair away from your forehead, running his thumb across your cheek.

“I don’t-uh. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I can do this. You’re always here for me during difficult times. You’d put your hand on my cheek and tell me ‘If anyone can do it it’s you, Caleb Widogast. You could move mountains if you set your will to it. Now stop being stubborn before I slap some sense in you.’ but now you’re not here to tell me that. You’ve shown me there’s a world beyond the walls I put up, that there is a light at the end of that tunnel, but now I cannot help but feel the world has grown dull, the walls are caving in, and that light is fading.”

“I have no right, no right to ask you this, but I need you to save my world one more time. So please, I beg of you. Do not leave me to brave this world without you.” The weight of his heart heavy on his conscious. Caleb feels a pressure causing a ringing in his ears. He’s so focussed on you, he cannot take his eyes off you. Not even when the others do their part in the ritual. He realises this pressure is coming from the effects of the spell to bring you back. He holds his breath, not daring to take in oxygen if only to savour the moment, hoping it will not pass, that for just a little longer he can hold on to the hope you’re coming back instead of having that hope crushed by a potential failure.

The pressure fades but nothing happens. Nothing changes. It’s silent as everyone waits for something, anything to happen. That moment alone feels like an eternity of suspense. Caleb finds himself whispering prayers and pleas in Zemnian again, your hand clasped between his own as he squeezes his eyes shut tightly to live through the memories of you, preserve them for the rest of his life just in case because he refuses to forget even a single one of them. He’s so consumed in his own mind he doesn’t notice warmth returning to your fingers. He doesn’t notice your chest beginning to rise and fall. Caleb’s pleas continue.

“Would you mind translating that? I think my brain got a bit scrambled.” Caleb freezes and his eyes open. Your eyes are closed but your brow is furrowed. Furrowed in discomfort. Not sleeping and not void of your usual expressions. Colour has returned to your limbs and face and no longer dulled. Caleb falls silent in disbelief, frozen in place and mind blank.

“Caleb?” You speak his name, peaking through one eye to see the wizard in his disheveled state. You sit up, grunting in pain. Apparently being brought back from the dead isn’t kind on your physical form, not even mentioning the exhaustion weighing on your mind. You could sleep for a couple of hours… or days… or weeks… You could do with a break really. All of you could. You nudge Caleb’s head up by his chin allowing your fingers to slide onto his cheek.

“Blink twice if you need me to get Beauregard to slap you back into reality.” You muster a smile as you brush your thumb over his cheekbone. Caleb doesn’t understand how you’re not recoiling in disgust or lashing back in anger. He doesn’t understand how you can look at him with love and kindness.

“I’m so sorry. Please-“ Caleb goes off in a spur of apologies, begging for your forgiveness.

“Caleb, I love you but you really need to stop. This is a problem for another day.”

“You died. I killed you. How can you even look at me like you do?”

“So what? I died. I’m here now. I got better. Now preferably I’d like to not die again, some things are beyond our control. And if you need some kind of reassurance; Veth killed Cad that one time and he doesn’t hate her.” Veth yells a ‘hey’ in defence while you earn a chuckle from the firbolg. You know Caleb isn’t just going to take your word for it and you’re also not going to make anyone buy you’re totally okay with just dying and being brought back to life because you’re not but you also know that you can’t blame Caleb for being a factor in what happened when you yourself were aware of the risks of the situation you were in. You made your own bet and it didn’t pay off but all your friends are still alive and well, Caleb’s still alive and well and that alone makes it worth the risk you took.

“You have no idea how much I love you.” Caleb breathes as he pulls you into his arms with a gentleness as if you’re made of porcelain, or will fade out of existence if he holds on too tightly.

“I think I have a pretty good estimate but we can compare notes later if you’d prefer.” You pull back enough to look at Caleb’s face, brush aside some of the red strands and softly place your lips on his. It’s not a heated kiss but one filled with emotion and a desperation no less. Neither of you thought you’d get to be in each other’s arms again but here you are despite everything. Maybe your work here isn’t done yet. You still got some asses to kick.

#critical role x reader #critrole x reader #mighty nein x reader #caleb x reader #caleb widogast x reader #critical role #mighty nein

[oneshotnewbie]

Ah I loved the PLL one shot! Can we please get an emily fields one where the reader is her little sister and they find them in a life threatening situation and emily has never been more scared (reader got injured while protecting her sister). You can make it as angsty as you want!!

