#sometimes being offered tenderness is the very proof you’ve been ruined. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

seravphs · 10 months

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ੈ♡˳·˖✶ — GETOU SUGURU x FEM READER

“Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined.” - On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong

wc — 5.3k

tags — cult leader Getou, follower/non sorcerer reader, religion, the intimate relationship between a god and a devotee, thus inherent power imbalance, occasional plot relevant use of honorifics, love as worship, don’t question why Getou like that, he just is, he’s so delusional, Getou pierces your ears and it feels like something more

His body is unnaturally cold to an unbearable degree, as it always is. He’s not quite human after all, though you don’t have a name for what he is. He calls himself a sorcerer, but you don’t trust everything that comes out of his mouth.

You shouldn’t. He likes to lie, especially to you.

Geto traces the curve of your ear with his chilly fingers, forcing you to repress your full body shudder. You’d never admit that you like it. You’ve grown used to the frost on your face when he kisses you, the ice seeping all the way down through your bones until you’re wracked with shivers, relishing in the physical reminder of your god.

Do normal worshippers kiss their gods?

Probably not the way you do, but their gods aren’t quite so close. They’re rarely so willing to touch, or so quick to initiate. Like most divine beings, Geto likes to watch over. He likes to hold his fragile little possessions in the palm of his hand. He likes to own.

Your ear is numb. He’s preparing you for what comes next, shockingly gentle. There’s trepidation in you, still, though to be hurt at his hands means something. It’s an offering. You’re willing to accept the cost of that when you have nothing else to give.

“Will it hurt?” Your voice is all but a whisper.

“Come now,” he says, vaguely amused. “I’m pushing a needle through your ear. Of course it’ll hurt, my little lamb, don’t be silly.”

“Don’t say it like that, please,” you whine piteously, curling your fingers into the sleeves of his yukata. He indulges you like a particularly beloved pet who’s done a cute trick for him. There’s adoration in his eyes, though you’re sure he sees you as not a partner but a plaything.

“Be brave,” he says, turning to the table he’s set up to his right. “You asked for this.”

Like with most things, you had just wanted his attention. Even now, your fear is mostly exaggerated. It’s all for the sake of seeing him, letting him fawn over you.

You wish he’d keep speaking. He has a nice voice. It’s probably easier to concentrate when he’s not talking, but you wouldn’t mind if he screwed this up. It would just be another excuse to see him again.

The crunch of your cartilage startles you so badly you almost jump, ruining the entire thing. Getou presses you back into your seat with a hand on your shoulder. The pressure just borders on painful. His hand is heavy.

You love being under your God’s thumb.

“Shh-shh,” he murmurs mindlessly as he works, pushing the needle all the way through. Your ear lobe feels just slightly heavier as the metal locks into place.

“There,” he says, satisfied. He steps back to survey his work. You can’t see it, but he looks pleased with himself, so that’s enough for you. “How pretty.”

He laughs when you turn your head to the side, gracing you with more love, more touches. He could give you his affection until it drained him dry and it wouldn’t be enough. You want all of him.

“So eager,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “Slow it down. I don’t want to hurt you.”

But you’d take anything he gave you.

The second ear is noticeably easier than the first. He’s surer of himself, and you’re less trembly.

When he’s finished, your ears flash two new sparks, piercings to match your beloved divinity. He doesn’t mind if you’re arrogant, so you take your time to preen over yourself in the mirror. He stands behind you, a shadow to your flame.

“We’ll stretch it slowly,” he promises. “I won’t let it hurt.”

“We’ll match,” you say wonderingly, touching your ears even though he told you not to. The image of yourself with earlobes stretched with gauges like his is strangely appealing.

This is love, to be made into the image of your god. To become something worth protecting.

It’s all you’ve ever wanted.

Your mother thinks you’re being possessed by the devil.

It started a year ago. In the beginning, it was a creeping sensation down your back, like fingers walking down your spine. Over time, it grew more malicious. You shook with chills in the stifling heat of summer, teeth chattering with an unseen force. Something else lives within you, sucking on your breath.

Malaise chokes the air around you. It chases you, illness and black smog. Life through a chilly, viscous haze is no life at all. You’re the epicenter of a misery so strong the physical world would bend to it.

