HELLOOO!! My name is JC, I go by all pronouns, and I am 18+ (non-specific for privacy reasons). I've kinda just started posting what I write, so excuse me if it's shit. I always take CONSTRUCTIVE criticism
I have only written for JJK men with my favs being Toji and Sukuna>:) (I am also a selfshipper/yume with them) But I will write for anyone (that I know) multishipper, BUT NO CHILDREN X ADULTS CAUSE THAT'S WEIRD!!!
requests open!
MASTERLIST!!
fluff = ˚⟡˖
angst = ˙◠˙
suggestive = ✸
Full on smut = ᝰ🚬
multi character:
asking toji and sukuna to come home cause your bored (separately) ˚⟡˖
asking the jjk men if your too fat (chubby reader) ˚⟡˖ , ✸
the jjk men ask you out but you're all teens ˚⟡˖
Toji:
wheres the kid? ˚⟡˖ , ˙◠˙
toji as another parent on the playground (written) ˚⟡˖
Bored at the family Christmas lunch? Call Toji! (written) ˚⟡˖,✸
in love with the ghost (written) ˙◠˙
gojo:
how much longer till its midnight? ˙◠˙
how much longer till its midnight? part2 ˙◠˙
how much longer till its midnight? part 3 ˙◠˙, ˚⟡˖
❝ in space, no one can hear you scream. they can't hear you wake up alone in a hunk of space junk against your will. they can't hear your ship get engulfed by a much larger and very alien one.
and they certainly can't hear you fall in love with the four-armed grumpy alien you meet while you're trapped within your own ship. ❞
☾⋆ cw ; mdni, 18+ only. strangers to lovers. slow burn. hurt/comfort. angst. fluff. smut. depictions of [likely inaccurate] science experiments. medical discussions. needles. illness. reader and sukuna can't exist in the same atmosphere. they're both huge nerds. bug discussions. mild violence. pet names [human, ange, baby]. trueform!sukuna. piv. inter-species sex. fingering. oral [f! receiving]. monsterfucking. sukuna has 2 dicks. size difference. biting. manhandling. licking. spitting/drool.
inspired heavily by project hail mary/iron lung/alien earth. mild modulo spoilers. sukuna is simurian. changed simurian lore.
☾⋆ wc ; 37.9k.
wattpad || ao3 || main masterlist
Your lashes flutter, eyes opening to sterile, controlled lighting. Lifting an arm feels like a hurdle to overcome when your muscles behave far more like limp pasta than something meant to support a full biological system. After your arm protests the very concept of movement, you flex your fingers, adjusting to the harsh whites of your surroundings.
“Movement detected.”
Blinking hard, you slowly take in your surroundings, expecting a hospital bay, only to be met with smooth white surfaces that tell a different story. Space.
It hits you like a truck and by sheer force of will, you lift an arm to your head, expecting some sort of blunt force trauma. That you must be seeing things. Rubbing your temples makes you aware of several tubes all connected to a tight white suit clinging to your skin. As you begin tugging on the tubes, many release with a hiss while others simply come loose without fanfare.
“Crew aboard: one member. Arrival imminent.”
You have to be dreaming. Hallucinating. Something.
Managing to weakly push to your feet, you stumble through the halls of the ship on a weak gait. It’s a small vessel, with a science bay through a sealing door just outside the medical bay where you awoke, four bunks and a washroom in what you assume is sleeping quarters, and the bridge itself. It’s small, but clearly designed for more than one crew member. Your heart drops at the thought, because that’s when it truly comes flooding back.
Your work. The project. The disease. The creature.
Several pieces of the same puzzle, but each one troubling in its own right.
Still groggy from the induced coma, you force yourself to take a seat in the hall, grateful for what you can only assume is artificial gravity. You might have been sick if you had awoken in zero gravity.
Taking a breath as you sit in the center of a large octagonal hall, you force yourself to breathe. Long breaths, drawing each one out in an effort to keep yourself from boiling over when memories of the very thing that put you here feel fresh in spite of your ten year induced coma. It shouldn’t be you here. You, some entomologist they found online for a paper suggesting beetles are smarter than people think.
You weren’t even really good with people. Just bugs. You spent most of your time alone with your stag beetles, attempting to bring out the very intelligence you’d written about. You never minded being alone. Maybe it’s sad that you spoke to the beetles, but they kept you company in their own way. Yet here you are now, onboard a space ship by sheer coincidence, if it can even be called that. And it’s not the loneliness you fear.
No, you’re content to grab a marker and draw a face on one of the many white walls, call it ‘Wilson’ and name yourself the next Tom Hanks, even if your acting credits are undeserving.
What scares you is the narrow hallways holding you hostage in a vacuum. Once you reach the supposed ‘destination’ that the ship’s programmed voice spoke of being imminent, gravity will cut out. The ship will rely on your ability to navigate yourself through its halls and hell, even navigate the damn hunk of metal through space yourself to send the mission target back. You’re a fucking entomologist. A bug scientist. What the hell are they hoping for from you?
With a sharp inhale, you push back up to your feet, navigating through the cramped hall until you reach the bridge. There are a number of screens and what feel like countless buttons and switches, all labeled with tape. You suppose that’s meant to be for your convenience given that you’re no pilot, but the amount of labels is a textbook in and of itself. Frustrating.
Slipping past the second of two chairs on the bridge, your eyes are glued to the first window you’ve seen. Your lips part as the marvel of space itself comes into view when you slip into the nook by the window.
It’s beautiful. Stunning. It’s full of twinkling stars and the far more consistent shine of distant planets. There’s debris of various different kinds of space rock meandering endlessly through a void. There’s a gorgeous mildly yellow-green planet not too far away with pink and blue accents. Its surface is probably unlike everything you’ve ever seen.
Seeing a planet from space is another kind of beast. Space travel is relatively new to humanity as far as the general public is aware, and you certainly never envisioned yourself aboard a spacecraft. In another world, under other circumstances, it might even be a dream.
The nearest sun has you staring down at your fingers, wondering if the faint heat you feel might be from its rays or if you’re imagining things already, hardly a few minutes into your trip. That is, if you don’t count the several years in which you were in an induced coma.
Flexing your fingers again as you stare at them, it’s not until a shadow takes away the sun’s distant rays, that you notice something incoming quickly. Your eyes widen at the sight of a ship, alien in appearance. Long, slender, dark grays in sharp and jagged angles all come together to build a ship that makes yours look not entirely unlike the very bugs you study. Very, very small. Insignificant.
“Oh shit,” you gasp in wide-eyed disbelief as something straight out of a sci-fi movie moves in a line straight towards you. “Oh shit” you gasp again, racing to push yourself to your feet and clamber for the pilot’s chair as though the labels will push you into action. Paralyzed on the chair, the most you can do is skim each word in hopes that one might magically say ‘turn one hundred and eighty degrees and get the hell away from the giant evil-looking alien spaceship’.
Unfortunately, you never find that button. With your hands hovering over the controls, you find yourself watching in horror as you’re swallowed whole by the other spacecraft. “Oh shit.”
Your ship is harshly jostled as all of a sudden the hull drops like a stone onto something hard and metal, screeching as it slides across what you can only assume is a bay of the other ship as you stare into the darkened corridor of the inside of an alien spacecraft. You grip the chair for purchase in an effort not to get thrown aside while your ship blares warning and lights flicker.
“Oh shit,” you breathe when the lights outside your ship flick on and flood the bridge with the harsh lighting of a warehouse. There doesn’t seem to be any other ships aboard if this is a bay or hangar, but it certainly looks like one… Though you suppose you’re basing that off of movie knowledge, which is probably stupid. Especially for a scientist at the top of your field.
Slowly descending from your chair, you approach the window in awe, staring out into the metal box. It’s largely human, with pipes running up the walls and across the ceiling, lights in long bulbs overhead and lower lighting from small circular vent-like structures. The structure seems rougher than the smooth metals of your ship, almost as though it’s made of an unpolished mineral, with a luster that dictates something akin to quartz or obsidian, but it’s slightly off. The only thing inhuman about the entire thing is the text. It’s not entirely unfamiliar, the sort of thing that you wager you could decipher in time, but when you spot movement at the far bay, you figure time isn’t exactly on your side.
What a way to wake up after ten years.
The alien figure that approaches your ship isn’t human. But… they aren’t inhuman either. You know they aren’t human, with an extra pair of limbs attached to their upper torso and an extra pair of eyes aboard a plate of some sort on the right side of their face, but otherwise the only thing inhuman about them is their massive size, standing at what must be ten feet tall.
A tight shirt clings to their upper torso, some sort of spacesuit loosely draped from their torso in an off-pink that matches their short hair. Markings line their jaw, coming up just beneath their eyes not unlike tattoos, though you can’t be sure whether or not that’s what they are. The most inhuman feature of all, however, is the blood red gaze they fix your ship with as they walk in an even, calm stride towards the door.
A creature with a calm like this is one that knows it’s powerful. It’s the type of confidence befitting of someone who far outclasses everything they’ve ever come across and doesn’t fear the beyond like you do. “Oh shit!”
It’s just about the only words you can manage as you clumsily navigate towards the small porthole of the door where the alien has deduced they may find you. Peering out the small circular window, you can only pray you aren’t about to be probed or something similar.
When the alien approaches your ship with some sort of technology in-hand, you tap on the glass to get their attention. The large alien’s head rises, their brow lowering to a scowl of sorts as they examine you. This close, they look startlingly like a human man. Like the kind of man you might see in a gladiator movie given his sheer size and musculature, sure, but human enough to reason with. He speaks some sort of language, but you can’t understand a word he utters.
The language is a mix of huffs, growls, clicks, and what you would otherwise consider sounds not unlike the languages found on earth. Between each noise that reminds you vaguely of an echolocation sort of noise is a very human syllable. If you were to put the syllables together without the clicking, you might even get something akin to human vocabulary.
By all accounts, this is an intimidating encounter. His gaze is sharp, almost grating in looks alone. His pupils have rings surrounding them that give him a formidable appearance. His mother tongue is so different from any language you’ve ever encountered– human or animal– that the only thing you even can compare it to are films. Some part of you is wired to expect a Xenomorph to uncurl from wires and silently drop to the ground, acidic saliva dripping from its mouth, and yet the man remains still, awaiting your reply before he answers in kind.
Maybe it’s your poor instinct for danger, but you’re far more intrigued than you are concerned.
“Uh– Hello!” You attempt to reply in an effort to keep the peace, further perplexing the alien whose eyes narrow. Your heart pounds behind your rib cage as you give your best effort to not get eaten. Or examined. Or whatever this species does. “I come in peace!” You offer, making a peace sign through the door with a wide grin.
His gaze slides to your hand, his deduction of the action clear in the way his narrowed eyes regard the action. He frowns like you’ve caused him an inconvenience, gliding his finger along the device in his hand briefly as he looks away. You almost wish he was more animalistic. You’re a better read on animal behaviour than human.
“Okay, um– hold on!” You hold up one finger, clumsily dashing back through the ship to the science bay. You grab a white board and marker, making your way back to the porthole. The four-armed alien is tapping on what you assume to be the screen of the device he brought with him, though his attention returns to you once you reappear. You draw a circle and the general outline of the continents, presenting the image to him. “I’m a human. From Earth,” you say, pointing to your drawing.
The alien’s gaze lowers to your drawing, then he taps on the screen of his device, growing more frustrated by the moment. When the device doesn’t seem to give him the results he wishes for, his shoulders visibly fall in frustration as he faces you again. His gaze fixes the drawing, then you once more.
When he doesn't reply, you quickly erase the drawing of earth, and draw something that might be more familiar. You draw the very thing you’re here in search of as clearly as you can from memory.
CRM-12. A creature so foreign, the scientists never even gave it a name. Beetle-like in appearance in spite of its size, which begged your attention, one of the heads in entomology. A creature intelligent beyond any credit they were willing to give it, treating it as lesser than even rodents. It was no more than an experiment, and your reason for being in the middle of uncharted space.
You present the drawing of the creature, a metallic brown beetle with accents that resemble an oil spill, iridescent pinks visible in the sun. Its eyes, however, are completely unlike any insect. Cat-like, they follow movement like the eyes of a higher being. Like they know. You hope that comes across in a crude drawing with a black marker.
The alien looks at the drawing you present, seeming to recognize it. He stares at you and chuffs, almost like a tiger, followed by a syllable unrecognizable to you.
“You know it?” Your brows raise eagerly at the reaction that you’re fairly sure is a yes given the way big cats so often use the first portion of the sound.
Another chuff in reply, then the syllable. You can work with that. The recognition in his gaze tells you that it isn’t a no, which means you’re communicating, even if it’s preschool-level communication. Even if he seems frustrated by the whole ordeal. Or maybe by you. Or the device. You really can’t say.
“Oh my god, you know it? I’m looking for it!” You point with a grin, intrigued by the alien life that seems to be as advanced, if not more than humanity.
He watches your eager movements with hooded eyes, all four following the way your body almost seems ahead of your mind as you attempt communication. In a far more languid movement, he lifts an arm, simply tapping once on the door as he stares at you, awaiting.
You purse your lips, fairly confident you understand. “Oh– I can’t leave my ship,” you glance down at the door’s handle. “Um– hold on.” You raise one finger again, drawing another picture on your whiteboard. This time, you present the alien species with a poorly drawn version of your ship, an ‘X’, and a stick figure of you, with your tongue out and an ‘X’ for either eye. “I would die in your atmosphere. I mean, probably. I guess I don’t know.”
One of his brows raises at the crude demonstration before he looks you up and down once through the porthole. He huffs, something of disbelief or maybe annoyance, before looking around the bay. He replicates your motion, raising one finger in a ‘hold on’ type of manner, disappearing for a minute. When he returns after a few moments, he lifts a lower arm to present to you a new device. From the device comes a hologram far more advanced than anything earth has managed thus far.
Your eyes widen at the sight of the very beetle-like species you’re here for. You nod, giving a thumbs up. “Yes! Yes, that’s it!” You loudly proclaim with a grin.
He recoils, though you can’t quite place why. He watches your reactions, the smile, the thumbs’ up, the nod, and chuffs in reply. Alright, communication.
“Hey, um, there’s–” You stammer over words, before giving your signal for ‘hold on’. Quickly and crudely attempting to draw your best version of the window by the bridge. You hold it up to the person opposite you, pointing in the general direction of the much larger window across the ship.
His sharp gaze follows the direction you point, his head moving in that direction altogether, before chuffing and surprisingly disappearing. You blink, before quickly moving in that direction as well, cables and tubing still drifting listlessly behind your clothing from when you awoke. You stare down briefly at the ordeal, at the mess you’re sure you look, and figure that’s a problem for when an alien isn’t staring you down.
You’re just grateful he isn’t looking at you in the same way humanity looked at that beetle. That stupid, god forsaken alien beetle. Even if he does seem a bit annoyed with you.
Dragging the cables along with you, you slip past the chairs in the bridge to the larger window where your new alien peer is curiously examining the circuitry within the bridge. “This is the bridge,” you explain, pointing behind you. “For the captain.” You turn to face him again, unsure if he understands a word you’re saying, but the need to fill the air is unfortunately at the forefront of your mind. Slipping into the nook of the window, you watch as his crimson gaze tracks your movements, dropping to the cables that he examines for a moment. “These are just cables,” you explain, holding them up.
He grunts through a deadpan expression as though he has that figured out already, and it’s at this moment that you realize how grateful you are that there’s an atmosphere at all in his ship right now to carry either of your voices so that you can communicate. The entire thing is fascinating beyond any kind of entomology you’ve ever been witness to. Of course, you’d have an easier time grasping his behaviour if he were a bug, but you suppose you didn’t get much of a good understanding of CRM-12’s behaviour anyway in light of the events that took place with the species on Earth.