A/N: I feel a bit better and I couldn't wait to post again so.. here we go! :)

---

You were out, once again following a trail to A when you had the feeling of being followed and observed by several eyes. It was too dark to see anything, the glow of your flashlights were too weak to shine through the vastness of the deep forest.

"Folks, we should go. I think we're being watched." you talked in the direction of the four other girls in front of you while you pressed your jacket closer to your body, following their steps and kept shining backwards. "Don't be so paranoid, Y/N and start searching." Hanna whispered back annoyed, which gave the dark atmosphere even more space for fear.

While the others searched the area near the tiny burned barn, the rustling of the deciduous trees in the wind of the evening and the cracking and breaking of individual branches behind you made you crazy. Any kind of noise made you listen attentively and made your heart race faster.

You swallowed hard and turned back to your friends, you couldn't get rid of the feeling that something was wrong and that danger was lurking for you. "We have to get out of here!" you demanded before something hissed past you and got stuck in the old wood of the door from the burned house in front of you. It was a small arrow that easily missed you by not even an inch. "Get down!"

You looked quickly in the direction where the arrow was coming from before your shaking hand reached out to it and pulled it out of the charred wood. You threw yourself down on the floor and crawled to your sister which pulled you by your arm behind a piece of wood for cover. "Are you hurt?"

"Just my feelings, the next time you all don't fucking listen to me." you snapped and leaned your back against the wall while trying to calm down from your adrenaline kick, your body trembling in your sisters body. You took a deep breath before you held the object in front of your face to inspect the missile. With your index finger, you trailed the tip of it; it was sharp and could do significant damage at that speed.

"A bow?" Aria stammered as she looked over Emily to you and the thing in your hand. Your eyes slowly traveled to Aria, the whole situation visibly scared her as her body trembled and her voice cracked. "A crossbow, smaller and more dangerous." replied Spencer in a hushed tone.

Two more times it hissed behind you and Emily took your head protectively in her arms and hid it with her own while you heard fearful screams from your side. The attacker knew exactly where you were hiding; the arrows got stuck in front of you in the rolled up hay bales, a few centimeters away from you.

"We need a plan, NOW!"

You went through every single way you could get your friends and sister out of here safely. You didn't know how many of them were out there hunting you, you didn't even had a clue where you left Spencer's car. "There is no other way out, we have to run." You stated and hoped the brunette genius would intervene and suggest a better idea, but when she nodded and scanned her eyes for a way out through the rubble, you knew that there was nothing left you could do.

You turned on your knees and peaked your head over the ledge when you saw two people in black come towards you. This time, panic kicked in and you sank to the ground before you looked in shocked faces and counted down. "Run but keep your heads down!"

While Aria, Hanna & Spencer squeezed through the ailing wooden beams that were still standing, you pushed Emily forward with one hand on her lower back to get her to move before you started to sprint and jump over the beams after her.

The arrows that just flew past your head and the unpleasant sound they left in your ears mixed with the screaming of the other girls was uncomfortable and made you wince every time. You tried to follow Emily, even if she was far faster than you, she dragged you by the hand and you could feel your legs slowly getting tired and you getting out of breath.

You and your sister got separated from the others short after and ran in a completely different direction. Now you were definitely unsure whether you were on the right track at all or whether you would run into A's hands. "Emy, I need a break." you puffed as you stopped in an open and free place, resting your hands on your knees while breathing heavily.

While she was about to begin to talk, loud footsteps came out of the forest again. You could only see the black figure in your line of sight before the person pulled his crossbow in front of his chest and pulled the trigger.

"Emily!"

As if in slow motion, you crossed the last few meters with your last strength and shoved her aside with an violent push. You heard her grunting as she slid across the ground, gravel digging into her skin as you heard a sharp intake of breath shortly followed with her pulling herself back up, holding the arm she fell on.

You doubled over, falling to the floor and now were laying on the ground. You let out a short, painful scream that filled the whole atmosphere while trying to support yourself with your elbows. But it didn't work, you lost your strength and fell to the ground again, noticing a sharp pain in your upper stomach.