In some ways, it felt deserved.

You’d been raised to believe that things happen for a reason. A careful balance had been set on your life at birth that you had unknowingly tipped.

If you suffer, it must be karmic.

It feels right. You’ve always felt a desire to atone for your life, though atone for what you can’t specify. The weight of whatever curse you’re carrying around feels like divine justice.

(Later, you learn that curse is indeed the correct description.)

But if your punishment is divine, so is the source of your redemption.

You meet Getou on an auspicious day.

A total of seven wedding processions are spotted on your way to the temple where the man who will save you resides. Everyone is trying to take advantage of the lucky day, including you.

The brides you pass look so different from you it’s as if they’re in a world entirely apart. You feel no connection between yourself and the beautiful women in their bright white shiromukus, an undefinable distance too wide to explain.

Like the moon, their faces glow with the promise of new happiness. They will enter their new lives with joy and humility, as befitting a married woman. Although you are the same species, when you look in the car’s vanity mirror, the resemblance falls short. Eyes, a nose, lips - you all share these traits of humanity, and yet something about you feels fundamentally different.

Your mother has noticed your gaze. She reaches over the center console to grasp your hand, squeezing it lightly.

“Everything will be alright,” she says reassuringly. “Getou-sama was highly recommended.”

You smile at her but say nothing. A million exorcists have tried and failed to cure you. You no longer have any faith in this industry, if it truly is one and not just a series of one con-artist after another trying to take advantage of vulnerable people like your mother.

If this Getou is a scam artist, he’s a successful one. Even if you try to fight it, a sense of awe overcomes you at the grandness of his temple. A staircase has been carved into the side of a steep cliff. The white stone gleams, polished everyday by the natural elements. Salt spray and wind take precedence here, reminding humans that their reign over Earth is only a blink in the eye of a long history.

Here, the world feels old.

Even from below, the temple is large enough to be seen. The red of its wood burns in the sun, making it appear as if the grand building is ablaze. As you get closer, you can see the hanging shimenawa ropes and the shide. You feel small beneath such grandeur.

Even by the millionth step, when pain overtakes your legs, the awe doesn’t leave you.

Can you call it a trap if you walk into it with your eyes open? Though you know all of this wonderment is intentional, you still feel it tearing at your heart. Your condition makes it hard to leave your home. The bright blue of the sky burns your eyes after days spent trapped within your room, walking only as far as you’re able to pace. Standing on the solid stone, feeling the wind tear at your hair, you feel half wild yourself.

There must be a reason the temples are always located in nature. There’s a howling in your heart.

Witnessing Getou Suguru inspires a feeling in you similar to that of the temple. Wearing his monk robes and a small smile, something about him feels otherworldly. There’s a depth to his eyes, a predator hiding beneath the waves. It’s a curious blend of comfort and fear. Even when the idea of approaching him seems as appealing as placing your hand beneath a knife, you feel a call to him.

Your mother says he’s a saint.

That doesn’t feel right.

His hands are gentle when he guides you to sit before him, but you feel the strength in them. The grip he has on you is intentional, like he’s holding something infinitely precious - or infinitely fragile. You fold your legs underneath you, adopting the traditional position for prayer. When he brings your hands together, you clasp them faithfully, and it feels like worship.

It doesn’t matter what else it could’ve been when it feels right. You don’t need to think of anything else.

He guides your head. With your chin tilted down, you can no longer see his eyes. There’s something unsettling about them, like looking into the cold killer pupils of a shark. Without them, you feel slightly more at ease, and paradoxically, more unsafe.

A hum builds in the room as he works. Your ears pop as he traces a slow circle around you, watching, waiting.

“Eyes closed,” he reminds you as you start to fidget.

Your spine jerks under a sudden pressure. You double forward onto your hands and knees, gasping for breath as it pushes down harder. There’s a growing ache in your straining ribs, but you keep your eyes shut as you were told. Your mother makes a muffled noise of distress.

“Patience,” Getou says. “All will be revealed in time.”

He stops in front of you. You can hear the rustling of his robes as he moves. Desperately, you want to open your eyes. The longer you wait in the darkness, the more terrified you feel. In the absence of sight, you feel the intensity of every other sense that much more, trying to make up for this new vulnerability.