CRM-12. The thought makes you wonder. “Do you have a name?” You glance down at the whiteboard, but you aren’t sure how much it’ll help. “A, uh–” You point to yourself, stating your name, then to him. “What’s your name?”
He straightens, and in a very alien language gives you a series of growls and hisses, along with a series of somewhat more human-sounding syllables. You attempt to replicate the sound, you really do. The problem is that your vocal chords simply can’t shape the same noises that his can. He frowns as you can’t reach one of the clicks in your vocal range, and surprisingly offers something more familiar.
“Sukuna.”
Your lips purse as you stare out the window at him. It’s shockingly close to the syllables that sit intermittently between the clicks and growls in his name, like his language might not be as far off as you originally hypothesized.
“Human.” He adds, then replicates your name, shockingly nearly perfect.
“Yeah!” You agree with a grin. “That’s my name. I’m human.”
“My name,” he forms the words, copying them in his deep baritone voice. It sounds somewhat foreign after you’ve heard primarily chuffs and hums, but he doesn’t struggle to form the words. They’re clipped, like his tone isn’t intentional and there’s a rasp to his words like his throat wants to add the clicking to the words, but doesn’t.
You have an itch to write and document everything you can, but your lab is a few light years away and your journal is… yet to be found, since you awoke. You do what you can to catalogue every detail for later in your mind.
“Okay, okay.” Beyond interested and excited by the ordeal, you make a wild motion with both arms towards– well– everything. “This is my ship.”
Sukuna’s gaze lifts to the exterior of the ship, then returns to you. An upper arm lifts, muscle that’s inherently humanoid rippling beneath what looks to be something similar to a performance long sleeve clinging to his arm. He taps twice on the window. “Ship.” Then directly in front of you. “Your ship.”
“Yeah,” you breathe in disbelief. “Is this your ship?”
He points back, chuffing. “My ship.”
The velocity of his ability to learn is stunning. In fact, you would wager a bet that not only is he so far advanced that he outclasses Humanity by miles, you would be willing to be there’s more to it than that. The scowls, the grimaces, the huffs. Could he be annoyed that you’re not capable of picking up his language? “Are you–” you point to him, then the chair behind you, “the captain?”
His gaze examines you as you point towards the seat on the bridge behind you. Understanding your gist, he chuffs.
“Holy shit,” your breath. Looking eagerly past him into the rest of the hangar bay, you press your hands to the window. He straightens, taking a step back as he stares at you with a raised chin. “Where are the rest of you? Do you have a crew? Do you have scientists?”
He growls, but it doesn’t appear to be a warning. Your limited knowledge of his language tells you it may just be a vocalization that’s within his language, but you can’t say for sure. You can’t be sure whether he’s answering in his own language or simply frustrated with your onslaught of questions. Maybe both.
“Are you alone?” You offer the option. “Just you?” You point.
To that, he straightens slightly, his gaze dropping as he evaluates your stature. He must determine you aren’t a threat, because he finally replies with a chuff. “Alone. Just Sukuna.”
It’s unbelievable, truly. It’s not the fact that there’s other intelligent life that baffles and equally excites you, but the fact that not only does he seem to be far more advanced, but it’s clear you’re both studying one another’s behavior. More interestingly, he’s making sense of your language so quickly without so much as forgetting a word that you’re fairly sure his species can outdo humanity’s feats in an evening. You watch him pick up words before you’ve even used it in much more than a sentence to yourself. He adjusts so quickly that it has you questioning everything you know about life outside of Earth. About life on Earth. About behavior, intelligence, and everything you’ve studied so hard when it comes to entomology.
Much of the… day? Is spent going back and forth, focusing primarily on language using the whiteboard, and you’re surprised to find Sukuna doesn’t just keep up, but clearly surpasses your intelligence. He’s offput by noise and moves at a much slower pace that gives you the impression that he wouldn’t know the expression ‘life is short’. You wonder how many years he’s wandered the universe.
He primarily listens and learns, letting you yap about tenses and grammar with little more than an aloof frown. He rarely inquires, but as his knowledge grows, he becomes more at ease. The rigidity in his upper and lower shoulders releases, and his expression shifts from one of skepticism to intrigue. Before you can inquire about his species or language, however, your ship comes online. With a robotic timbre, an announcement comes across the speakers. “Please report to the lab for documentation.”
You stare back into the ship for a moment before facing your new companion. “I need to go make a report,” you explain. “The humans back on Earth want a video of how things are going.”
You can’t be sure how much of that he understands given that he’s largely a closed book, but he chuffs his general understanding.
“Do you… sleep?” You make a motion of sleeping. “Or eat?” And point to your mouth.
The mere suggestion has him yawning, revealing primordial fangs behind his lips. He doesn’t grace you with a reply otherwise.
In a series of clicks and hisses, he says something you’re unable to translate and turns on his heel. Your best assumption is that he’s wished you a goodnight, so you opt to do the same. “Goodnight, Sukuna!” You call loudly from your side of the glass.
He tilts his head slightly, then shakes it, but doesn’t look back.
You watch the spot where he disappeared for a long moment. In the barren bay, the lights click as one by one they shut off until you’re left with only the ambient light of the interior of your own ship. Stepping back from the glass, you blink to yourself. He’s unlike anything you could have imagined when it came to aliens. It’s not like you haven’t met one, given that your assignment on Earth was studying CRM-12 and your assignment now is simply to retrieve more of them, and while you know even that creature’s intelligence was largely underestimated, you never imagined another planet like Earth could exist.
Maybe the atmosphere doesn’t match your own. Maybe there’s no oxygen. Maybe his planet is overruled by dinosaurs. You wouldn’t know. But somewhere out there is a planet with architecture and entire civilizations that you don’t know the first thing about.
As you make your way to the lab, a small camera prepped for you to record, you swear you’re still jittery with excitement. The scientist that swims in your veins can’t wait for tomorrow to come, ignoring every natural instinct to exercise caution. You don’t see yourself sleeping well in spite of the fact that your body remains heavy with the weight of several induced years of sleep.
Without thinking twice, you flip the camera’s screen to look back at yourself and begin recording. You recount your ship being engulfed, describe Sukuna, and explain your findings in largely scientific terminology.
“I know he’s not what I’m here for, but– This could be… I mean…” You shake your head. “I’m not giving up on this research,” you steel yourself, staring into the camera. Chewing on your lower lip, you reach for the camera, shutting the screen and effectively stopping the recording without signing off.
You take the extra time in the evening to put yourself back together. You’re not trained for space, or even for the use of this vessel as a whole, but you track down a sponge bath and washroom, before finally managing to find a small compartment with your belongings.
Dragging the compartment out from the netted area in which it resides, you open it slowly. Within are some clothes– some your own, most provided by the company responsible for your launch– along with a few general sanitary items. It’s largely impersonal, which you suppose you expected. Having prepared for this, you reach into the pocket of a hoodie and pull out the one thing you hoped to keep with you.
You breathe out a sigh of relief, unfolding a photo. The lines through the center block out only a modicum of the happiness held within it, but at its core it’s everything you wanted to hold onto. You’re holding the camera with a huge grin, an Extatosoma Tiaratum, a large stick insect, climbs along your shoulder, and your beloved Lucanus Elaphus, an Elk Stag Beetle, is in your hand. To your left is your best friend Shoko and her German Shepherd puppy, a month after she adopted him. She’s holding him like her pride and joy in spite of the fact that throughout her entire veterinary medicine degree, she swore she’d stick to an animal with less genetically pre-disposed health problems.
You had just gotten back from a research trip back then and were meeting her pup for the first time while she cared for your bugs while you were away.
It’s strange to think that she’s ten years older now. Your bugs are surely dead, and Shoko hasn’t seen you in over ten years. Your heart pangs as you pull the familiar hoodie on over your head and tuck the photo back in your pocket as you make your way back to the bed that didn’t exactly do wonders for your neck as you make way for the second day in uncharted territory.
–
The morning greets you in the same way it did yesterday. Cold, sterile, and controlled. The white lights flick on without asking, deciding your schedule before you ever do. You blink away the sleep in your eyes, grabbing a dehydrated granola bar sort of thing to bring with you to the bridge as you dress yourself in white pants and your own hoodie.
Sukuna still isn’t there when you arrive at the bridge, so you do the only thing you really can do in the enclosed ship bay. You come prepared this time, with a model of your ship, your whiteboard, some snacks, water, and a journal and pen to note your findings. Not necessarily for humanity’s sake, but out of habit, for you. With everything spread out around you, you reach into your pocket, pulling out your photo with Shoko. Your thumb smooths along the fold lines before you set it off to the side in front of you. Then as you would on any other day, you note your findings with small drawings in the column of your journal.
After a short wait, the bay’s lights flick on one after another with a metallic clang as each one begins pulling electricity to the large hangar. Sukuna has also come more prepared, with another new device in one of his many hands and what looks to be a spacesuit draped over another arm. He’s wearing much the same top in a slightly deeper tone of gray and baggy pants this time around, with that same overall neutral expression on his face.
Neutral is generous, given how grumpy he looks in human terms. Given how grumpy he is. Maybe it’s just his species, you can’t be sure, but he gives you the impression you frustrate him.
You perk up at the sight of him regardless as he approaches in the direction of the door’s porthole, changing his stride when he spots you at the window.
He clicks and grunts, which you assume is a greeting of sorts.
“Hi, Sukuna! Did you sleep good?”
He doesn’t beat around the bush. “Sleep bad.”
“Oh. Why?”
He approaches the window, dropping the suit on his arm into a pile on the floor. “Human loud,” he states, pointing accusingly at you with a finger to the window.
“Me? This ship is huge, there’s no way you heard me. I don’t even snore!” You pout first, but your mind doesn’t give you the time to be offended as something occurs to you. “Wait, is your hearing really good?” You ask, pointing to your ear.
He chuffs. “You loud.” He makes a motion to his chest, demonstratively inhaling and exhaling in kind. “Like that.”
“Oh my god, you could hear me breathing across the ship?” You instinctively bring up your fancy space pen and journal, scribbling down messy notes as your mouth gets a few steps ahead of your brain. “Wait, but the ship is on. I can’t be louder than like– Is your engine not loud? Or the life support systems? You must breathe some sort of gas or–”
He huffs, tapping the glass with a subsequent growl. Much like yesterday, it’s not a warning but something entirely else. “Ship my design. No sound.”
“No sound? Your design?” You gawk, sitting down at the window. Sukuna follows suit opposite you behind the glass. His movements are heavier in nature and far more languid, one corded muscular arm keeping him upright as he takes a seat. In spite of his constant aloof expression, you note that he does still seem intrigued. “Wait– oh my god, are you an engineer?”
He shifts his jaw, eyes narrowing thoughtfully as he attempts to use context clues to put the word engineer into place in his mental dictionary. He says something in his own language, reaching for the device he used yesterday to show you a hologram of CRM-12. This time, he flicks it on into some sort of 2D image, a screen of sorts. In concise, easy strokes, he pulls up a blueprint of his ship. “Engineer?” He queries, confirming the term.
“Yeah,” you breathe in disbelief. “Yeah, you’re definitely an engineer. Holy shit,” you laugh, tone wrought with disbelief. “The photo you showed me with that yesterday, the uh– beetle species?”
His gaze narrows and he grunts, almost a low growl.
“Um–” you lower your gaze to your whiteboard, drawing a quick sketch of CRM-12 again, writing its name beside the image. “This guy.”
The confusion rife across his features dissolves as he chuffs. “Kerm.”
“Kerm?” You blink, unsure where this word has come from.
He points to ‘CRM-12’ like it’s the most obvious thing he’s ever pointed out, blatantly frowning. “Kerm one two.”
You laugh, airy and light, grinning. “Yeah, Kerm. Yeah, okay. Kerm. Um, you’re looking for them too, does that mean you’re a scientist too? Like, um–” setting the whiteboard aside, you tap your fingers listlessly along your thigh. “You study life and elements? And learn about creatures?”
That clicks with him and he chuffs again.
“Holy shit,” you practically bound to your feet, quickly sitting back down at the revelation with a multitude of further questions.
Sukuna’s brow tents as he watches, disdain dripping from his expression as though you’ve offended him in your bout of excitement when he shuffles back slightly. He leans back on one arm, the other three held as though you might present a threat to him. Still, he remains silent.
“Wait, so you’re the captain, engineer, and a scientist? Oh my god, that’s incredible. Human life is so short we could never even dream of studying all three things and exploring space.” You don’t even pause as your thoughts simply spill from your lips. “You must be able to live so much longer than us. Or maybe you’re just that much smarter. Wait–” Your hand presses to the glass. “Where are you from? What planet–”
“Human.”
“–are you from? How long are your years? How old are you?”
“Human.” Sukuna’s hand presses to the glass with a jarring bang as he leans over you in spite of the barrier, the size difference growing apparent. His voice booms, stopping your endless trail of words in their tracks. Once he has your silence, Sukuna proceeds to click and growl in a series you’ve heard once before, though you now recognize it as displeasure.
It doesn’t take an understanding of his language to put together that he’s calling you ‘too much’. He’s telling you you’re annoying.
Your cheeks heat up and you take the opportunity to sit back, sucking in a breath.
Sukuna’s hand peels from the glass, his prints remaining in the spot where it was. He sits back with a loud huff, rubbing at his temple with one hand as he leans back on another. “Planet is–” he states the name in his language first, then pauses to think before providing something you understand. Removing the noises between the syllables, he lands on a simple name. “Simuria,” he starts, choosing one of your questions and going with it. “Age–” he glances down at the hologram, waving his hand through it to erase the blueprint. He makes ten markings through it like a whiteboard, then clicks, his word for ‘ten’.
“Ten,” you nod your understanding.
He points at the markings. “Ten tens.”
“One hundred,” you nod your understanding.
“Ten one hundreds.”
Your lips part. “One thousand?”
He chuffs, staring blankly at you.
“You’re over one thousand years old?” Your disbelief is palpable as your jaw hangs slightly ajar, taking in the details of his face and overall physique. He looks to be in his late thirties or early forties, but if there’s one thing you’ve learned in your time interacting with aliens, it’s that you don’t know the first thing about them.
He chuffs again, like it’s plain to see and his age is obvious. “How old you?”
“Um, three tens,” you hold up three fingers. “And a five,” you demonstrate the next number. “But I, uh, spent the last ten years sleeping to get here,” you offer a tight-lipped smile. His eyes narrow as he attempts to decipher the emotion written across your face, but you train your expression back to neutral before he can. “We only live to be about nine tens, though.”
“Nine tens?” He recoils at the mere thought. “Weak.”
You let out an airy laugh. “Weak, yeah. Humans tend to be.”
“Three thousands. Or more.”
“You can live three thousand years?” Once again caught up in the sheer difference in time you’ve both experienced, you’re forced to sit back, leaning on your arms. “Holy shit.”
That’s not even beginning to touch on the fact that his planet’s years could also be longer than Earth’s.
Sukuna has come to recognize your exclamations as disbelief and puffs out his chest. You can’t be sure whether it’s pride or a sort of bragging right he holds over your head, but it’s heartwarming to bond with someone so similar, and yet so different.
“Where your crew?”
“Oh–” You push a hand over your neck, staring back into the ship. “No crew. Just me. Just a scientist. I’m an entomologist. I study bugs.”
His brow dips as he attempts to put together what he understands based on your statements. “No captain?”
“No. No captain,” you reply coolly, the most calm he notes you’ve been since arrival.
“Captain?” He points to the photo of you and Shoko as he peers closer.
“No, that’s my friend Shoko. Another human, on Earth. And these are my bugs. I’m a bug scientist.” You point to the beetle.
“You study bugs?”