You raised your head and looked at the sore spot; an arrow had pierced your torso and was still stuck in you, a big blood stain already starting to cover your white shirt. "Damn." you mumbled while you put your hands around the arrow to stabilize it. "Oh my god, Y/N!"

She ran to you and threw herself on the floor next to you, completely blocking out her pain. With her good hand, she hovered over your stomach, trying to do something but didn't know what. "No no no." the pain you could her in your sister's voice made a chill run own your spine - or was it the cold that gradually spread through your entire body? "I don't know what to do. I don't know."

You clenched your teeth before speaking, your voice fragile and weak, your lips starting to turn blue. "You have to..." you bit your lip to keep from screaming. "Call the girls. Get the car."

While she nodded and pulled up her nose, she took her cell phone out of her pocket and called Hanna. She explained in short sentences what had happened while she paused every now and then to take a deep breath and to check if you were still with her.

You were trembling uncontrollable and the vision in front of your eyes became blurred while the pain faded slowly but steady. "We're at some small lake. Come quickly, she is loosing a lot of blood. PLEASE!" she yelled into the phone before it fell on the gravel. Her finger intertwined with your bloody hand. "It's okay, do you hear? You will be okay."

She pressed your cold hand tighter into hers while she placed them on her lap. With her aching and bruised arm, she brushed your hair from your face and you could see by her impression how overwhelmed she was with this situation. "You saved me."

"Do you see the stars and the moon? They are so beautiful." did you start talking to distract your sister from what was happening at that moment. She was hyperventilating. "Do you remember the camp? We always looked for the individual stars in out astrology book." you whispered and raised your free hand once more to the sky. You noticed how your consciousness slowly faded and your breathing became difficult; it was now flat and painful.

"Yes it was beautiful." she whispered and began to smile. She remembered the wonderful time with you under the stars. You were always so excited when she told you which signs were currently in the sky and heard her stories until you fell asleep. For a brief moment her tears had stopped flowing and her worries disappeared. "Do you remember your favorite story?"

But there was no answer.

In a flesh she looked down at you and only now noticed that your hand was no longer holding her but was just lying loosely in it. The other hand had fallen to the side from your stomach and was also motionless while your eyes were closed and you no longer responded to any attempt she was making to wake you up.

One down, four to go. - A

#pll #prettylittleliars imagines #prettylittleliars imagine #pretty little liars imagines #pretty little liars imagine #prettylittleliars #pretty little liars #spencer hastings imagine #spencer hastings x you #spencer hastings x reader #spencer hastings #spencer x y/n #spencerhastings #ariamontgomery #aria montgomery #hannamarin #hanna marin #emily fields #emily fields imagines #emily fields imagine #emily fields x sister #emily fields x y/n #emily fields x reader #emily fields x you #fanfic #fanfiction #oneshot #imagine #imagines

[in-ky]

Hi! I’d love a story about Negan being a serial killer who only kills “bad people” (like in Dexter) and maybe he saves the reader from her ex who’s about to kill her and Negan can save her and takes her in because she’s a mess but she’s actually a killer herself (who kills rapists etc/ only the bad ones) and Negan and the reader start fighting and then get caught up in steamy hot sex 🥵 thank you!

Savior - Negan Killer AU

Warnings: Warnings: GORE + violence, smut, domestic abuse, swearing, dirty talk ig? idk how to tag this lol

A/N: hey! i struggled over this one for a while lol. ive only seen like. 3? episodes of dexter so. i really hope this meets your expectations! also forgive any mistakes its late, im tired, and i wanna get this up lol. also, is negan batman? maybe. 3.7k words

"Will, stop you're hurting me!" I hissed, grabbing at his wrist. He tugged me out of the bustling restaurant and into the dark street.

"I don't really give a shit," He snarled, throwing me into a secluded alleyway a few buildings down from the restaurant. Will had taken me out to a business dinner with his boss in hopes of showing me off and making a good impression. But things didn't quite go according to plan. "You embarrassed me in front of everyone!" He pushed me against the brick wall of the closed department store.

"What was I supposed to do?" I sneered, trying to wiggle away from him "He kept commenting on my body, saying how he wished he could take me home at the end of the night and do all kinds of 'unspeakable things to me'."