In your hindbrain, you register how submissive your position is. You’re prostrate in front of him, begging to be saved. And as if that was all he needed, an acknowledgement of your own deference to a greater power, his hand slides under your chin. You raise your head with him, tears leaking out of the corner of your eyes as you feel yourself beginning to be crushed under him.

When he kisses your forehead, there’s nothing but relief.

The pressure you’d grown used to lifts off your spine. Your body shudders and throbs with bright flashes of not pain, but something adjacent. Only the wetness on your cheeks reminds you that you’re still crying without noise.

You feel full.

There’s something inside of you, something greater. Proximity to Getou feels like holiness, burning up that dark smog you’ve been carrying around your whole life. It feels like you’ve swallowed a star that’s been searing you the entire way down, but the pain is bright and beautiful.

You’re too sensitive to be touched, but someone’s holding you. Your mother is rocking you like you’re a baby again, whimpering into your hair like she’s a child herself. You weep together, one silent and one deafening. All of your anguish pours its way out through her, like she’s a conduit for the things you cannot open your mouth to say yourself. Her noise is yours.

Getou stands over the two of you, waiting.

Something about the way he’s looking at your mother makes you want to divert his attention from her. He’s a god, but a dark one. Every movement is painful at the moment, but you manage to bring your hand to clutch at his robes.

“Thank you,” you whisper through a cracked throat.

He brings something to his mouth and swallows. Revulsion works its way over his face and disappears instantly. He’s like still water - nothing moves him. It all passes through him, diffused into nothing. He’s simply too great to be colored by things as simple as human feelings.

“It was nothing,” he says, and you get the feeling that for him, it was.

Your mother kisses the hem of his robes, thanking him and Buddha. To her, he’s the miracle worker who saved her child. She didn’t see his expression.

“How?” You ask.

“The details would bore you,” he replies. It’s a non-answer and you know it. “It’s all thanks to the merciful heavens.”

But your mother accepts this without complaint, pushing even more money at Getou than she paid for this initial service. Her hands are shaking as she counts the bills, then gives up entirely, pushing it all at him. You’re just as grateful to Getou as she is, but you’re worried about her. Gently, you take her by the shoulders and try to lead her out of the temple as fast as possible after giving him your own thanks.

“Wait,” Getou says. “Leave your daughter here.”

Your mother freezes. Her mouth forms a thin, wavering line of upset, but you can see it in her eyes. She suspected something like this might happen.

“Please, Getou-sama,” she says. “She’s my only child. If something were to happen to her-”

Getou takes her hands in his. “Rest assured, she will be treated with the same care as if she were myself. Nothing will happen to her while I live, I promise you.”

“I can’t-”

“With the curse that I just exorcized from her, I fear she might be weak and vulnerable to attack from other spirits. She may be repossessed as soon as she leaves this building, but she’ll be safe with me. This is the best course of action.”

“Getou-sama, I understand but-”

“Mama,” you interject. “It’s alright.”

You feel a faint sting of regret at the look of open betrayal on her face. Your mother has done so much for you, putting up with a cursed daughter without complaint. You want to spare her that life.

“I’ll get well soon and return to you.”

“I don’t know…”

You put your arms around her, trying to swallow the lump in your throat. She’s carried the burden of your existence for so many years. You want her to let it go, just this once.

So you stay, and she goes.

Getou gives you a room in the temple and promptly washes his hands of you, as you suspected he might. If he’s keeping you around, it’s for his own purposes, though you may not know them. Instead, his servants remain at your beck and call.

You never want for anything, but your days are lonely. Anything is better than how you were living before, however. After that, you can endure anything.

Despite the wishes of his secretary, who’s the most common face you see these days, you’ve taken to having night walks outside. The temple is still as painfully beautiful to you as it was the first time you saw it.

Sitting outside, with your feet dangling over the ledge and the chilly wind against your face, you feel like you’ve been born again. The air is quiet here. You let your cheek rest against the rough stone of the handrail, your arms pillowing your head. There are a million stars in the sky tonight.

A million stars, and you count each one, placing them on one side of the balance.

A point towards goodness.

One for bad.