“Yeah!” You grin, followed by the familiar feeling of information running through your brain as your most passionate subject arises. “There are thousands and thousands of them on earth. Like, a thousand thousands. More than that. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what we know about them!” You pridefully explain.
“Scratched the surface?”
“Like, we barely know anything about them. So I study them to learn more.”
Leaning back on one pair of arms, he crosses the other pair over his chest, fixing you with a perplexed expression as he clicks and chirps out a word, followed by ‘human’.
You smirk, lopsided but wholehearted. It’s yet another of those familiar moments where you recognize the word from context alone. Weird human, he called you.
“Do you not like bugs?”
“Bugs on Simuria big.”
“They’re big? How big?”
He tilts his head to either side, casting a quick glance off to the side as some sort of debris hits the hull of the ship. His gaze returns to you, unbothered otherwise by the noise. “Big like that,” he presses his finger to the glass separating you.
Following the direction in which he points, you whirl around to find he’s pointing to a duffel bag of sorts. “Oh, we have some like that. Most are smaller though,” you explain as you turn back. “These two are my friends, like Shoko. That’s Spike,” you point to the stag, “and Stipple,” you point to the spiny stick insect.
“Stipple like Simuria bugs.”
“Really?” Your eyes widen, filled with wonder, and Sukuna’s head tilts as he lets out a pleased chuff. The revelation only brings up more questions. “Simuria,” you breathe the word like something sacred. Were the circumstances of your trip to reach CRM-12 any different, you might even be racing to document this beyond messy scribbles in a journal. “Do you all have four arms and eyes?”
Sukuna follows your gaze before he growls, which you take as a no.
“Is it based on region? Or– oh, maybe modification or–”
Sukuna huffs loudly, staring intently at you. “Human weak and loud.”
Ah– insults. The default when you’re bothering him or going too fast. “Sorry Sukuna,” you laugh, still lighthearted and chirpy in spite of his grumpy demeanor.
“Simurians all different,” he explains, waving his hand through the hologram still sitting off to the side to erase it. He draws a stick figure of sorts with horns and an eye on its forehead, then another with a tail that seems prehensile from what you can tell, like a monkey.
“All different? So, it’s not based on regions?”
He growls, confirming your thoughts. “I need four arms for science and making ship,” he points broadly around him.
You blink in complete and utter disbelief, the buzzing of the bay lights audible even over the gears turning in your mind. “So you… grew two extra arms? Like, your body made them yourself?”
He chuffs, pleased once again by your disbelief with a hint of what you might call a smile. You’re coming to notice that he seems to like that. He enjoys praise, even if it’s of his species rather than himself. He enjoys being above you in any way he can. It’s probably one of the most human things about him, in a roundabout sort of way.
“That’s incredible,” you shake your head regardless, watching as he puffs his chest out again, his chin tilted up. You can’t help a smile at the sight of him, the boyish pride on his face is something of a marvel. “What other adaptations do you have?”
He considers this for a moment, before running a hand through his hair and presenting a second ear hidden under pink strands over his humanoid ear. It’s far less human than the first pair, you would consider it closer to an owl. Your lips purse as you near the glass, leaning with both hands splayed across it. He then lifts the hem of his shirt and you damn near choke.
You can’t even decide which part it is that actually chokes you. The fact that he’s sporting a six pack like no other and a second pair of pecks that sends heat to places you do not want to think about while trapped in a box in space, or the huge mouth plastered where a belly button would otherwise be. You cough to distract him from the way your throat seizes, then sit back in an effort to disguise how you’ve reacted to an alien you hardly know.
Sukuna tilts his chin up slightly as he regards you. You want to chalk it up to nothing more than a natural reaction to your cough, but there’s a gleam in his eyes that you recognize. You’re then unfortunately reminded that his hearing is like nothing you’ve ever experienced and he can likely hear your pounding heart. It puts an idea in your head that his sense of smell may… also… be better on that note, too. Breezing past the moment as quickly as you can, you cough once more. “What’s, uh– what’s that for?”
“Eating large food.”
The sensation is jarring, but it occurs to you that you’ve never once asked what he eats. “Like… what?”
To your surprise, he smiles. Actually smiles. “Noisy food. Good food.”
“Are you joking with me? Are you joking about eating me?” You sputter.
His toothy grin is replicated on his stomach mouth as he lets the hem of his shirt drop and for the first time you hear him rumble in laughter.
You don’t even have the instinct to wonder if he’s lying when you’re too intrigued by the whole ordeal and just shake your head. “Oh, so you have jokes now?”
“Always have jokes,” he grins, wide. “You not understand, weak human.”
You scoff. “I see how it is,” you tease, curious about his ability to pick up not just language but the deeper meaning behind it. With a sigh, you cast a glance back at the spot where he revealed the stomach mouth, focusing back on your mission. For as curious as you are, at the end of the day you’re trapped in a box in space with a limit on time and supplies. “How quickly can you evolve?”
He tilts his head from side to side, something he’s seen you do when you reply with ‘maybe’.
“Does it depend? Is it based on how your surroundings are?” You make a motion to everything around you.
“Yes,” he replies affirmatively for the first time in your language, rather than his usual Simurian response.
“How fast are we talking?”
His brow tents, head tilting like the question is stupid. “We talk at normal speed for you.”
You bark a laugh at the realization that he’s now completely misunderstood. “No, it’s a saying, sorry. How fast can you evolve? One planet rotation around the sun? Two?”
Clearly displeased with your laughter, he takes a moment to fix you with a glare before replying. “Not one planet rotation. Smaller time.”
“Less than one planet rotation around the sun or less than one planet rotation?”
“Less than one planet rotation.”
You swear you need to pick your jaw up off the floor. “Less than a DAY?” You shout in disbelief, hand raising to the glass in a slam that echoes over the metal bay.
Sukuna growls, recoiling away from your reaction. It’s not out of fear, but rather that you’re being noisy again. “Human. Weak human. Stop.”
Sitting back down, you offer another apology to the begrudging man sitting across from you. Pieces of the puzzle all suddenly begin to click into place. That’s why he picked up your language so quickly. He didn’t just learn, his throat adapted to the sound. His vocal chords changed in less than a day to work around the fact that humans can’t. His species is advanced in the kind of way you could only dream. Hell, you never even realized he lost the strange rasp to his vocalizations in your language. “Sukuna, I–” you pause, raising a finger as you become aware that you’re about to get ahead of yourself when you go dashing back to the lab.
You gather a space meal, several beakers, pipettes, gloves, and a sterile handling box. When you return and dump it all on the ground beside you in a cacophony of glass, Sukuna still seems displeased with the noise.
“Humans sent me here because of this,” you present a phial of liquid to him. Held within the small glass container is a dark red, almost black liquid with yellow separation. “These are Alveoli. Normal ones. They’re cells in our lungs,” you point to your chest. “And this,” you present another phial, but the color of the liquid is off, almost more of a brown. “Is Alveolarium. It appeared on Earth I guess ten years ago now and we can’t find a cure. Around the same time it showed up, I got called to an island in the middle of nowhere to research a new discovery,” you explain. “They sent a ship somewhere around here back then, and picked up a CRM– um– a Kerm.”
Sukuna doesn’t move, but you have his attention.
“I was sent to research behaviour since it looks like a bug, but they also discovered that Kerm have cells in their shell that are really similar to the pathogen causing Alveolarium which was spreading a lot, but Kerm cells seem to carry properties that might help or stop or kill the disease or something,” you explain, shutting your eyes tightly as you search for vocabulary he’d know. “Basically they have similar cells,” you explain.
Sukuna inhales, long and slow as he sits up. Interestingly, his gaze splits as he looks over both samples at once. His languid movement makes sense when you consider that he’s well over a thousand years old and still has two thousand to go, if not more. Of course life isn’t short for a creature like him.
“We had one Kerm,” you continue. “But it died.”
“Died. Gone?” Sukuna confirms the meaning of the word.
“Yeah.”
He grunts. There’s no real emotion behind it, it’s nothing but sheer acknowledgement.
“So I need to get more Kerm. It’s…” You stare down at the sealed contaminated cell sample. “It’s bad, Sukuna. A lot of humans died. Probably way more since I’ve been gone.”
He stares at you for a long moment, his jaw moving as he evaluates your expression and every little micromovement of your body. He has a way about the manner in which he moves like he’s above life itself, everything in his mannerisms is lazy and unbothered– that is, until you grate on his nerves, anyway. There’s something almost kingly in the way he carries himself. After a long pause, he sets a forearm on his leg, leaning forward. “You want cells. Mine.”
Your jaw hangs open as you attempt to explain yourself. “I mean– you might be able to save us, but obviously only if you’re okay with it! I just– We don’t actually know anything about the Kerm, and I can’t guarantee if it’ll make it back alive or even at all, and–”
“Human.” There’s less heat in his voice as he shuts you up with the low rumbling of his timbre. “I help. You get suit,” he speaks like he’s ordering you, pointing.
“Suit?”
His eyes narrow as he gets to his feet, offense dripping from the very click of his tongue he gives you. “You scientist. You help.”
Your jaw hangs open as you glance back between him and the ship. You seal your lips into a tight line, staring down at fidgeting hands. “Sukuna, I–” You shake your head.
“Your atmosphere weak, humans weak. Use your second heart, my ship pressure not crush you. Stop scared movement,” he points mildly at your twiddling thumbs.
Before you can explain the truth, you’re perplexed by his words. “Second…? I only have one heart.”
He huffs. “Then I help reinforce oxygen tank to survive pressure of sulfur gas atmosphere. Weak human. Foolish weak human.”
You’re left in utter disbelief and mild shock, frozen in place as he turns on his heel to, you suppose, make you a new tank fitting of the pressure of his ship. When the hell did he even pick up the word foolish? Did you say that? Shaking your head of the thought, you need to focus on what matters here.
“Sukuna!”
He stops a short distance away, his gaze thrown over his shoulder.
“Sukuna, I can’t– I can’t leave.”
He crosses his arms– all four of them– unimpressed. “Why?”
“This was always meant to be a one-way trip. I don’t get to go home. I’m sealed in here. I have no depressurization pod, no suit, no way to unseal the ship without losing the oxygen in here. No portable generators, nothing. When the ship loses power, that’s it.”
Slowly, he turns towards you, straightening as he regards you. He doesn’t just look displeased, he looks downright offended. His usual go-to doesn’t seem to cut it either as he spews out something more than just ‘weak’. “Wrong.”
It likely doesn’t convey what he wants, but you get the gist anyway. “Yeah. It’s stupid,” you agree.
“Your stupid.”
“Yeah,” you laugh half-heartedly. “My stupid.”
Clearly realizing you’re butchering your own language to appeal to his limited use of it, he turns on his heel again, muttering something under his breath. Your hand slips away from the glass keeping you safe and trapped in tandem as you watch Sukuna disappear. You find yourself staring at the photo of you and Shoko again. What you wouldn’t give to check in on her right now. Or ever again.
This will be it for you. Your food supply is limited to what it was deemed was a reasonable amount of time to– somehow– procure not just one but multiple specimens of Kerm or CRM-12, or whatever you’re meant to call them. Your power will fizzle out. Your oxygen supply will end. Your ship’s fuel is already near its limit. You’re sealed in a death trap as a final sentencing. You shut your eyes tightly, rubbing your hands over your face in an effort to reset.
When Sukuna doesn’t return in a couple of minutes, you move around the ship in an effort to clear your head and get some exercise. Anything that stops reminding you of just how trapped you are in a void of uncharted territory with an alien that far exceeds any of humanity’s feats.
You grab a bite to eat, rehydrating some macaroni and cheese in a flimsy bag. It’s unappealing as all hell but it’s better than starving. Eating straight out of the bag, you meander back towards the window, blinking when you find Sukuna setting up a mobile science lab of some sort just outside the bridge. You jog closer to the window, taking a seat to watch as he sets out largely similar and recognizable equipment, although the shape and build of much of his technology is infinitely more advanced. Bigger, too, given his size.
One set of eyes glides to your movement, an eerie feat of having an extra pair, while he continues to set up. Your mind goes into overdrive trying to figure out just how much that sets apart his biology from yours to have the energy production and sheer brainpower to manage so much at once.
His nose wrinkles when he watches you spoon food into your mouth. Chuckling, you approach the nook by the window, presenting the bag to him. “It’s macaroni and cheese.” You tilt the bag in his direction.
“It’s bad.”
“Hey!” You chide with a grin. “It’s better than it looks. You can’t call it bad until you try it.”
With an unusually pompous huff, he turns back to the mobile set-up and picks up a box-like device, connecting it to the window by suction. He runs his thumb along the edge like a dial and it comes to life, seeping a sort of caulk onto the glass before it begins drilling through the window. Your survival instinct recognizes the structural instability. Your curiosity chooses to ignore it as the device uses some sort of nanotech to recreate its shape on the inner glass, sealing itself.
You purse your lips, your spoon held in mid-air. “A mini pressurization chamber.”
He chuffs. “Give macaroni and cheese.”
“You need to learn manners,” you mutter more to yourself than to him as he literally holds his hand out to bluntly demand your lunch with that unnatural edge to his voice that never quite fits his genuine intrigue.
“Manners?” He queries, though his hand never moves.
Chuckling to yourself as you give in and offer the small bag and spoon of food to him, you watch as your door closes and the pressure within the device changes. “We say please when we ask for something and thank you when we’re given something if we want to be polite or nice to someone.” When his side opens, the bag and food as a whole are crushed under the pressure of his differing atmosphere, presenting him with a dripping mess of squished pasta.
Admittedly, it does look bad now. As it begins dripping melted cheese that’s entirely too watery out the other side straight onto his shoes, he stares at you with the kind of tight-lipped expression that transcends any language barrier.
He’s not thanking you for this.
“Sorry,” you wince, offering an apologetic grin.
He growls, trudging back across the large expanse of hangar bay to get something to clean up the mess. By the time he returns and cleans up the cheese, he finally opts to take a bite of the crushed food, fixing you with a glare.
“Bad. Bad food for weak human.”
You can only smile, because it figures that he would hate it. “Fair enough,” you laugh, watching as he sets it along with the dirty rag he used to clean the cheese. Your eyes widen a fraction at the thought. “Wait, what do you–”
Rolling his shoulders, he points to the small chamber that connects you. “Give Alveolarium.”
Your thoughts are already long forgotten as you pick up one of the cultures, chewing on your lower lip as you examine the glass. “I think your ship’s atmospheric pressure might crush the vial.” You hold it up to him. “It’s pretty thin.”
With a hum, Sukuna offers a box through the exchange to put the phial in. As you exchange materials and Sukuna begins separating the infected cells into smaller cultures within an oxygen-controlled box with barometric pressure equal to your ship’s, it occurs to you that in spite of your life being cut short, some part of you is happy for this experience. Even if your notes and findings get stranded out here, you can say you found companionship in a grumpy ten-foot-tall genius alien, and that’s pretty cool.
With your plights long forgotten as you watch Sukuna work with your face practically plastered to the glass, the technology and rate at which he’s able to work grabs your attention. Your chest practically rattles in excitement as he moves through practiced motions like he already knows what to do.
“What’s that?” You query, watching eagerly as he injects something into a lower arm.
One pair of eyes flicks to you. “For cells.”
“For stem cells? Like from your bones?”
He chuffs, pulling out a rubber band as he restricts his blood flow to take a sample.
“It’s that fast?” You gawk as he already begins drawing a sample.
His brow twitches as you break his concentration, but he chuffs to give you a reply regardless.