"You were just supposed to shut up and take it!" Will said, voice filled with rage "But no, you and your untamable fucking complex just couldn't handle a compliment. You threw your drink in his face! You're lucky he didn't fire me right then and there. You made me look like some pussy who can't control his whore."

"You're an asshole." I shouted, tears welling at the edges of my eyes. Will's face contorted further into a look of pure, unadulterated hatred.

"What the fuck did you just call me?" He seethed, clasping his hand tightly around my throat and constricting his fingers around my airway.

"I said you're an asshole who cares more about his dead-end career than his fucking girlfriend." I croaked. I hated him. I hated him so much. My vision clouded with the combination of disgust, loathing, and lack of oxygen, so I hit him where I knew it hurt. "There's a reason you needed me for arm candy tonight. It's 'cause you're a boring, piece-of-shit, lowlife who has no skill whatsoever. How does it feel knowing you need me to make something of yourself?" With that, he threw me to the ground by my throat. He wasted no time and pinned me to the cold concrete. His knees dug into my shoulders and his hand flew to his back pocket, whipping out the switchblade he carried as a precaution against mugging. My eyes widened as they caught a glint of the moonlight off the sharp knife. He brought the blade up to my throat and slapped me over the cheek harshly with his free hand.

"You better take back those words, bitch," He hissed, pressing the blade into the soft skin of my jugular "or they might just be your last." A dribble of blood ran down my neck with the pressure. Realization flashed through my mind. I could die right then. That could have been my last moment. Was I scared? No. Why wasn't I scared? Maybe it had to do with the shadowy figure that was slowly approaching us from the ally entrance.

There was plenty of time for me to warn Will that someone was coming. But I didn't. Instead, I stayed quiet and watched as the shadow figure pulled Will from my body with ease and tossed him to the side. Everything was kind of a blur. I was still oxygen starved and filled with a whirl-wind of emotion. I heard Will cry out in surprise and indignance. The shadow figure said nothing. It saw the switchblade with a steady line of my blood. It kicked Will in the chest, knocking him to the ground. Then it lifted up a baseball bat over its head and cracked it down over Will's skull. He continued to beat Will until he stopped squirming. The shadow figure paused and swung the bat over his shoulder. I had regained my breath and pushed myself to my elbows. The shadow noticed me moving and took a few heavy steps in my direction. I squirmed away slightly, instincts telling me to get away from the thing that had just pulverized my boyfriend. The shadow entered a stream of moonlight. It was a man. He had peppered hair and a blood-speckled face. He had dark brown eyes and a small smile perched on his lips.

"You okay, sweetheart?" He said. His voice was deep. I was partially surprised. He wasn't a bulky man. He was tall and had a broad frame, but his limbs were long and his body was lithe. He wore a leather jacket and his boots were slick with what I could only assume were Will's brains. I didn't want to look at his bat.

"W-Why did you do that?" I whispered. It was all I could muster.

"He was going to kill you." The man sounded confused, like I was supposed to know who he was and why he saved me.

"You don't know that." My voice was quiet. My eyes were glued to a spot behind the man, unblinking. He let out a throaty chuckle and dropped to a squat, leveling with me.

"Doll, he had a knife pressed to your throat," His words were gentle "Looked like he was gonna fuckin' kill you." He hesitantly reached out two fingers in the direction of my face. I didn't move. He was wearing leather gloves. The ridged fabric ran along my injuries. "Seems like he did some damage before I could step in. Damn. Sorry about that. Listen, I live a few streets down. If you want, I can get you cleaned up."

"Okay," I said softly. I let him help me up to my feet. He guided me along with one arm while holding his bat with the other. As we walked out of the alley I couldn't help but look down at Will, or what remained of him at least. His forehead was split in half, a pool of chunky blood bubbling on the ground. I clenched my jaw and forced myself to swallow the bile that had risen in my throat. And yet, I didn't feel sad. I didn't mourn him. Maybe it was shock, maybe it wasn't. "Thank you?" I murmured, though it was more of a question. The man and I stepped out onto the street and I was grateful there was no one around to see us leaving the scene of a very heinous-looking crime.