Another bad one.

The game gets boring after a while. You have no way of determining where your scale falls. Only someone like Getou could do that. Someone blessed.

Your breath is coming in short puffs again. Even pressing your head to the cool stone doesn’t help you swallow down your nausea. Maybe you aren’t cured, after all.

Maybe whatever’s in you is incurable.

Something brushes over your shoulder and is gone in an instant.

When you turn, Getou is standing behind you. His throat works, in the last actions of swallowing. The breeze ruffles his hair as it did yours. Silhouetted against the darkness, he looks even closer to divinity than he did in the temple. It’s like he was made for this - to stand here in nature and command it.

A god.

“What am I going to do with you, hm?” He says, and his voice is pleasant but the undertones aren’t. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“A little bit of night air isn’t going to kill me, Getou-sama.”

“I told you spirits were going to come for you.”

“Is that what that was?”

He looks at you, amused despite himself. It all seems despite himself, as if whatever Getou presents himself to you as is nothing but a skin the real creature inside wears. It peeks out at you from time to time. You’d like to get to know it. Though scary, it seems more appealing than this facade.

“Suit yourself,” he says. He turns to walk away, but you’ve been lonely. Even a monster is a welcome sight when your only companion is silence.

“Where have you been?”

His back still to you, he pauses. “Is that any business of yours, little lamb?”

“You promised my mother,” you remind him. “You said you’d take care of me.”

When he said it, you knew full well he had every intention of breaking that promise as soon as she left. True to form, he continues walking.

Desperately, you throw out, “I want cake! The next time you’re in town, you better bring me some. All you eat here are fruits and vegetables.”

Getou doesn’t stumble, but his step stutters. There’s a jump to his shoulders like a hiccup - or a stilted laugh.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” he says.

Then, rare honesty.

“For a second,” he says, his smile bitter, “you just reminded me of someone.”

There’s cake at your next meal, and two children. One you were expecting, and the other two you weren’t. They’re hovering in the doorway, watching you with wide eyes.

Or rather, they’re watching the cake. They’re practically salivating as you lift the fork to your mouth. Feeling a little mean, but not mean enough to stop, you jerk your fork left. Their eyes follow it, entranced. Right. Again, their eyes trace your movement. You wave it in the air. Like bobble heads, their chins bounce with their movements as they watch your fork like a hawk.

When you break out in laughter, they realize they’ve been caught.

“Don’t run,” you cajole as they turn, stumbling over themselves. They’re the only other people you see besides the servants. Getou doesn’t visit, and why would he? The divine have no need for the mortal realm. “Come here. I can share.”

They dart out like little fish in a school, never straying too far from each other. Rather than separate beings, they seem like a two headed creature as they snatch the plate you offer them and scurry back towards the door. It’s alright if they’re shy.

They’re children. You understand, even if you’re lonely. No one will talk to you in this vast, empty cathedral. None of the servants will answer you with more than clipped responses, single words to everything.

You miss Getou, his holiness and inscrutability. Miss the way he felt larger than life.

You ask after him, but you never see him. Instead of Getou, his secretary arrives to ask you to not be a nuisance. She’s polite about it, of course, but the message is clear regardless. Someone like Getou is too important to be bothered by the likes of you.

Sometimes, they let you watch him from a distance. It’s not special to you. He has public exorcisms, shows he puts on for his devoted bass of followers. None of them live in the temple like you. His secretary keeps a careful eye on you, never letting you get too close.

It’s enough just to watch at first, studying him, but soon it falls flat as well. It’s no replacement for the actual man. The distance between you feels like miles.

For the most part, they leave you to wander.

The temple is even larger than you thought it was from the outside. You lose yourself in the winding hallways. Every red paneled door and gold lacquered intersection looks the same.

Inevitably, you get lost. Your feet have carried you far from your room, and now there’s nothing to do but keep moving.

Hall after hall blurs together until you hear the sound of voices. You follow the low timbre of Getou’s voice until you come into a screened room. There’s a hole in the patterned cloth, and when you put your eye to it, you see Getou and a young man.

Dim candles burn in the room. The fire leaps in tune with Getou’s breath. As the boy lies on the floor, Getou murmurs over him. Sweat beads on the boy’s forehead as he lets out little shuddering breaths. His muscles move in violent spasms. Your own joints ache in sympathetic pain.