“Oh my god. We have a drug that does that too, but it takes a while before it produces any neutrophils– um– stem cells. You’re so much more advanced than us, I never imagined how much different life could be!” You watch as blue blood is extracted from his arm, and he begins separating the sample in order to work with it. “Your blood is blue? Is that because of the differing atmosphere? Or maybe it’s an adaptation somehow–”
“Human,” Sukuna groans, disenchanted with your rambles. He fixes you with a tired expression, pointing to the experiment in an effort to get you to focus. “Stop. Noisy.”
“Right, sorry!” You apologize with a wide grin.
A series of clicks, syllables, and growls escape the brutish man as he mutters something to himself, undoing the band from his arm and flexing his fingers a couple of times before pulling a sleeve back down. As he introduces his cells to the Alveolar cells that are infected in the controlled environment, he moves a small device over the culture slide, projecting hologram of the microscopic cells. His cells are so different from anything you’ve observed on Earth that you have no issue telling which belong to him in spite of your differing major.
The cells collide once, the Alveolarium attempts to attack Sukuna’s cells, then simply… backs off. “They’re incompatible,” you state dryly, your shoulders dropping.
Sukuna grunts. “Alveolar cells still functional. My cells not see issue.”
“That could be it.” You shrug.
He hums, tapping a finger twice along the table. “Then we change environment.”
“Create artificial stress until your cells react,” you breathe, your hand snapping down to the ground beside you with a metallic clang that has Sukuna flashing you another glare.
“Loud. Loud human.”
“Sorry, I just– I’m a bit overexcited,” you offer with a smile.
Sukuna continues to stare for a moment, then adjusts the pressure within the glass box where the experiment is taking place to something more dense. He attempts to alter the environment enough that his cells recognize a threat, while not outright killing yours. Striking a balance between them proves to be a multi-day endeavor. In the moments where you can only wait, you slowly begin to unravel the enigma that is Sukuna.
You can’t count how many times Sukuna huffs or makes his disdain known with a very dramatic look in your direction when you suggest something altogether dumb, but you also note that he tells you you’re noisy less often. He picks up on more scientific terms, and even begins to pick up on prepositions purely from your use of them. He teaches you about Simuria, how the Simurians all have extra eyes, two hearts, and are fairly large compared to humanity, though they largely don’t resemble one another. He teaches you about one with horns, who you assume is a friend. He, on the other hand, refers to the horned Simurian as a neighbor.
You get the feeling Sukuna isn’t the friendly type.
“You’re invasive,” he gruffs out in reply to your question.
Your head falls back as you stare at the ceiling with a groan. “I literally just asked if you choose to be alone!” You retort lightheartedly. “You don’t even have to give me a reason!”
“You’re invasive. Like Kerm.”
“Like–” You gawk at him, watching a slow smile curl at his lips. “Like Kerm?”
“Loud like them too.”
“Hey!”
His head tilts as you exclaim your displeasure with that statement, but it’s one of the rare moments where he does seem pleased, which brings a smile to your face regardless. For whatever reason, nothing seems to get him boastful quite like belittling humanity. And since his only knowledge of humanity is you, that puts you at the center of his jokes.
“You know,” you meander back to the topic of Kerm, pulling the smile straight from his lips when you change the subject. “You never did tell me why you’re here. You know the Kerm too, so is it for them?”
He chuffs. “I did tell you. The Kerm are invasive.”
“That’s not really a reason. That’s just like– a statement.”
Seated on the floor with his back against the glass that separates you, he rolls his head along the rigid surface, his gaze finding you. “Kerm are smarter than you humans think,” he grumbles out a baseline explanation. He utters something in his language, then puts together a few sounds until he has a new word for you. “Methalonian weapons. They aren’t natural. They’re–” he taps his fingers on the bay’s floor briefly in thought. “Created by another species.”
“Methalonian,” you test the word. “Are they artificial? Or are they mutated? Like, completely not real or mutated from something that already existed?”
He taps his finger decidedly. “Mutated. Another species mutated them. I’ve been circling this planet for a while now to find where they come from,” he explains. “There are no other species here. They ate all of their resources. Now they invade.”
“How do they even leave? Are they that smart?”
He growls. “They attach themselves to ships and invade.”
“Oh. What are you planning on doing to them, then?”
He sucks in a breath. “Killing them.”
You freeze, staring at him as he examines your expression. You’ve never been much good at training your emotions, your pupils narrowing to mere pinpricks. You swallow, gaze averting to the photo of Shoko. “You were never gonna let me take any.”
“... No.”
“That’s why you trapped me. You knew I was here for them.”
“Made a guess,” he agrees with a hand motion that you’d equate to a shrug.
Slumping back against the bridge’s floor, you stare at the ceiling. Your alien counterpart watches in silence as you process what you know of the Kerm, your current situation, and your species’ survival. You consider Shoko back home, and the rest of your family and friends. You consider your nights out together ten years ago and what that might look like now if you ever make it back. You consider the failing government, and how it’s possible everything has completely fallen apart since your launch. But what really gets to you is that if this doesn’t work, there’s no world where Sukuna lets you send a Kerm back.
Maybe you shouldn’t care. You’re physically welded into a ship in the middle of nowhere. Yet here you are, even after everything, still being hopeful. It’s the most human thing you could possibly do. “What did The Kerm do to you?” You quietly murmur, still staring at the ceiling.
He inhales once, long. His eyes shut. “They’re mutated to kill,” he grunts. “The cells your scientists found in their shells…” his jaw ticks as he clicks, something you can’t decipher as syllables follow it. “It is not your cure.”
You lift your head, leaning on two elbows to look at him.
“It is your cause.”
Your lips part, brow furrowing. “But– I– That’s not–” Your chest tightens, emotions betraying you as you feel your waterline wet. Quickly wiping away the evidence, your fingers curl against the metal floor beneath you.
Sukuna doesn’t budge, his fiery gaze pinning you to place.
“But Alveolarium has been around longer than the Kerm was on Earth.”
He moves a knee, tilting his head. “Has it?”
“I… Don’t know, actually.” At last, you admit it, but things don’t fully add up from what you know. You let yourself fall onto your back again. “The company that sent me here, we had a bit of a disagreement. I guess… Maybe they were right, but still.”
Sukuna’s eyes narrow, minute, as he attempts to decipher the vagueness of your statement, but by nature of a language barrier, he can’t make out what emotion it is that you’re so graciously dancing around.
You swallow hard. “Did… Did they kill a lot of Simurians?”
“Yes. Humans?”
“If it’s them then… yeah, I guess. Millions. Like, thousands upon thousands.”
Morbidly intrigued, Sukuna shuffles to get a better look at you, his face closer to the glass than ever. “How many humans are on Earth?”
“Um–” You quickly pull up the whiteboard, demonstrating a number for ten, then a thousand, then a million, then a billion. “There were eight billion.”
This is the most baffled you’ve ever seen Sukuna, who physically recoils at the mere thought. “How do you keep distance? How do you celebrate the union of humans?”
“Union of humans?” You laugh. “Weddings? I don’t know, you invite a hundred people and call it a day.” But the question sparks something in you as you sit up to face your baffled friend. “How many Simurians are there?”
“Seventy nine.”
“WHAT?” You gape, noting that he doesn’t complain about your noise in spite of his narrowing eyes and defensive posture. “Are you guys close to going extinct? Like, being gone? Are you not worried?”
He simply growls in reply. “No, human. Things are…” He hesitates, his gaze averting. “We all have space and resources, it isn’t cramped.” He rolls his shoulders back. “We celebrate all weddings every year. Then stay alone with our partners.”
There’s a pit of jealousy in your stomach that you cover with a smile. “So you have someone you’ll be going back to, hey?” You grin, prodding at him through the window. You equate the unsettling feeling to a yearning for having someone like that back home, or even the option to return, but it would be ignoring the bigger picture that you’ve both been sitting in this bay for several days together and you’ve grown fond of him. You may not have a choice in being here, but he does. And he chooses to help in spite of his own goals. Your heart likes that he chooses you a bit too much.
To your surprise, your question irks him and his eyes narrow. A harsh hiss erupts from his throat as he suddenly turns back towards the pressurized box where your experimentation is taking place.
Your shoulders fall, watching the muscles over his back pull taut as he busies himself with little more than prep work for a next experiment as you continue to wait.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (hah) to realize that Sukuna has no partner. The thought trickles through the pockets of your mind. Seventy nine people on a planet total… You can only imagine how lonely that gets. Even you, who chooses to be with bugs a majority of your life, always returns home to Shoko and your bugs at the end of a trip.
Seventy nine. That’s thirty nine weddings. Is he the only Simurian with no partner? “Sukuna…” You watch him work, his movements unbothered as he dilutes samples and ups heat to push his cells to react. “Are you lonely?”
He freezes. A muscle in his cheek twitches as he flexes his jaw, choosing not to reply when he continues in his motions.
Your shoulders fall as you watch him silently work, pulling the rug out from under you on the reality of your relationship. A working relationship, really. He’s always chided you for being invasive, and you suppose this is why.
“I’m lonely,” you offer, quietly. His movements don’t freeze altogether, but they slow. He moves as though any noise might distract him from what you’re saying, in spite of the fact that there’s no keeping secrets from a man with ears like him. “I wish I could go back to Earth. Or maybe meet the Simurians, or see more of the universe. I wish I could study bugs again.”
When he still doesn’t reply, but his movements slow to a crawl, you pick up the photo of you and Shoko, presenting it to him again. “I’d love to tell my friend what we’re up to.”
After an extended moment’s silence, he removes his hands from the box, resting them on the table he rolled in. The dense metal protests his weight, even though it was designed for him. Likely designed by him, too. He still doesn’t face you, choosing to protect himself from your prying eyes by continuing to face somewhat away from you.
“It’s not so bad up here though, you know. I mean, I met you. That’s pretty cool.” You scoot closer to the glass, hoping to find common ground through friendship, if you can call this such a thing.
Your movement grabs his attention. His gaze flickers towards you, the only sign he’s heard you at all. He continues to face forward, his shoulders hunched over the cool metal table.
“Why are you alone?” He finally speaks up, unmoving otherwise.
“I’m uh– pretty noisy,” you offer with a grin in terms he knows well, deflecting the question. “So I guess it just never worked out with other people.”
Sukuna straightens, turning to face you. “Not what I meant.”
You smile, half-hearted. “I’m a criminal, Sukuna.”
“Criminal?”
You nod, pulling your knees into your chest as he slowly nears the glass again. He takes a seat, cross-legged as he leans over his forearms to give you his full attention. “I did a really bad thing. Other humans got hurt and I’m here as a punishment. Our technology isn’t as good as yours and the crew that signed up for this mission knew they wouldn’t get to go back to Earth. The choices I made landed me here instead of them.”
“What did you do?”
Your arms tighten around your legs as you settle your chin along your knees. “The Kerm, you know how I told you we had one?”
He chuffs.
“We put it in a cell, a big cage or room,” you explain to the best of your ability. “I was told they just caught it and I was brought in to study it, because it looks similar to our bugs so people in charge made assumptions,” you haphazardly point at the photo where your bug pets are crawling on your clothes. Their features are close enough to the Kerm that you can see the train of thought that led to you. “In my time studying it, I realized it was smart. Like, way smarter than any bug on Earth. Maybe even smarter than any animal. It was listening. It was learning.”
“You opened its cell.”
With a drawn out sigh, you bury your face in your folded arms, muffling your words. “I opened its cell.”
“It ate them all.”
“It ate the crew for this mission. Every last one of them. And then the people in charge killed it, too.”
With two arms relaxed in his lap and two holding him up, Sukuna watches in relative silence as emotions swim through your eyes. He doesn’t have a name for most of them, but he’s seen them in himself. Over a thousand years of life will do that to you.
Your voice is a mere whisper. “It was so smart, Sukuna. I just couldn’t watch it live out its life in a cell.”
“Now you live your life in a cell.”
You lift your head, gaze flickering across the buttons you never bothered to figure out and the white walls you never quite grew accustomed to when all you ever see is Sukuna. “Yeah, I guess so. Funny how that works, huh?”
“It’s not funny,” he hisses, his brow furrowing in such a way that actually has you curious.
It’s not as though you didn’t consider yourself acquaintances at least with him by this point. You've spent several days together and he chooses every day to return when he could have dropped you off at any point and cleaned up his scuffed hangar, but he doesn’t. Every day, he pushes his own goals and mission back another day into the future and chooses to help the trapped little entomologist residing in the back corner of his ship. The whole thing is funny if you’re grim enough about it.
In spite of his frustration, you shuffle forward, pressing a hand to the glass. “It’s okay. I’m glad we met before I’m gone.”
His brow twitches not once but twice as he stares at your hand like it’s a personal affront. “My ship can get you home.”
Your fingers curl just slightly against the glass. Your body inadvertently winces at the thought. “Maybe. But if I go home, I’ll still be arrested and live life in a cell down there. That’s… worse.”
“Even if you bring back a cure?”
“Humans are… complicated.”
“Stupid.”
A puff of air leaves your nose. “Yeah. Humans are stupid.” You do what you can to mask your underlying sadness as your lips curl up into a smile.
You can’t read Sukuna’s expression as his intense crimson stare burns into you. You know there’s a level of disbelief and maybe even frustration at your self-sacrifice in his eyes. Whether you want to admit that an alien could feel something like that for you is another story.
You can see the internal battle raging within him, although you can’t identify what battle it is that he fights. In spite of his troubled scowl, you’re shocked when an arm slowly lifts from where his elbow rested on his thigh. He brings it to the glass, his fingers pressing first over each digit, before his palm splays over yours. The heat he radiates is warm enough that you feel it through the glass, befitting of a ten foot alien that expends far more energy than you. As if you weren’t already aware, it makes it apparent just how much he dwarfs you.
You peel your gaze from his hand, examining the way he refuses to look at you. Softly, you pose a question that might answer some of your own. “How many Simurians were there before the Kerm?”
His frown deepens, his head falling. “Over one thousand. I evolved. Most… did not.”
Something briefly occurs to you of the whole ordeal. You wonder if maybe there was someone that even he– a scientist and engineer clearly capable of incredible feats– could not save. “Your family?” You query, your voice a near-whisper that you know he picks up on.
His eyes slowly drag across the glass, staring straight through you as his reflection startlingly pins him in place. He swallows hard, refusing to confirm when it’s not you staring him down, but his own misplaced guilt that reflects back at him.
His jaw locks, teeth grinding as he pulls back suddenly, on his feet in an instant with an expression you can’t place. He’s scowling with wide eyes, turning on his heel as he excuses himself with nothing more than an “I’m tired,” trudging away with footsteps that echo throughout the bay.
Sitting back, you let out a sigh as you’re left alone once again.
–
The somber tone of that day never fully recuperates itself into something easier. There’s a constant pressure looming overhead that unfortunately isn’t barometric. It’s that of a ship set to fail and a man who treats revenge like a cure for loss. But on the other hand, one thing does change. Sukuna opens up.
He shows you a hologram with images of Simuria that leave you wistful for the greater universe. Space was never your forte, but the dense petrified wood forests and gaseous craters and mountains have your brain tripping over itself in curiosity of what insects could exist in those biomes, much to Sukuna’s dismay as he brushes you off as noisy.
As the days pass and your food supply begins to run short, you’re left with no option but to eat less as you quietly enter survival mode upon realizing Sukuna eats… well, rocks. So you’re left only with what was packed for you.
You were intended to have sent Kerm back by now. You weren’t intended to find life like Sukuna. You weren’t intended to bond. You weren’t intended to be left with a yearning to explore the universe and see the things he’s seen. You weren’t intended to slowly begin to wither. There was an out for you, as morbid as it is. A single dose ready to take once your mission was complete.