"No problem, doll," The man hummed, setting a brisk pace down the sidewalk. "The name's Negan, by the way." Cool. Negan: my Savior.

~~~

"So you're like Batman?" I asked Negan as he dabbed the blood away from my neck. He gave a short chuckle and tore away the sticky part of the band-aid.

"I guess you can say that," he mused, splaying the bandage over the cut the knife had left "but I specifically go for people that I know have hurt others. The baddies, if you will."

"Is that legal?" I tilted my head, crossing my ankles as they dangled over the bathroom counter. My palms were flat on the surface of Negan's marble sink top, fiddling with the wrappers of the medical supplies he had used to clean and bandage my small cuts and bruises.

"I haven't been caught," Negan shrugged "besides, it's less work for the police. They don't have to do any interrogation bullshit or anything. I usually catch people in the act, like tonight. Then I do my thing."

"Do you kill everyone?"

"Only the bad people," He reminded, tossing away a bloody tissue "only people who have hurt others. But, yes, usually the offender ends up on the business end of Lucille over there." He pointed out the door into the living room, where the still-bloody bat rested against a chair. I furrowed my brow.

"Well, doesn't that make you a bad guy?" I pressed. He tapped my knee and I dropped down to the tile floor, tucking my hair behind my ear and gathering some of the scraps.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you still kill people, right? Even if they're bad? So doesn't that still make you a killer?" Negan was quiet for a minute. "Let's put it this way," I continued "What would you do if you came across someone who was like you; someone who hurt the bad people. Would you still kill them. They're hurting people." Negan took a deep breath and let it out with a contemplative sigh, itching his bearded chin.

"I'm not sure," He mused "I've never really thought about it before. See, I don't consider myself a bad person per say. Yea, what I'm doing might be considered fucked up. But I'm doing it for the right reason. I'm protecting people by attacking their attackers. In the end, someone's saved." He brushed off his hands and led me out of the bathroom, flicking the light off. "Would you rather me not have saved you tonight?"

"No," I said immediately "thank you. Really, thank you. You saved my life. Will is...was...always a dick, but I never thought he'd actually hurt me. I guess that proves people can have a whole bunch of layers." Negan nodded and moved to the kitchen. He raised a bottle of whiskey as an offering. I shook my head but he poured himself a glass.

"I was just doing my job," Negan grinned sympathetically "I'm sorry your boyfriend was an asshole who tried to murder you." I shrugged, amusement in my eyes.

"Eh, it happens to everyone." I smiled as he let out another laugh. I felt as if I shouldn't be laughing, but at the same time, everyone has their own responses to almost getting stabbed to death in an alley. So I let myself have this moment. Besides, Negan was a good guy to be around. He made me feel safe, comfortable, secure. Everything I needed right now. "So, Negan, what do you do? Surely vigilante-ing can't pay well, and this apartment is really nice."

"I'm a retired baseball player," Negan said, sipping his whiskey and settling into one of the armchairs in the living room "Hence the bat."

"Were you any good?" I asked. He let out a loud scoff.

"Was I any good?" He mocked "Sweetheart, I have a whole damn trophy room. I was fucking amazing. I just got old."

"So you're rich with no real job, you kill bad guys, and you have a massive ego," I listed "You really are like Batman, aren't you?"

~~~

Negan let me stay on his couch that night. It was leather, like everything else that man seemed to own, but it was comfortable. I woke up to the smell of bacon filling the air. I groaned and rubbed my fists against my eyes, clearing them of sleep. I stretched my arms above my head in a yawn and rolled off the couch, stumbling into the kitchen. Negan was hunched over the bubbling pan, dodging pellets of grease as they shot up at him.

"Smells good!" I purred, closing my eyes and taking a deep inhale.

"Good," He grumbled "You better fucking enjoy it because I've gotten burned at least three times." I laughed and walked up to him examining the small red patches that dotted his arms.

"You didn't have to make me breakfast you know."

"Yea, but I wanted to make sure you were comfortable," He sighed, turning off the stove and scooping the cooked bacon onto a paper towel. "Besides, I was craving some bacon when I woke up. I haven't had someone to share a meal with in a while."

"Well, if you want, you can come by my house for dinner." I offered, crunching down on a piece of bacon "I've been meaning to whip out the family alfredo recipe for a while, maybe a hot date would give me that incentive." I gave him a playful wink and he chuckled.