Finally, Getou holds his hand out, though you can’t see what it contains, and swallows once more. He grimaces, as if the taste is revolting. His lips form around the word ‘weak’, then he’s helping the boy up and escorting him to the door. The air becomes suffocating without a third force to stand between the two of you, as if the boy had been a buffer. Still, you watch him.

“Come out,” Getou calls. “It’s not polite to spy on people. Should I tell your mother?”

“Then you’d also have to tell her you’re neglecting me.”

“I’m not neglecting you,” he says, moving the screen aside.

“You said I’d be treated like your own blood.”

“Haven’t I given you whatever you asked for? Even cake?”

You suppose he has.

He gives you a funny look.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He says, his voice warm and light.

It feels fake, but it still soothes you. A god is a god even if the altar is plastic. All it takes is one worshiper.

“You saved me.”

“Hmm,” he says in response. “You haven’t attracted any menacing spirits lately, little lamb. I suppose I won’t have much more saving left to do.”

Cold fear strikes you with your epiphany. You pick up the subtext behind what he’s saying, even if he’s not aware of it, ever casual in his delivery. The minute you’re free of your demons, you won’t matter to him anymore. You’ll return home and never see him again.

Somehow the idea breaks your heart, when once all you wanted was to be free.

Devotion makes you do stupid things. Underneath the catacombs of the temple, you sit on the cold stone floor, only a single flickering candle to illuminate your path. You don’t know how this works, or even if it’ll work.

You’ve never tried to be possessed purposefully, after all, but where the idea of demons once scared you, now the idea of leaving Getou’s side is more terrifying. You can’t bear the idea of losing your god, not when you just found him.

The candle jumps.

You try to steady your breathing, reminding yourself that this is what you want. Slow, syrupy, your thoughts begin to tumble towards nothingness. You open yourself up to pollution, purposefully making yourself vulnerable. Whatever was preying on you when Getou first found you that night is invited in.

Your breathing starts to come harder. Stars pulse behind your eyes, and a sickly sensation comes over you. You find you can’t stand, feeling a overwhelming pressure physically holding you in place.

Please, you think through bleary thoughts. This has to work.

The pressure is so great you fear your spine will snap. Your world tilts sideways as you slump down to the ground. All of a sudden, you feel so, so tired. As if you could go to sleep right now.

Right before your eyes close, someone gathers you up into his arms.

“You’ve attracted another strong one,” Getou says. “Do you enjoy getting into trouble?”

It’s unseemly for you to disrespect your god so, yet you’re so delirious from your experience that you can’t seem to remember propriety as you curl closer to him.

“I wanted to see you,” you murmur, your eyes filling with tears unwillingly. You wipe them away, feeling childishly embarrassed. How much less he must think of you, to see you reduced to tears by nothing. “You never come visit.”

“I was busy. Why would you even try something like this?” He’s walking now, the rocking motion of his steps making it hard to stay awake. “How did you even know if I would come?”

“I know you.”

A little, anyway. You’ve been watching him, trying to piece together the little moments he slips.

“What would you understand about me?” Getou says. “You’re so weak. All of you are.”

For a moment, something ugly hangs over the expression of your savior, your god. You only catch it because you’re always watching him. His teeth pull back into a cringing smile, as if he’s repulsed by you. As if there’s some kind of inherent taint to your existence. But all of these things pass over his face and are gone in an instant.

You don’t mind your weakness. Otherwise, you might not have met him.

He stops in front of your room. For a second, you think he’ll let you down, and he seems about to, but instead, he pushes through the door. He carries you right over to your bed and pulls the sheets back to lay you down.

“Thank you for saving me, Getou-sama. Again.” You smile up at him.

He laughs, then looks startled by his own reaction. “That’s all you have to say in response?”

“You’re a god, Getou-sama. Of course you think I’m weak. It’s why I need you.”

“You know,” he says. “I can’t tell if I love you or hate you.”

It’s the most honesty he’s ever showed you. Warmth swells in you. You feel obligated to return the favor.

“But you’re being so kind to me right now, Getou-sama. I couldn’t imagine you hating me.”