And yet, every day, Sukuna brings something new for you to see or experience. It’s small, but it’s surprisingly meaningful. He shows you the vast cliff faces of a Simurian coast that’s a famous vacation spot. He tells you stories of the gaseous craters within the planet that make much of it uninhabitable, hence the far smaller population across it, even before the Kerm. He demonstrates the use of four arms to their full extent and how his brain adapted. He shows you his tattoos. God, the tattoos.
He tells you all about how they each have meaning. How in Simuria, they’re a mark of life events. His wrists were banded when he finished an equivalent of elementary school at twenty-eight. His upper arms were an equivalent of high school at thirty-six, and something akin to university marked his shoulders at sixty-two. It’s a wonder to hear someone graduating university at sixty-two with their life still ahead of them.
He lifts his shirt and points to stripes along his shoulder and back. You swear you’re paying attention. You swear. He smirks, but he tells you nonetheless that they were from what you might consider a bachelor’s degree equivalent.
“What about your face?” You ask, tracing the ink on his jaw along the glass as you leave behind a smear.
“That,” he states, “was my choice. We all choose what our face will look like.”
“No special event?”
“Just me,” he breathes.
It makes you smile.
He hates how much that very action sits under his ribs. It pokes at him, prods at him like it belongs there, reminding him that this won’t last forever.
One morning, he arrives with dark circles under his eyes. He notes that you both look tired. He knows his reasoning, but he can’t place yours. Your energy is largely spent, yet you just awoke. You’re not noisy anymore. He places a circular device on the ground. A holographic device, you recognize it right away, but it’s far larger than the usual one.
“You wanted to see the mountains,” he states simply, ignoring the failed experiment to his left, in spite of the fact that he needs to start a new one with time of the essence. “You will.”
Awaiting him in your usual nook by the window, you’re wrapped up in a blanket, smiling in spite of yourself. For the first time since you met, weak feels as though it properly describes your appearance, but you refuse to give up despite your body’s shortcomings as your stomach rumbles. Sukuna never points it out.
He runs his finger along the outer dial that his machinery tends to run on and it springs to life. You bring a hand up to block the light protruding from a high-lumen-count projector, squinting as the hologram doesn’t just project something in a controlled, small environment, it extends to every wall as though you’re there. The bulb remains bright as Sukuna steps away from it, allowing you to see a mountain as though you’re there.
It’s not a rebuilt landscape either, you realize as you press your hands to the glass to get a better view. It’s a video. It’s a bit shaky, and you’re certain that if it played audio, you might hear the camera operator panting. Every time it shakes and the hologram can’t make sense of what it’s projecting, you squint, but it comes back in a moment. When it flashes suddenly, you catch a glimpse of Sukuna, following along behind the camera operator. He looks young. In human years, you would guess his twenties. Maybe three hundred for him. You can’t help a smile as you note that he doesn’t seem to have four arms. You wonder if they came later.
The camera flashes again as the operator moves it, revealing his own face along with Sukuna and four laughing Simurians. Sukuna still bears his usual aloof expression, but the joy in his eyes is palpable as they all pose for a photo. The camera operator looks largely like Sukuna, though he bears no facial tattoos and only a simple set of extra eyes. A twin, perhaps.
To Sukuna’s left is a Simurian with shoulder-length white hair who’s much shorter than the rest of them with an eye in the center of their forehead, a tall and slender Simurian with horns and the same third eye, one with shaggy white hair and six striking blue eyes, and one with silky-looking black hair and four eyes, purple beyond your wildest beliefs.
“Are those your friends?” You query, covering a cough in your elbow.
Sukuna intently watches the action, chuffing when the camera turns away. “We went on a trip after my fourth tattoo.”
“You look young.”
He steps around the projector, moving closer to your window. “I was.” He’s never been the most talkative, but he does ask more questions. You chalk it up to scientific curiosity. “Are Earth mountains like this?” Were you more keen, you might realize he’s deflecting you from the subject of the friends of which he’s mostly lost.
You stare around at the landscape. Simuria is largely rocky with giant craters. It’s covered in iridescent minerals that seem to form under the far more gaseous and toxic-leaning environment. “Some,” you decide. “The more harsh environments get colorful like this. Mostly, they’re gray with trees. Kinda spiky green ones with pointed tops. We get snow, too, at the tops where it’s colder.”
Simuria is warm, from what you’ve gathered, and his head tilts curiously at the thought of snow.
“You know when you bring a liquid to a cold temperature and it freezes?”
He chuffs.
“Like that, but tiny shavings of it. It’s white and cold. It falls from the clouds.”
“Fascinating.” And he means it, too. It’s the most intriguing part of all of your interactions with him. You don’t learn through questioning as scientists anymore, you learn through sharing as friends.
“It’s beautiful,” you murmur to yourself, watching the video clip play out. It cuts off without so much as a sound of warning, the room returning to the usual bright and barren metal appearance you’ve grown accustomed to. “Snow doesn’t have much friction, so humans would go to the top of mountains and slide down.”
“You have no cliffs?”
“Not really on the snowy mountains.” You scoot forward, leaning your shoulder against the window as you pull yourself into a tight ball with a blanket draped over your shoulders. “Mostly in deserts. Desert mountains look more like Simurian ones, but mostly one color. They’re warmer, too. Most of the time.”
Subconsciously, Sukuna leans against the glass, his shoulder warming you enough that your eyes flutter shut. “What color?”
You yawn. “Orange. It’s kinda like a darker version of your hair. If you squint.”
Absently running a hand through said locks, he stares out at the hangar’s walls, where the hologram projected mountains mere moments ago. “I think I know the color,” he murmurs mostly to himself. Rising from where he leans against the glass, his lips part to speak when he finds you sound asleep slumped against the glass.
His jaw tightens, a sharp pain rising behind his teeth at the sight of the tiny Human he’s grown fond of curled into a little ball aboard her ship. His friend. Slowly, a hand rises to the glass as something in his chest twists painfully. He recognizes the feeling, he’s no fool. He’s spent over a thousand years alive and isn’t a stranger to the pang gnawing at him as the noisy stowaway he picked up passes out in his presence.
To you, he’s safety. To him, you're more than just company.
And you’re wasting away in his hangar bay because some species he’s never come across decided that would be the case simply for having compassion. It brought about a mistake, sure, but you had compassion nonetheless where they did not.
He sucks in a breath, taking long strides over the metal floor to continue experimenting until you rise again. He works quietly, although he knows your hearing doesn’t compare to his. He moves with silent ease in spite of his lumbering form and watches with a frown as every environmental change he puts either of the cells through doesn’t bring out the result he wants. His cells adapt to the environment, but never recognize the Alveolarium as a threat.
Stepping back as he attempts to re-evaluate, he casts a glance back at you. Even if your energy wanes, your heart still beats steadily in his keen ears. He can get you back to Earth so long as he can figure out a solution to get energy back into your system somehow given that his food doesn’t fit within your diet.
You stir with a yawn, seemingly roused by his glance. You press against the glass, sitting up and blinking a number of times. When you meet his gaze, a spark of energy ignites that has Sukuna wincing. You clamber against the metal, some sort of button or zipper on your clothes clanging hard against the metal. “Sorry, Sukuna! I didn’t realize I fell asleep.”
He growls, rubbing absently at his second ear tucked within salmon locks. “It’s fine,” he grumbles, although your company is more welcome than he gives off as you sit upright to watch his experimentation once more.
You offer suggestions that get you deadpan expressions and a dramatic roll of the eyes given your lack of knowledge on the subject of medicinal chemistry is lacking. You figure you’re better at telling stories anyway, and even if you lose your place here and there when your tiredness catches up with you, Sukuna always offers a guiding suggestion when you falter.
The following day is when he starts to notice a trend that doesn’t greet either of you with warmth.
You drag yourself to the bridge later than usual without your morning granola bar. Sukuna offers you a mineral, but he knows it would break your teeth. He also offers meat, but you both already know your system rejects it. The blanket you’ve been dragging around with you for the past few days is bundled so tightly around you that Sukuna would wager a guess that you’re colder than usual, too.
When you make a motion to point at something on the table, his gaze lingers on your trembling finger. He can hear your stomach. He knows you’re starving. He’s watching your spirit fade, completely helplessly.
Sukuna, a man who’s spent over two hundred years coming to terms with the past and adapting to being alone, finds himself completely at a loss and frustrated beyond his means when he finds you the following morning. Or– more accurately– when he doesn’t find you.
His footsteps are even as he makes his way across the hangar. Your belongings remain at the glass, but you aren’t there yet. He tilts his head, catching your heartbeat as a slow, steady thump that keeps him at bay, and moves to check on his most recent experiment. He frowns as he finds after the allotted time, his cells remain by their lonesome, still unable to identify your Human disease as a threat.
Truthfully, it perplexes him. You determined early on that you share enough DNA to potentially be susceptible to the same diseases. Hell, by all means this is something Simurians have already overcome. It came from the same source, so he can’t figure out why his stem cells have yet to take to yours.
Carding his finger through his hair, he lets out a forlorn sigh, eyes shut for a long moment. Your heart is a steady drum in his ear, a reminder of what it is that he’s working towards. Had someone told him two weeks ago that he’d be helping such a pitiful little species overcome a disease of their own doing, he might not have believed them. But there’s more to you than your brittle bone structure and weak muscle mass. You’re smart. Perhaps not as advanced as he is, but you’re smart far beyond your thirty five years.
You’re smart in the kind of way Sukuna can only dream. He’s seen the way your mind works, how thoughts pour out before you even have time to put them together. He’s seen how resilient you are in the face of certain death. But what really gets him is your attitude. You grin through every shortcoming. You ensure him that if you keep trying, eventually your minds will come together and you’ll figure it out. You never acknowledge that breakthroughs like this take centuries. You didn’t even blink when he revealed that he’s been searching for the source of the Kerm for over a hundred years.
You’re unlike anything Sukuna’s ever known. And something dark crawls beneath his skin when you don’t rouse by the time you’re usually eating. Noon, you called it once.
With his experimental cells set in an extremely cold environment, he leaves the workspace to round your ship. His head tilts as he listens for your heartbeat as though it ever left his periphery, but it’s as sound as it’s ever been. Slowed by sleep perhaps, but sound. He comes to a halt when it grows louder as he nears your sleeping bay. His hand drifts across the scraped metal where your ship tilted on its axis when it scraped the ground as he scooped you up, resting along the damaged hull.
He hones in on you, and finds you’re still breathing. Still there. Still alive. But shallow. There’s no wheeze, no sharp inhales. It’s simple and shallow.
His brow furrows as he turns to fully face the ship. You aren’t just malnourished anymore. Something is wrong. His gaze lifts, traveling along the mechanics that keep your ship in one piece, far more primitive than the smooth and compact design of his. He doesn’t know what he expects to find, but when what he’s faced with isn’t an easy explanation, he turns on his heel.
He moves with more severity than he has in a century, no longer silent as he pads over extended corridors of metal that leave him questioning ever having a ship of this size. When he reaches his lab, he reaches for a scanner and jogs back to your ship.
It only takes a moment to calibrate its sensor to search only for organic matter. He lifts it to your ship. Alveolarium, as expected. Blood, and healthy stem Alveolar cells, as expected. All in small quantities.
Until everything lights up red. Immense amounts of blood, of musculature and tissue, along with a high volume of water. He’s found you. And along with everything he expects of an organic creature, a revelation that makes his blood run cold.
An uncontrolled quantity of Alveolarium. You’re infected.
Somehow, between the multitude of items you’ve exchanged and the experiments you’ve run by your lonesome, you must have been exposed. Your energy is being sapped because your body is fighting a disease engineered to kill.
He harshly clicks and growls to himself in a series of muttered curses, as he stares at the reading. For the first time since the bioweapon you call Kerm was found on Simuria over two hundred years ago, he finds himself completely and utterly helpless yet again. Control slips through his fingers like the sands of time as he raises the scanner once more as though it might reveal a different fate, but it never does.
His chest rises and falls heavily, his arms falling to his sides as he stares blankly. His mind takes a moment to wrap around the reality that you’re not Simurian. You’re human. You’re noisy and weak, your mind can’t keep up with your thoughts, and you’re invasive as hell– you won’t adapt to the illness. And god, is it quiet without you.
Urgency kicks in like a long-dormant volcano coming to life as he moves back to the table, evaluating how many samples he has left. He draws more of his cells, ignoring the tingling feeling in his arm as he injects himself with a drug to draw stem cells from his marrow. He drags more of his lab to the hangar, setting out tables and creating extra boxes able to pressurize to the same barometric pressure as that of an oxygenated atmosphere.
He lowers incubation times to do more tests, changing the parameters so often that his notes become a mess.
You don’t move. He hears you shuffle once on the first day. On the second, he grits his teeth as he listens to your harsh breaths. Your moans, your groans. You move at one point in what sounds like a drag of your feet and he hears water, but he’s not even positive if you make it back to your quarters.
As he watches one of his cells back off from Humanity’s infected lung cells, he leans over the table on two arms, sucking in a long breath. He doesn’t know how long he has. He doesn’t know how long you can survive without food. He doesn’t know if you have more water.
His second pair of hands ball into fists at his sides as he shuts all four eyes tightly. He didn’t know what to do two hundred years ago watching something so similar take out his entire species. He doesn’t know what to do now, stuck in the same situation. His knowledge is far more advanced than everything he knew back then. His technology and abilities exceed everything from back then. So why the fuck can’t he figure it out?
Is it that your suggestions were more useful than he gave you credit for? No, is it that he simply misses them? That they kept his mind from running off-rails into mania?
He works himself to the bone until he’s leaning with his back to your window. With one knee pulled up, he rests his elbow atop it, using his hand to block the light from his pounding head. He absently rubs at the bridge of his nose, eyes shut as he runs through formulas in his head until his mind begins to give in. The only thing he can bring his mind to hone in on is the sound of your heart. The steady reminder of the noisy human he’s doing this for in the first place.
Just as he begins to drift off, the gentle buzz of lights in your ship comes to a halt, a mechanical voice brought to life by necessity.
“Backup power activated. Life support systems online.”
The alien jolts, his slumber interrupted as he stares up at your ship with wild eyes. They flick all around the bridge as he takes in the red light and the way the buttons along the navigation board have dimmed, many shutting off altogether.
“Backup?” He states the word as though the program might respond to him. “Online?” Neither word is in his vocabulary, and as he gets to his feet, all four hands pressed to the glass, he searches desperately for meaning. “Human? Human?” His mind is too worn out to fill in the gaps with context as panic coats his movements like a snake slowly seeping its venom into its prey.
With a final call of your name, his fingers squeak as they drag along the glass. He turns back to his work station, dragging his hands violently over his scalp. He clicks and growls to himself, slamming a lower hand down over one of the sealed pressurized boxes. It cracks easily from his strength, putting his experiments immediately at risk. His eyes widen, two hands raising as though he might be able to stop it with his bare hands. He rushes back through his ship, racing through corridors to find something capable of stopping the crack before it shatters altogether.
Returning with a handful of options, he opts to melt a stone element from his planet into the crack. It’s the safest option he can think of. Sitting back from the soldering gun, he collapses onto the floor in a flurry of exhausted limbs. His stomach mouth parts as his body expends much of his energy on his mental state, only furthering his trouble.
In an effort to gather his thoughts, he leans over his knees, dragging his hands down his face. Backup. Red lights came on, some systems shut down. Using context clues, he can put that together. He pushes down his panic as he works on the second word. Online. He can still hear your ship whirring. He can hear your breathing. Life support must be working.
Okay. One problem down.
No matter how he changes the co-culture or adjusts the selective pressure, no matter how he adjusts his hypothesis or the duress he puts his cells under, the results remain the same. His cells adapt. But never to the disease. They co-exist in separate worlds.
Two eyes flick towards your ship, reminded of you, stuck on your own in a cell of your own doing. His fingers curl into his palm as he drives his focus back to his makeshift lab.