"Sure thing, doll," He hummed, putting the pan in the sink "I love me some fucking spaghetti. I'll see you around seven?"

"Sounds good."

~~~

I ran down the sidewalk, chest heaving. There was enough darkness to cover me, but I still kept my head down to prevent recognition. I held my hands close to my stomach, praying that the blood on my fingers wouldn't drip on the pavement and leave a trail. I had been on my way home from the store when I heard some commotion coming from an alley. My first instinct was to run, but then I heard the girl crying for help. Negan came to mind, what he did, how he helped people. I couldn't turn away. I marched down the alley and saw a greasy man pinning a woman to the wall of a building. Flashbacks of the night before hit me like a train. I looked on top of the alley dumpster  and saw a crowbar perched on one of the lids. I grabbed it and stormed up to the man, whacking him upside the head with the weapon. I kicked him to the side and brought the crowbar over my head before swinging it down. It connected with his face in a sickening 'thwack.' I thought of Will. I thought of what might of happened if Negan had never stopped him. I thought of all the times that bastard had gotten drunk and told me I was nothing. I let the rage bubble up and fuel my beating. By the time I was pulled back into the moment, my muscles were screaming, the woman was gone, and the man's face was unrecognizable. I tossed the crowbar into the dumpster and ran back home.

Dried blood is extremely hard to wash off. It sticks to your skin in flakes, creating a pattern of red veins crawling over your hands. Fuck. I scrubbed as hard as I could under the rushing water of the sink, pumping more and more soap into my hand. It was under my fingernails. It was stuck in my palm prints. Shit, did I leave fingerprints at the scene? Would they be coming for me? With a hiss, I rubbed even harder at my skin, small flecks of blood turning the sink water red.

Suddenly, my door opened.

"I'm ready for my s'getties!" Negan boomed with a wide smile. My head whipped around, looking at him with wide eyes. His grin faded and he crossed the room in record time, grabbing my wrists and turning the sink off. "Is this fucking blood?" He snarled, bringing my hands up to my face. I clenched my jaw and dropped my eyes to my feet. "Jesus, who's is it? Answer me!"

"I-I heard someone screaming on the way home," I said quietly, eyes still downcast "I thought I would help..." His jaw went slack and he let go of my hands, running his fingers through his hair.

"Jesus fuck, you can't just go around killing people!"

"Why not?" I snapped, eyes meeting his "You do it all the time? What's the difference? Why can't I help people?"

"Because it...Because you just can't!" Negan growled, shaking his head.

"Why are you so special?" I hissed back, drying my hands off on a towel before tossing it at him "It's not like you can get a permit for fucking murder. Why do you do it, anyways? Is it some perverted thing? Do you get off on saving people from attackers?"

"Watch yourself." Negan warned, eyes darkening.

"Pfft, or what?" I laughed, tossing my head back "What are you gonna do, kill me? I'm not afraid of you, Negan." As soon as the words left my mouth, he charged me. His hand flew to my throat, squeezing my airway lightly. His hips pressed me against the counter. I let out a small gasp when he shoved his face next to mine.

"Oh, but doll, you really fucking should be." He spat, curling his lip "I could snap your neck right here, right now." He gave a small squeeze to emphasize his words. I let out a strangled moan. We both froze. "Are you turned on right now?" He muttered, furrowing his brow. I licked my lips and squirmed in his grip, pressing my thighs together slightly in an effort to alleviate the warm pressure growing in my belly.

"No," I lied, voice weak. A sinister grin curled over the bottom half of his face and he licked his tongue over his teeth.

"And I'm the perv, huh?" He sucked on my earlobe and peppered kisses down my jawline "Sweetheart, tell me, do you want me to fuck that pretty little pussy of yours? Do you want me to make you cum harder than you ever have?" I whimpered at his dirty mouth. "Use your words, doll, or I'll leave right fucking now."

"Y-Yes!" I breathed as Negan's lips sucked on the sweet spot right beneath my ear.

"Yes, what, princess?"

"Yes, I want you to fuck me, please!" I groaned, clawing at his shirt. He let out a short chuckle, muttering something about how needy I was, but I didn't care. Right now, the only thought running through my head was that I needed Negan. I needed all of him. And damn me if I wasn't going to get it.