“You’re right,” he says, caressing your cheek. “I can’t.”

It’s a lie, but that’s alright. If it’s from him, you’ll take even hard love. It doesn’t have to be good. He doesn’t enjoy it. But he does like you, a little, even against his will. Whatever force pushes him away from you, there’s a force of at least equal strength pulling him in.

Something changes between the two of you that day. Getou’s still cold, still keeps you at a distance, but he lets you hang around him. They way you’re treated makes you feel almost like a pet, but it’s alright.

He tells his secretary off for you. She tries to intervene, to pull you away as she often did in the past, but this time Getou stops her with an easy command on his lips. His arm shoots between the two of you, warning her away.

Ever the consummate professional, the shock melts from her face almost instantly as she respectfully nods and fades into the background. You don’t know what this means for your relationship, but now he lets you tag along with him whenever he’s in the temple.

You try not to read too much into things you can’t be certain of, but sometimes the way he smiles at you makes you think he might find it cute, the way you trot on his heels. If he finds you particularly good that day, he might even reward you with a little spoiling, granting you little touches like tucking your hair behind your air or stroking your cheek.

He takes some meals with you now. If it’s breakfast, he’ll make small talk with you, asking you about your never changing days. Even though nothing ever happens here, he stills shows interest in everything you have to say. You preen under his attention, blossoming like a morning glory.

During dinner, he prefers the quiet. The days exhaust him now. You know he’s preparing for something, though you’re not sure what. He’s a little stranger these days, a little more on edge. Sometimes his eyes dart behind your chair, following things you can’t see, though he never lets them touch you.

If you catch him asleep, it’s never peaceful. He dreams restlessly, calling out in his sleep for a man you don’t know.

All you know is that whatever he’s planning is taking it’s toll on him. It’s hard to guess what he wants when he would never show weakness to you. Gods don’t allow their devotees privileges like that.

But you’re determined.

You know he likes you sweet and warm. He calls you his little lamb, his darling thing. You’re the peace he finds when he comes home from hunting spirits or gathering followers. You like to be that for him.

The next dinner you have with him, you pull your chair closer. Normally, you sit at opposite ends of the table. Today, your chair is right next to his.

“What is it?”

Instead of responding, you gather a little bite of every plate on the table and place it in his mouth. He blinks hard, momentarily surprised, and then his mouth curves into a smile. He swallows willingly.

Spoon by spoon, you pick apart each plate to reveal the best, most tender bite. When you’re done, Getou takes your hands and folds them in his. He dips his head and kisses your palms, then each finger, one by one. Slow heat spreads across them as you feel something like divinity move from him into you.

The next dinner, your chair is next to his already, and he’s waiting.

“Hello, my little lamb,” he says. There’s a spoon of food already in his hand. When you sit, he brings it to your lips instead.

One night, he brings you cake and two little shadows.

“Come here, children,” he calls when they hesitate, staying in the dark corridor instead of the warm candlelight of the dining room.

Turning to you, he says, “I hope you don’t mind. Mimiko and Nanako like sweets.”

The shadow creeps into the light, and reveals the face of the two-headed creature who you had tried to coax with came weeks earlier. You smile at them. Only one smiles back, the other looks away, shyer.

Like Getou, they seem to see something you can’t, only they’re much more obvious about it. When Getou catches you tracking their gaze, his hand falters. He nearly drops the cake before Mimiko catches it.

He seizes your shoulder. “Do you see it?” His voice is a hushed whisper, but intense.

It scares you a little. “See it?”

“I knew you were special,” he breathes. “I knew you were different. You’re not like the rest of those filthy mortals.”

“I don’t understand,” you stammer.

“You must have some cursed energy, maybe just a drop, but it’s better than nothing.“

Mimiko and Nanako are smart children. They’ve already crept out of the room, leaving you just with him.

“I don’t think - Getou-sama,” you say, trying to catch up with his thoughts. “I’m possessed, I’m not like you. It’s the devil in me, not a god.”

“The devil can’t have you,” Getou says. “You’re mine.”

The working title for this in my docs was: Getou not like other girls you except replace girls with humans

#sera writes #getou suguru x reader #geto suguru x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader

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