He can’t figure out why his cells won’t recognize yours. You may be different species, but his cells should recognize the pathogen in the Alveolarium as similar to the same illness that took out a majority of Simuria. He’s already adapted past it, and the cell structure isn’t that different.
He drags his nails over his scalp while his lower arms remain in fists. How much power do you have left? How much longer can you survive without water? You’re largely compounded of it based on his scan, can you survive without intake?
With a harsh growl, he pushes to his feet, ignoring the way his muscles protest. Pain simmers as he pushes them, keeping the reins on his control over this situation with an iron grasp. He pushes through the burn, pushes his mind to its limits as he works out chemical compounds with what brain power he has left, all the while continuing to alter the cells’ environment until he has nothing left to give.
–
Your ship doesn’t do its usual chime come morning. What’s worse is that your coughing startles him awake. Your heart stutters, a deadly sound for any species.
Hunched over in an odd position on the floor, Sukuna cracks his neck, rubbing at it as adrenaline pumps through his veins.
You’re dying. For all the tireless work he’s doing, you’re still dying.
He reaches out for the window where you once sat, dragging his fingers over it like your very ship might fall from his grasp at any moment. His breathing accelerates, his chest leaden with the gravity of the situation. Resting his entire body against the glass, all four arms settle along the panel. His head rests unevenly on the panel, off-kilter at the whim of the plate that resides over the right side of his face. A low rumble starts from deep within his chest, erupting in a full-blown furious fit of hisses, clicks, Simurian syllables and roars.
He curses in his mother tongue like he did over a hundred years ago. He’s spent over a century learning, advancing, and searching the damn stars for a bioweapon only for the very same thing to be his demise once again.
Peeling himself off of your ship, he reaches back to rub at a kink in his neck. His first issue was a lack of understanding of your ship system. He fixed that. His second issue is the cells. He can’t fix that without trial and error. His third issue is you dying, which is made up of two issues. The pressure of his ship would crush you, but your own life support systems are failing. When your ship depressurizes, the hull will be crushed, your oxygen will flow out into the sulfuric compounds that make up his air, and you’ll suffocate.
And then there’s the dehydration. And he doesn’t know which one is a more immediate threat. Regardless, his immediate problem is your ship. He stares at it in an effort to figure out how to remove it from the equation.
He could create a new box for you, something smaller than your ship, create his own life support systems for you and pressurize the box by pumping in oxygen and out carbon dioxide, similar to the box he uses for experiments. It’s not impossible in theory, but he doesn’t have the materials on-board to build a box of that size, nor does he have an extra generator capable of creating oxygen at that scale.
The only materials aboard are from your ship, the very thing he can’t tear apart right now.
He drags his hand back through his hair, tearing it straight from the scalp as he fails to find a way to guarantee containment while also pressurizing whatever he can work out. On a small scale, he can manage with what’s in his lab. On a large scale, all he can truly manage is his ship itself. His shoulders fall slowly. His ship.
The pressure of your atmosphere wouldn’t be a big deal on a creature like him. His ship could handle that without question. His muscles would survive. He could wear a suit, pump the sulfuric components through it. He could save you from the immediate threat. For a moment, the thought sits with him. It slips into his chest along his ribs, curling around his pounding hearts. It almost doesn’t feel real.
But when the dust settles and he’s left simply staring at your window, it becomes suddenly, startlingly, real. He turns on his heel like a man on a mission, moving through the ship as he heads for the mechanical room. He wrenches the small metal door with too much force, causing it to bend as he slips down into the tight space.
Machinery hums and breathes around him, worn pipes humming on every side as he shimmies through the space you might think was built by someone else given how much Sukuna is forced to squeeze through it. A whirring tank brushes his skin– hot– burning him in the process, but it’s barely a distraction when he’s aiming for the back of the room.
Sure enough, the sulfuric gas generator residing at the back comes into view quickly. The generator currently keeping his ship pressurized could be repurposed for oxygen through chemical reactions similar to what’s currently generating his sulfuric gasses. He can suit up, and–
His hands come to a halt as he finds himself scanning his surroundings like it might change his fate.
]He only has one generator. He can only create sulfuric compounds for his own atmosphere on a small scale with what he has onboard his ship, but not enough to support him long-term, and what’s currently stored won’t last forever. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg, when he considers that he still has to kill the Kerm, on a planet whose atmosphere he knows nothing about, with creatures built to kill whether through sheer violence or illness. He can’t risk using what sulfuric compounds he has stored while aboard his own ship.
In the cramped space with the generator’s hatch open, he presses the ball of his palm against his temple. There’s an answer. One that he’s already considering. But the cost could be his life. He could make the change to oxygen and pray his body is forced to adapt and maybe save you, should he survive. It’s either that or sit here and listen to your heart and breathing weaken until you’re nothing but a shadow in his hangar bay.
On the flip side, if he doesn’t adapt, then you’re both dead.
Sukuna has always been a man of certainties. He chose science because it makes sense. He chose science, because variables don’t react without reason. He chose science because it gives him control of his outcomes through error and studious attention. But this decision isn’t about science or reason.
This decision is about the hundreds of Simurians he feels responsible for losing. It’s about his revenge against the Kerm. It’s about the noisy human wheezing in his hangar bay who told him she wanted to see Simuria. It’s about the stupid girl whose heart stuttered as she solemnly lied to him about being okay with her fate. It’s about how cold your hand felt, even through the glass.
He barks out a Simurian curse, reaching for the tools necessary to begin generating a different gas.
He wrenches on a cable, giving it a harsh twist to unlock it from its position. The ship comes alight with warnings that he opts to block out as the pressure of the hull begins to shift. It’s not painful to begin, even as the ship’s very structure complains with harsh moans and groans. He floods the chamber with sodium chloride and ups the heat until it begins producing oxygen. As the remaining sulfuric gas runs into a reserve chamber, he shuts the generator and continues to ignore the creaking and warnings his ship spews.
Getting to his feet again, he slides through the tight space, sucking in every last breath he can of sulfuric gasses as they begin to dissipate.
Oxygen hurts. He pushes through the pain, trudging through the halls as he fails to catch his breath, certain that the generator is working when his muscles feel loose as the pressure of the ship adjusts to the new gas flowing through its chambers. He turns down a long hall, ignoring the flashing lights along every wall while the hull groans. When he finally reaches the hangar, his chest doesn’t ache or burn, it sears like something is clawing at him from within, begging to be let out. It’s not his first brush with pain like this, but there’s something different when it’s his lungs. Tears form along his lash line as he lacks sulfuric gasses to his brain, the compounds unable to pump blood to his most important organs.
When he reaches your ship, he stumbles into it, still upright through sheer willpower alone. He slams his fist into the panel nearest where he last knew you were, loosening the edge. His fingers curl around the newly revealed edge and with all the might left in his body, he tears it off. Along with it comes a series of mechanics as your ship begins to beep and protest in tandem with his. Only once he tears through some wiring with a series of flashing lights does your ship finally shut off.
This is it– the test of his own scientific capabilities. Whether or not you survive in the environment he’s artificially created within his own ship.
The blaring alarms mitigate his ability to find you, his head whipping one way or the other. He drags himself through the pain, through the mind-numbing brain fog, picking up a half-finished bottle of water he spots on a counter along the way, until he finds you.
You’re sitting awkwardly in a corner, shivering, but conscious. Alive.
Your eyes are harshly lidded when you stare up at him, clinging to your blanket like it’s a lifeline. Your dry lips part, a look of sheer confusion falling over your expression like you doubt what you’re seeing in the dark corridor of your ship whose systems have completely failed.
Sukuna’s chest struggles to rise and fall evenly, every breath furthering the pain behind his eyes as his lungs fail to pump sulfuric compounds into his bloodstream and his brain function falters. He doesn’t let his knees give out until he’s able to hand you the water bottle.
“S’kuna?” Your voice sounds as though it’s been scraped against the very compounds that make up Simurian mountains. You sound as though you don’t trust your voice, let alone your mind.
Close enough to leave the water within your reach, the giant alien’s body finally gives out. The water hits the floor beside you just within reach as one arm attempts to grab the counter that you lean against. His palm brushes the surface, but his body drops like a stone to the floor beside you, scraping his palm. His vision is narrow as he uses what little strength he has left to envelop you in his arms, acting as a blanket for your shivering form.
The moment he touches you, clarity shoots through your mind like lightning. This is no fever dream, you’re not waking up out of sheer necessity of needing water or a way to warm up. It’s a shock to your system in more ways than one. He’s not just warm– his body runs like a furnace in comparison to yours. He’s so warm that curling into him isn’t a choice, it’s survival and he knows it.
The very thing that kept you apart for so long hits you harder than the shock that Sukuna is beside you. “Wait–” the word comes weakly as you give his arm a shove. It barely affects him. “You can’t–” A cough settles at the back of your throat, interrupting your thoughts. “What did you do?” You rasp out between the kind of coughs that wrack your body and send spikes of pain to every receptor that will listen.
But he doesn’t respond, any semblance of consciousness long gone as his arms go limp. You can’t move him. You can barely move yourself. The most you can do is hope that his body takes to oxygen like it did to science, or whatever it was that truly gave him an extra pair of arms. You assume that’s his hope too.
The flashing lights and warning buzzers continue to blare outside the hull. Your ship offers very little cover from the noise, but enough that your already-foggy mind is able to drown out the noise with the static of illness. Unable to fight the heaviness held over you, you shakily grab the water. You may be too delirious to grasp the true gravity of the situation and what Sukuna’s done, but you know better than to overlook the gift of water.
The massive alien wrapped around you on the ground makes it easy to lean into him, basking in his warmth as it quells a modicum of your shivers. The longer you sit there in the flashing lights and blaring sirens, the more your body gives in to the grasps of the sandman. Subconsciously, you lean into Sukuna– passed out beside you– until your head leans against his shoulder. It doesn’t rise and fall, but you find comfort in the fact that when you press a hand to his chest in search of something, anything, that might give you hope, his heart pushes a single beat through. One after another, each of his two hearts continues to push through the unlikely situation.
That reassurance makes it easier to give in to the forces pushing you to unconsciousness. Because you recognize Sukuna’s actions as more than just kindness in the face of danger.
This is a species you’ve never witnessed whose primary goal was revenge, brought to his knees by the very stowaway he huffed and puffed over being noisy. Not by manipulation or force either, but by choice. Sukuna didn’t just choose to save you. He chose pain, he chose to bet on low odds. He chose to put off his mission, and he chose to endanger and expose himself to disease, all for you.
He isn’t just asking you to live. He’s commanding it.
–
Sukuna doesn’t stir for forty eight hours. You aren’t much better, but at least your body faces wakefulness in the face of dehydration. You don’t know how long Sukuna can survive without food or water, but you have no other option but to hope it’s longer than you.
Midway through the third day is when he finally stirs. It comes in twitches at first. It’s not dramatic, but in the few moments where you’re awake and delirious and you spot any semblance of movement, you cling to him like your life depends on it. Because it does.
Next come the wheezing breaths. Then groans, and sharp inhales that sound unnatural. You feel his pain deep in your ribs like a stabbing sensation. His fingers drag so harshly against the metal floor that his fingers break through it, the metal proving to be little more than an ant to his elephant strength.
Consciousness is dramatic for him.
Like a switch being flicked, his body comes to life and with it, his pain and confusion. He flies back, head ramming harshly into the cabinets you had been leaning against. He huffs out his displeasure, but the sensation is harsh in his chest. His lungs may have adapted, but oxygen is a harsh forced change to sulfur. The compounds shred within his chest, something that has one of his many hands flying up to grip at his chest.
He mutters a harsh curse under his breath in his mother tongue that sends pain back through his throat like a ricocheting bullet. In the cramped confines of your torn-open ship’s hull, he rests his head back against the door to the lab. Every breath is fire in the large expanse of his chest, his lungs accepting the oxygen not out of desire, but need.
He mutters a curse again, recoiling far less as he pushes through the pain. Ignoring the deliriousness of pain and the cramping in his gut, he cards a hand through mildly oily locks, pushing them away from his forehead. When his gaze glues itself to you, blearily watching him from the floor in a state of suspended wakefulness, he freezes altogether.
You’re alive.
His chest finds a new way to deliver pain as he hunches forward, sliding back to the spot where he had clearly been your pillow if your odd position is anything to go off of. He glides over the floor, taking a seat where he had been in an effort to provide a pillow.
The sensation of his returned warmth has your lashes fluttering as you stare up at him. He can see the gears physically turning in your mind as you make sense of him being there, awake, and alive as well.
For a moment, his brain betrays him. He moves on instinct, brushing his thumb over your collar. Only to be met with a weak smack to the chest. He blinks, staring down at you with confusion woven within his fondness.
“You could–” you cough, “have died.”
A series of growls and clicks between syllables you don’t recognize fall from his lips like he’s giving you a full scolding in a foreign language. It almost brings a smile to your dry lips as you recognize only two words.
“Noisy human.” His muscles are fraught from disuse as he hoists you into his lap.
The alarms may have stopped blaring, but the lights around him continue to flash in warning, reminding him of the reason he underwent this in the first place. Under the duress of having very little energy after evolution and his chest protesting his every movement, he groans as he pushes to his feet with you cradled close. He pulls you into his chest, casting a glance down at you as even in sickness, your eyes seem to shine as you watch your environment change. You never fail to bring wonder along with you, no matter the circumstances.
He treats you with the fragility of a flower as he brings you to his lab, moving over a panel that has no identifiable buttons, yet as Sukuna moves his hand over it, you hear the shift behind you. A bed reveals itself from the wall, not entirely unlike that of a human, though it’s a far harder material that he makes adjustments to in order to conform to your body as he lays you down.
His medical equipment isn’t unlike yours. He gets you started on an IV without hesitation, preventing the first of his major worries, and watches as your body shuts down, grateful for the new fluid intake. Every time you fall asleep is no easier than the last. One of his hearts skips, then the second one, but he takes the opportunity to continue his work. He moves the samples back to the lab, no longer bothering with the oxygenated box as he’s able to work faster now.
Waiting is the hardest part. It leaves him feeling powerless, pushing himself to his limits to distract himself from the fact that you look weaker every time his eyes glue themselves to you.
“Dabura’s anniversary was yesterday,” he mutters one morning, standing between you and his experiments where he can monitor both.
His lower hands rest on his waist, the upper arms crossed over his chest like twisting wrong doesn’t still send a shock to his system as his lungs continue to mold themselves to their new dual-purpose. He pushes through, idly taking a step towards you and the pile of blankets he stole from your ship that keep you from shivering.
“You would like the celebration,” he remarks, meandering to the side of your bed. He lowers himself to take a closer look at you, before sinking to his knees. His upper arms rest along the edge of the bed, chin seated atop them. “We have a–” he pauses, glancing aside at the realization that he frustratingly can’t even tell you about the celebration because he lacks the words. He growls, his expression pushing into a scowl as he utters the Simurian word for ‘fire’. “A heat light. It’s big,” he presses on. “We use chemicals to create oxygen vacuums,” he continues. “Everyone comes from across the planet. We eat a lot. Drink.”
You don’t stir.
“You would have liked Satoru. He was noisy, too.” His gaze rises from where he sits to sweep your face. You don’t have the gentle look he’s grown accustomed to anymore, your features sunken and permanently pulled into a pained expression. It wrenches at his chest more than the pain of evolution somehow. “He studied the Kaliyans. Some Simurians have deep ties to them. Neither him or I did, so he chose to study them. We never did find answers before…” He huffs, muttering a curse of clicks and growls. He lets his cheek fall to his arms, at a loss. He shuts all four eyes at the sound of a timer going off, sucking in a breath as he wearily pushes to his feet.