We clawed at each other's clothes like rabid animals. Once we were completely bare, Negan moved his kisses down my body. His large, calloused hands kneaded my breasts, twisting my nipples between his thumbs. My arms flew around his neck and I dragged my fingernails up his back. He shivered against my touch and slid his hands further down my body. They settled firmly on my hips as he captured my lips in a fervent kiss.

"Fuck, sweetheart," he grunted, pulling back for air. I looked at him. His tawny eyes were now black, pupils far beyond dilated with lust. Both of our lips were swollen and red from the intensity of our kisses. Negan's chest inflated and deflated quickly as his eyes roamed over my body. "You're so damn perfect." I smiled sheepishly and pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, looking up at him through lidded eyes.

"You're not so bad yourself," I reached out my hand and used my pointer finger to draw a line from his collar bone down the center of his chest and through his navel, finally ending right over his pulsing cock. He sucked in a breath as my fingers closed around him. My thumb swept over the hot tip, gathering precum on the pad of my finger and rubbing it around.

"Shit," He hissed as I slowly pumped him "I'm not gonna fucking last if you keep doing that." He gently pried my hand away and took a step closer to me. I could feel his hardened length resting against the inside of my thigh. The thought of him being so close made a burst of heat rush down between my thighs. Negan took a long finger and ran it through my folds, collecting my wetness. I moaned as he teasingly dipped the first knuckle into me. He pulled back and let out a low whistle. "Damn, girl," he chuckled, raising his finger to my face "You're fucking dripping. Who's that for?" His slick-coated fingers glistened in the light of my apartment. I let out a deep groan as he slid them between his lips and sucked.

"You, Negan!" I whimpered, wrapping my legs around his waist "It's all for you." A wolfish grin spread over his features as he tugged me off him and pulled me down off the counter. He spun me around and pressed gently between my shoulder blades until my chest was flat against the cold surface.

"Then if you don't mind," Negan cooed, lining himself up with my entrance "I'm going to take what belongs to me." With that, he slowly pushed into me. I gasped at the stretch, balling my hands into fists as he continued to split me open.

"Fucking shit," he groaned once he bottomed out "you're tight as hell. I bet you've never had a dick as big as mine." He pulled out slightly and I let out a moan at the growing emptiness inside. The moan soon turned to a yelp when he brought down his hand against my ass. The smack was loud and he rubbed the red spot tenderly. "Have you?"

"N-No!" I gasped when he thrusted into me for the first time "Never. Fuck, you feel so good." Negan's thrusts sped up, his hips snapping against my ass in an obscene rhythm. Grunts and moans of pleasure slipped from both of our lips as he plowed unapologetically into me. I could feel every inch of him. He was hitting every spot, dragging against my walls in a sinfully perfect way.

"You're doing so good," He purred, kissing and biting my shoulder "So good for me. You're so perfect." I tossed my head back and he grabbed my chin, tilting my face towards him so he could give me another bruising kiss. I could only keep up for so long, though, and the white bliss of pleasure he was giving me soon became overwhelming. My jaw went slack and my head dropped against the cool tile of the counter in an attempt to ground myself in the moment. "I want you to cum, doll, cum around me. Wanna feel those walls squeeze me." His thrusts were starting to become sloppy and I could tell he was getting to his end. One of his fingers danced down my spine and found its way to my clit. He circled it with just enough pressure to get me to the edge that I was so willing to jump off. "Now." Negan growled. I obeyed, feeling the band in my lower abdomen snapping violently. We reached our releases simultaneously. My walls clenched around him, milking him of every drop. I screwed my eyes shut and screamed his name, holding in a large breath as the world around me spun. Negan eventually pulled himself out and collapsed on top of me. We both were breathing heavily, sweaty bodies entangled as well as we could over a counter. I swallowed, my throat dry from panting through my orgasm. When my eyes fluttered open, I could see Negan's thumb tracing circles over the love bites that were starting to darken on my shoulders.

"Are you going to kill me?" I rasped, running a hand through my wild hair "I guess I'm a bad person now." Negan chuckled, still out of breath.

"I think I'll make an exception," He mused, pressing a sweet kiss to the shell of my ear "I don't think I'm ready to let you go just yet."

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