He stares at the hologram emptily. It irks him to see the Alveolarium still rampant, but he expects no less at this point. He doesn’t know what exactly he’s expecting to get out of these at this point when experiments like this don’t just take days. They take years. They take materials and vigorous testing and… He throws his gaze over his shoulder, noting how shallow your breaths are now.
He doesn’t have years. He might not even have days, yet again. He bought himself more time, but he’s back to square one with control slipping through his fingers yet again. He grits his teeth so harshly it sends a sharp pain straight to his brain. One would only catch his wince if they were paying attention, as his bottom left eye twitches from the sensation.
Padding out from the room to give himself a break to eat as he overthinks every equation until there’s no semblance of hope left, he sits casually at the bridge, staring out at the planet below. Green clouds and space debris make up the remnants of the species that created the Kerm, long extinct by the hands of their own bioweapon. Below those clouds are the pinks and blues that make up the largely crystalline surface where the beetle-adjacent species now resides, hungry and in search of new prey.
Kerm. The thought settles between his ribs alongside the pain of his evolution. He always envisioned his arrival at their planet to be more triumphant. He envisioned traveling to its surface to ensure that his hypothesis was correct and they’ve eaten beyond their means, invasive to their own planet and destroying its very ecosystem until all that remains are themselves. Then leaving without a trace of the Kerm, the planet, or his own actions.
Yet all this trip has done is resurface every scar he buried a century ago. He scratches at them until what remains are no longer just scars, but open wounds. Forcing down what food he can manage, he drags a hand down his jaw, staring out at the planet, Methalon. It’s silent for a long moment as he inhales and holds the breath.
In Simurian, he finds himself muttering to himself. “What if you’re right, human?” Another extended silence as the thought lingers. “What if… Kerm are more than your cause? What if they’re your cure, too?”
He taps his finger along the panel in which controls reside as he mulls the thought over, before springing into action. He doesn’t have the luxury to consider the consequences, pressing a palm to the controls as they react to electromagnetic pulses emitted from his brain and read through his fingers as he brings the ship to life for the first time in a couple of weeks, disturbing the spacerock that’s settled around the ship.
With a groan, the ship’s nose shifts as he points it towards the planet’s surface. The pressure surrounding the ship shifts as he nears the atmosphere, far more dense than what you would be accustomed to, so he thanks the stars that it’s him going in place of you. He stops the ship a short distance from the planet’s surface, setting it to hover within the densely gaseous atmosphere. It’ll keep you out of reach of the Kerm, which he hypothesizes shouldn’t be able to reach you with their stubby wings.
Should he be wrong, he supposes you’ll both succumb to his stupidity. He almost cracks a morbid smile at the thought. Not that you both might be a lost cause because of his decisions, but because he so often chides you for being stupid, when he’s recklessly allowing himself to be stupid now, too.
But he’s certainly not noisy. No, he talks to you because you like it. Not because he does. He’s quiet.
Suiting up, he drops to the planet’s surface with his limited sulfuric compound supply, his tank unsuited for oxygen. Gravity pulls him down like nothing he’s ever experienced as he drops heavily to the surface. He expected the dense atmosphere, but it still presses down on him like a weight.
Crystallic compounds crunch underfoot, and he shouldn’t consider himself shocked when he comes across the first series of Kerm, or as he knows them, Methalonians. He supposes the name isn’t very fitting, however, given that they’re unnatural. They killed whatever species was more befitting of the name.
The first one turns towards him, its head swiveling as its iridescent shell reflects the gorgeous light of the crystalline environment aiding it to blend in. It regards Sukuna with an entirely animal head tilt that might fool someone who doesn’t know their methods, but Sukuna isn’t fooled. He grips his EMP gun tighter, preparing himself for the inevitable. While the Kerm believe he’s fooled, he sets down a heavy containment pod, opening it with a hiss.
When he faces the group again, all fifteen or so creatures are facing him. Their wings buzz and hiss as they communicate, their antennae twitching through the air as they coordinate what Sukuna already knows to be an attack.
This time, however, he’s prepared. The first one approaches him slowly and curious, feigning a kindness they don’t possess. The brutish alien keeps up the facade in an effort to keep himself from being buried by a sea of Kerm.
He reaches a suited-up and reinforced hand out to the creature, watching its mandibles click together. It approaches slowly, peering up at Sukuna’s outwardly non-threatening demeanor. Its head tilts as it nears, nudging his fingers like it might provoke him.
But it’s not Sukuna that breaks the facade first. The creature zips forward, smashing its mandibles together where Sukuna’s hand just was, giving him enough time to lunge back. As the rest of the group moves in a coordinated hive towards him, he unleashes a small EMP attack that temporarily disorients the Kerm, sending them in more varied directions.
One that approaches him meets the fate of a heated vibrating dagger to its thorax, while another leaps at Sukuna’s shoulder. He spins, wrenching his shoulder in an effort to dislodge it from his suit, but its mandibles dig into the material. The material is impenetrable by their mandibles, but fuck if it doesn’t hurt anyway.
Hissing, Sukuna throws an arm around the Kerm to prevent it from leaving as he pulls the gut-ridden blade from the previous Kerm to lodge it into the next one. He remains largely in control, throwing one off to tear another from its own thorax with the blade the following moment until the smaller crowd re-coordinates itself. Sukuna launches another small EMP attack, throwing two of the group off, while the remaining four all leap at him at once. Mandibles clamp down on one shoulder, while another clings to his abdomen, choosing to methodically jab at the spots where his organs are.
Smart little asshole.
Sukuna recoils, hissing as pain rips through his stomach just beyond where his second mouth can reach. It momentarily disorients him, knocking him to the ground long enough that the remaining two Kerm are able to pile themselves onto him as well. They separate him from both the EMP and dagger, the sound of the vibrating tool over the crystalline earth grating on his nerves.
He shuts his eyes tightly, attempting to reset himself as he evaluates how much he’s been stamped down. He grits his teeth, grunting as he manages to lift an arm and throw one creature off with enough force to disorient it. The freed hand allows him to get enough leverage to flip himself over, slamming one hand straight through the creature’s shell. With one fierce glare, he flips the fight back in his favor, grabbing an incoming Kerm by the head and crushing it in one hand.
With a majority of his movement freed, he picks up the EMP again, blasting the remaining three insects and smashing them too, leaving only the one he tossed aside earlier. He grabs it by the thorax, wrangling it between two arms as he shoves it into the containment box with his spare set of hands. Once it’s inside, he lets out a huff, staring down at his gut-covered suit. He’ll need to be sure he carefully washes himself and his suit after this, given that he doesn’t want to expose you to more diseases that the bioweapon could have hidden beneath its shell.
Getting back to his feet, he better evaluates the surrounding environment. There’s evidence of trees, of civilization and buildings in the distance now turned to rubble and ash. He doesn’t have much sulfuric compounds left to breathe, so he figures he’ll do a once-over of the planet from within the ship, focusing his efforts back on a cure for you as he returns to the safety of his ship.
–
Splaying the Kerm’s insides across his workbench proves to be a disgusting feat. Even within a containment box, the smell permeates the damn room. He ends up moving it into the hangar, which by some grace has better filtration, but Sukuna finds himself further beaten down by the smell. As if his failures weren’t enough.
Unlike his cells, the Kerm’s stem cells do attack the Alveolarium… Unfortunately, no matter how he attempts to alter them, they only ever seem to act as aggressors.
For as smart as Sukuna is, he finds himself missing your curiosity. Your stupid questions. You challenge him. Not just because you’re noisy, but because you’re far more willing to approach the unlikely with an open mind. You lack the knowledge he has, specializing in natural biology where Sukuna excels in chemistry, cytology, geology, archeology, and engineering, but he’s also had a few extra years. Your lack of specific knowledge allows you to excel in general knowledge that Sukuna found himself praising you for.
Mentally. It’s easier to show fondness through actions than words, after all.
Bringing a hand up to his eyes, he presses a thumb and forefinger into them, yawning as every continued failure sets him back not just physically, but mentally too.
He collapses at the base of your bed, your breathing setting his nervous system into a furious rage of emotion as he realizes for the first time how close he truly is to losing you, with no cure in sight. Your species is weak in every sense of the word. Your muscles lack the build that Simurians have, your brain’s capacity is low, your immune system could be knocked over by a harsh wind, and yet Sukuna can’t help but find you endearing. Your lifespan is barely a smear in the grand scheme of his life, and yet the brutish alien, a species who mates for life, finds himself wondering how many ways you might be able to throw his life into disarray.
He wants your annoying quips. He wants your too-loud rambles. He wants to feel you warm in his arms, your eyes bright and wide as he shows you a Simurian mountaintop in some dumb-looking suit of his creation.
He slams his head back against your bed with enough force to rattle the very stone that makes it up. Dragging his hands down his face, the most he can do is stare at the experiments as one by one the timers go off and he’s left with one failure after another. His gaze splits as he looks between not just one, but four separate failures. Pushing his hands back through his hair, he balls his fists within the strands, eyes shut tight. Sitting so close to you, he still feels far. He finds himself mourning something he has yet to lose.
You haven’t awoken in several days, and as much as he wishes he could equate it to illness, the fact is that you’re dying. He can pump as many nutrients as he wants straight into your body without allowing your stomach the opportunity to reject his food, it’ll only do so much when it’s not your stomach fighting you anymore. It’s your lungs.
Every round of failed experiments is another scathing tear at his wounds as he leans against your bed on the floor. His gut aches where the Kerm attempted to strategically puncture his suit and beneath his performance longsleeve are several mild puncture wounds that only serve as annoyances in the grand scheme of things.
“I’m the foolish one,” he states simply out of the blue. “Not you.” He doesn’t follow it up with a long-winded explanation or flourish, it’s as simple as he makes it. You only ever did what you thought was right, giving every living creature the benefit of the doubt. It landed you in a cell, parked in his garage, but god damn it. You gave life your all. You lived without regrets. Sukuna’s lifespan trumps yours, and yet he lives with every weight he’s ever conjured still boiling under his skin.
He’s spent over a hundred years building himself into an impenetrable wall. The kind of man that doesn’t let his past haunt him. Yet here you are, under his skin like a leech and wrapped around his mind with roots that dig straight for his hearts.
He’s so wrapped up in his thoughts that he doesn’t feel your hand at first, as it slips into his hair. He jolts when at last he feels movement against his head, whipping up to face you. He meets your eyes from barely over the bed, heavily hooded as you regard him with a small smile in spite of yourself.
His shoulders fall as he approaches the side of the bed again, resting his head atop his arms. His lips press into a thin line as he doesn’t just let you reach back out, but leans into your touch against his cheek.
“You know,” you rasp, unsurprisingly coughing. “I was wrong about Kerm, but I wasn’t–” another cough, “wrong about you.”
His brow furrows, a deep scowl overtaking his features. Your words sound startlingly like the kind of thing that one might say when they’re coming to terms with the decisions they made in life, further wrenching his hearts.
“Thanks for trying to help Earth.”
He growls and clicks his displeasure with your words, earning a laugh that feels warm even in sickness. When you quiet down, his muttering is nearly unintelligible. “I don’t care about Earth.”
“I know,” you smile, your thumb trailing down his cheek as one lower eye flutters shut. “I like you too, Sukuna.”
He allows himself the peace of shutting his eyes, kneeling beside your bed with his cheek in your hand until his legs go numb and you pass out again. Pain spikes through his knees when he finally rises and straightens them, sighing as he wearily looks over his experiments again. His gaze passes over a hologram displaying one of his cells idly standing by as he considers what the hell he could possibly be doing wrong when something finally hits him like the full force of a jet engine as something dangerous surges into his chest– hope.
His cells are part of a system. A system capable of sending electromagnetic pulses like thoughts to his cells in order to trigger mutation. Sure, the cells will mutate on their own no matter what you put them through, but could the reason they aren’t accepting your cells be because there’s no system to indicate to his cells that there’s an issue?
He’s been approaching the whole situation under the lens of his cells being anti-pathogens, when in fact they’re closer to mutagens. They aren’t a cure, they would never be accepted as a cure. In fact, he’s willing to wager a bet that you’re right and there is a cure that could be pulled from the Kerm, but he doesn’t have the time to figure that out.
His cells could very well re-write your DNA. They could overwrite important information, they could make you more sick. He doesn’t know. His experiments will never work without a live test subject. But on the flip side, they could save you. They could mutate your cells into something capable of handling Alveolarium. Quite frankly, when both alternatives are death, he’s willing to give it a shot.
He moves across the room quickly, hitting a dial that brings to life a hologram in order to act as a whiteboard. He takes your weight and general body size, measuring the exact quantity of his cells that would need to be injected in order to fight a full system infection without the dose being lethal, or possibly mutating beyond control. Gene therapy is a risky move by all means, but he doesn’t have any other options.
He moves through the lab with ease as he extracts a new sample from his lower arm, moving it in a box to ensure his cells aren’t contaminated. He isolates the cells necessary at a dosage he prays is non-lethal and injects them into a sample of healthy stem cells you provided before you got sick to act as carriers.
With a final check of his calculations, he moves to your bedside, praying the healthy cells trick your body into accepting his cells. Sucking in a breath, he injects the gene therapy, and pulls up a chair to wait.
There’s nothing ceremonious about the wait. Sukuna busies himself by continuing to search for a cure, something you can send to Earth assuming he didn’t rip through the return vessels in his effort to get to you. After every pair of gloves he tosses aside, he always returns to the same chair to wait, resting his head on the edge of your bed.
On the second day when he wakes up with his hair glued to his forehead by sweat and drool dripping down his cheek, he moves to wipe it when he finds his head weighed down. He blinks, unable to see past the arms crossed under his cheek, but when he lifts his gaze just slightly, he finds you’ve shifted for the first time in days. Your hand is settled on the back of his head, fingers curled into his hair.
When he tries to tilt his head, your hand falls away again. You’re still asleep, but the hope in his chest surges.
Your face fills out properly over the next couple of days. He seems to miss your waking hours whenever they do happen on his horribly varied sleep schedule, but your coughing fits begin to die down and your breathing evens out.
It’s almost a week later when you wake up with an ache in your muscles like no other, but relief in your chest. The ceiling should be unfamiliar, but even within your fever dreams, you knew glimpses of him were real. Your head lolls to the side, the bedding beneath you rough in spite of its conformity to your body. Across the room, Sukuna moves around the ship in a frantic bout of quick movements. There’s a crudeness to his movements that doesn’t fit the put-together Simurian you’ve come to know. You catch a glance of the side of his face, noting the dark circles under two eyes that rest in a familiar fashion on his face, while those that sit angled along flesh are simply squinting more than usual.
He yawns, betraying the obvious. There’s a slight tremor to his hand as he uses a pipette to transfer cells. He sets a phial down, his lower arms heavily leaning over his work table. It’s obvious weariness plagues him to his marrow, but he doesn’t stop for a second.
“Sukuna?”
Crash!
In the flurry of his limbs leaving the table as he whips around, he sends an empty flask to the floor. Not a single one of his eyes shifts to follow the mess, frantically flickering around your face as he searches for signs of illness. Rather than the dull look he’s faced for the past week, he finds a gleam that he mentally pockets for later. He moves towards you in slow, lumbering steps like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s seeing, before lowering down to a kneel. His skin is deeply calloused, far denser than human skin, as his hands come to rest on your cheeks.
You find yourself biting back a smile as the stoic alien you’ve come to know keeps his intense gaze on you as he nuzzles his nose against you. You may not know Simurian, but you know animals. In some species, that’s a kiss.
“Sukuna?”
He hums.
“Was that a kiss?”
His lips press into a line, nudging his nose slightly against yours again like action is easier than a reply.
“Humans kiss with their lips,” you explain softly.
He doesn’t move immediately, his face a breadth from yours. Something cocky and knowing gleams within his gaze. A laugh bubbles from within your chest but it comes out as a cough, which you attempt to stifle, pulling back momentarily. Sukuna drags you back like he can’t stand the mere thought of distance.
Your laughter subsides quickly as you try hard not to grin.
The stoic Simurian’s breath comes out in an eager puff against your face. “Lips are usually for other things,” he offers with a suggestive tone. But he doesn’t know how to deny you anymore. The corner of his lips quirk up as he surges forward, engulfing you in a claiming kiss. You don’t know what exactly a kiss means for a thousand-year-old being that spends their life with one person when you only live a fraction of his lifespan, but in spite of that you don’t think you mind finding out.
Everything about the kiss is all-encompassing. His smell floods your senses first, the sort of sterile musk that comes with a man working himself to the bone in a lab. His taste doesn’t match it, though. There’s a spice to his taste that isn’t Earthly in nature, but it’s pleasant like a warm herbal tea. It’s intoxicating and addicting all the same, the kind of taste you could get drunk on, should he let you.
His grip doesn’t let up, hands sliding up the base of your scalp as he tips your head back to deepen the kiss. Your hands fly up to his collar, curling into the thick material of his muscle-tight shirt for purchase. It’s dizzying, and not just because your head is spinning with the sheer amount of thoughts bouncing around your overactive mind like ping pong balls. His lips move against yours in the kind of rhythm that doesn’t just insinuate passion, but something far deeper. A desperation that can only be conveyed through actions.
You can sense his resistance as you pull back, but you find yourself laughing as your hands splay across his broad chest. “Sukuna,” you tease. “I’m feeling better, but you still need to give my lungs a break.” You laugh airily, chest rising and falling heavily as he refuses to break contact.
The lumbering giant’s shoulders tense for a moment, then relax, his hands gliding down the column of your neck to rest on your shoulders. He takes the opportunity to envelop you in all four arms, grateful to find you’re no longer shivering. You don’t hesitate for even a moment, arms snaking around his neck as you bury your face into his neck.
“How’d you do it?”
He inhales, letting out a breath of relief as he relaxes into your grip in spite of his awkward hunched position over your bedside. “My cells aren’t like yours. They react to neural oscillations and signals sent through electromagnetism. We were trying to use them like anti-pathogens, but they aren’t.”
“They’re mutagens,” you finish the thought in an excited burst, pulling back to face him with those wonder-filled wide eyes he’s come to adore. “You did gene therapy.”
He chuffs proudly, puffing out his chest under your hands. It’s somehow far more endearing up close.
“Wait, oh my god–” You proclaim suddenly like you’ve come to the greatest realization on earth. “Do you think that means I can breathe sulfur? Or– Or maybe I can grow extra arms,” you murmur, wiggling your fingers over his chest.
His expression deadpans. “No.”
“But if you changed my DNA with alien DNA–”
“That’s–” He breathes out a sigh, amused with your overactive imagination and how fast your mouth moves before your mind can catch up. “That’s not how gene therapy works.”
“Bummer,” you pout. It’s clear the word perplexes him as he narrows his eyes, but he cracks a hint of a smile. He gets it regardless.
You let the moment hang, laughing airily as the reality of your last two weeks truly hits you. Sukuna doesn’t handle the situation with the same lightness as you do, pulling you back into his chest and muffling your laughter altogether. You wrap your arms around his torso once more in reassurance. “I’m still here,” you promise.
“Stupid human,” he mutters, his chin dipping over your shoulder as he locks you tightly against him with a squeeze. When you bury your face into his broad chest, he winces, hiding it behind another squeeze as he attempts to ignore the meager injuries left behind by the Kerm. “Stupid, weak human.”
“I know,” you murmur into his chest. “I know. But I’m here now.”
–
The difference between Human and Simurian traditions turns out to be greater than you think. Not in the sort of grand way you might expect, but in the sense that Sukuna doesn’t quite seem to know what to make of being close. Of course, Humanity aims to choose a person for life, but not without trial and error. For Simurians, there’s some sort of instinct. Something Humans don’t possess that has Sukuna uncertain how to navigate the idea of courting you. In particular, while you’re still recovering.
Your pulse increases to a steady waking beat as your lashes flutter open. You’ve gotten accustomed to the strange way the stone bed conforms to your shape, but you have yet to grow accustomed to the way you’re greeted every morning, even a week into your recovery where– by and large– you just have a cough.
You’ve barely roused when Sukuna’s hand is firmly planted on your jaw, tilting your head left and right. “Nngh, Sukuna,” you sigh, fingers wrapping around his wrist. He doesn’t budge, not satisfied until he’s determined that you’re still on a steady road to recovery. His fingers loosen once he lets out a steady breath, his palm sliding down to your cheek. He doesn’t hesitate for so much as a moment to lower himself to his knees and brush his nose against yours. The Simurian nuzzle is something you’ve grown fond to waking up to and even in your half-asleep state, you find yourself unable to hold back a grin.
“You haven’t coughed yet.”
“I just woke up,” you reply groggily, amused.
“You’re better.”
“Getting there,” you chide, staring down at the mountain of a man on his knees for you. Every morning gets easier, and every morning you have a menacing-looking puppy greeting you at your bedside. It makes recovery easier, especially when you’re forced to eat some sort of alien vegetables he cultivated for you upon converting his compost room to a garden as the only food your body won’t reject, alongside nutrients he continues to inject into your bloodstream.
Slowly pushing up to a sitting position, you suppress a cough that comes across as a personal affront to the bulky alien, who stands upright with you. “How did the experiment from last night go?” You query, your vision still mildly blurry from sleep as you look over the holograms opposite you.
“We’re close,” he murmurs, long strides taking him across the room. “Your hypothesis was right. The Kerm cells react to heat, but not too much heat. I was killing them before.”
Rubbing your eyes, you smile. “So we’re close to a cure that we can send back?”
He pauses, facing you. He’d been unwilling to send his own cells back to the very people who sent you to your death, but at your request, he’d continued experimentation for a cure that didn’t require gene therapy. “I don’t understand why you care.”
“There were eight billion Humans, Sukuna.” Your head tilts in sympathy for the fact that he resents a whole species for their treatment of you. “The hundred or so involved in sending me here shouldn’t be responsible for punishing the rest of the species.”
“Punishing,” he repeats the word, though he doesn’t need an explanation when he can use context clues.
Pushing to your feet, you walk on weakened feet to join him, sidling up to his warmth. “You know, I never got the chance to thank you.”
Two eyes flicker down to you, questioning, while the other two evaluate the weakened state of your muscles.
“You’re breathing oxygen.”
“I am.”
“And you risked getting Alveolarium from me.”
He stubbornly looks up. “I did.”
If there’s one thing that remains the same between your species, it would seem it’s embarrassment. Sukuna is over one thousand years old with no partner. You can only assume he never found someone, or prefers solitude. Or, more aptly, preferred. It’s safe to say he doesn’t know how to navigate your healthy return to his life.
As you jovially grin at his side, Sukuna adjusts the temperatures of his experimentations, each by a fraction of a degree, before he turns to face you. The tension in his shoulders has released upon seeing you eagerly facing him with clasped hands. “Yes, human?”
“Can I see the rest of your ship?”
“Not until you’re well.”
“I’m literally fine!”
He crosses both pairs of arms over his built chest. “You coughed.”
“There was something in my throat,” you counter.
His lip curls in haughty frustration. He clicks with intermittent syllables that you’re unable to put together. Missing the word, he goes with the simplest train of thought. “No.”
Stepping towards him, your palms settle over his lower veiny forearms. Your thumbs rub small circles into his tough skin, the hair on his arms noticeably standing on-end. “Please? I promise I’m okay.” His eyes narrow a fraction. “I wanna see how you keep your food, and where you’re growing those turnip things. Oh–! And the bridge, and– Wait, your ship is so big, what else do you even have here? Do you–”
He huffs loudly, but you note that in spite of the scowl pulling his brow down, relief floods his gaze and his lips fluctuate wildly between a frown and smile. It doesn’t take much for him to give in, loosening an arm as he wraps it around your shoulders in an effort to steady you as he leads the way through the ship.
It’s massive beyond anything you could ever comprehend. Metals you’re not even positive exist on Earth line the walls and natural bioluminescent amoebas are used to light long stretches of hall where wasting energy is unnecessary. Light only exists where needed, like bathing a large medical bay with a missing bed and several bottles and boxes thrown astray as though the room was flipped upside down in search of supplies. Your heart surges with something dangerous at the sight, as you know the stoic creature beside you– who doesn’t so much as bat an eye at the mess– did this for you. He tossed aside equipment and tore through supplies in order to keep you alive, who barely lives a fraction of his lifespan.
Hell, he’s almost twice your height and keeps walking at your unsteady and slow pace without so much as a peep. His hand shuffles from your shoulder to your back as he briefly points out a food hall complete with a garden and a large freezer for overgrowth and cured meats. There’s a pungent smell to the room befitting of what was once a compost bay.
“Is this what I’ve been eating?”
He chuffs, lifting a heavy arm to point at what you would otherwise describe as a radish. He states its name in his mother tongue, not bothering to translate given that the syllables thrown in between each click sound painfully like ‘engine’ and he’s heard you use that word before, so it simply doesn’t translate into a word you can both use. You nod your approval as he continues his tour with little fanfare, his hand gliding from your back to your elbow.
“I’m lucky,” he states, “they’re the only plant that will grow in oxygen from what I tried.”
Next, he leads the way through an exercise hall, a gravity converter, and a communications bay. His ship dwarfs yours in every possible way and it’s all intended for just one person. The real enigma, however, is the way his hand keeps shifting on you, like he isn’t quite sure what to do with himself now that he has you back and you’ve kissed.
“I didn’t think you’d be so awkward,” you blurt out without a care in the world, pleased as you tilt your head to find his expression narrowing just slightly.
“Awkward?” He searches for confirmation despite being able to put the context clues together.
“You keep moving your hand. Seven times now, Sukuna,” you tease, your grin widening.
“I’m guiding you,” he grumbles dismissively.
“I don’t need a hand to guide me through a ship. I’m a good follower.”
His gaze glides to the side, teeth gritting as he clicks his disapproval. “Noisy.”
Laughing, you give him a nudge that pulls his attention back. His usual aloof gaze briefly flickers across your face like he expects signs of sickness before fixing on your chiding grin. “You’re allowed to be nervous, Sukuna.”
“I’m not.” He growls out some sort of curse word in Simurian, continuing on the walk through the ship as he finds the explanation he needs. “I don’t know Human traditions. I don’t know how to move forward.”
You bite back a smile at the sweet admission. “Well, humans are a bit different.” You give him a thoughtful peek from beneath your lashes, catching the way it disengages the tension in his shoulders. “We try to stay partners for life, but we’re complicated. Emotions get in the way, people change–”
“You would separate from your partner in such a short life?” Sukuna sounds utterly shocked at the thought, his nose wrinkling as he stops dead in his tracks. He turns to face you, staring at you like he wants to shake the mere idea from existence by your shoulders.
“We try not to. But sometimes it’s inevitable.” You shrug. “Sometimes you fall out of love with the person you marry or date, or sometimes things change or distance gets in the way–”
“Then you talk about it. Or visit.” His voice comes out clipped with edge. You can’t tell whether he intends it to.
“Our transportation isn’t very advanced. The ship I was in,” you explain, pointing over your shoulder, “it’s the tenth one capable of space travel beyond our own moon.”
The brutish alien’s scowl lessens as something of far greater importance occurs to him suddenly. You allow the silence that stretches on as you recognize his troubled expression. He’s grappling with something he doesn’t know how to address. The ship stands by idly in the moment where Sukuna straightens, settling a pair of hands on his hips while the others cross over his chest. He doesn’t move as he speaks with a flat tone that almost conveys solemnity. “I can take you back. To Earth. Along with the cure, once it’s ready.”
Somewhere between the kiss, the illness, and the acceptance that your fate was to die, you forgot that there was another option. “What if I don’t want to?”
Sukuna’s gaze travels listlessly left and right. It’s clear this is something he’s considered. After all, imprisonment awaits you on Earth regardless of the cure. What point is there in returning? And yet, Simuria would be imprisonment in a roundabout way, too. You can’t breathe the sulfuric gas. He isn’t even confident in your ability to withstand the barometric pressure in one of the suits in his ship.
He doesn’t answer immediately, either pretending something caught his attention by tilting his second ear towards something, or genuinely listening to something. Regardless, he glances aside as he considers your question before proceeding to completely ignore your query. “How do Humans wed?” He mutters, as though the concept that he doesn’t know makes him mad.
“We date first,” you chuckle. “We impress one another. We go out and do fun things together. We give gifts and spend time being intimate. Like, cuddling and kissing. Oh–! And then if things are going well, one person presents the other with a ring with a pretty stone in the middle and if things are right, that person says yes and then they wed and there’s a big ceremony, and then both people get rings, and friends come visit, and–”
Sukuna bends down to your height, nudging your nose once, then kissing you. “What’s a ring?”
Giddily, you can’t help a giggle as he shuts you up without complaint of your noisiness, simply backtracking to the portion of your rambling he doesn’t understand. “It goes around your finger.” Instinctively reaching for his face, your finger traces along the edge of the protruding plate from his face. One of his eyes twitches, but he allows you to do so. “It signifies to humans that you’re in a committed relationship with another human.” Your finger traces the side of his face as he stays bent to your height. “Do Simurians have something like that?”
“Tattoos.”
Your eyes brighten. “Humans do that sometimes in place of wedding rings, too. Basically, you present one ring when you want to get married, and then when you do get married, you get matching tattoos around your fingers instead of matching rings. It’s actually really–”
He kisses you again, that familiar spice of tea flooding your senses pleasantly.
Undeterred, you inquire about Simurian traditions. “What about for you?”
“We simply… Know.”
You pout at the mere thought. “Like love at first sight?” You whisper eagerly.
He nudges your nose, growling his disapproval. “Instinct.” He straightens. “No rings. The date of the ceremony is decided based on when other Simurians are available.”
“Oh right, they’re like holidays.”
He chuffs.
“Were they always, though? You said… I mean, you–”
“There used to be over a thousand of us, yes.” He doesn’t bother skirting around the question. “No, we didn’t always do things this way. We used to be selective.” He sucks in a breath, pushing past the question with little fanfare. “The ceremony has a fire,” he states now that he has the word after some experimentation involving it, “and a ceremonial dance.”
“I can’t picture you dancing,” you giggle.
His eyes narrow. “I don’t. The dancers dance.”
“Of course, of course, my bad,” you grin.
“Then, we braid one anothers’ hair, and an elder tattoos us.”
You smile at the differing culture. “That sounds beautiful.” Your gaze slowly rises to his short, pushed back hair. “Your hair isn’t very long, though.”
“Our hair has to be long enough to braid before Simurians can be wed. Or in some cases, exceptions can be made.”
“So you’d have to grow it out?” When he chuffs, you tilt your head with a grin. “That’s kinda hot.”
Catching the compliment in your tone, Sukuna shifts, a rare smirk crossing his features as he tracks the way your hands rest on your hips.
“Are we talking like a braid in your whole hair or just a small portion?”
“A small portion.”
Your grin widens. “That’s kinda cute. You’d be like a Jedi apprentice! Only, I don’t think it’s fitting to call you an apprentice, you’re more like–”
“Human.” Sukuna’s chiding carries far less annoyance since your recovery. “I don’t know ‘Jedi’.”
“Oh–! Right, yeah, I guess you guys don’t have Star Wars. Well, at least you avoided the sequel trilogy,” you mutter more to yourself than him when he lets out a huff as you turn to explore his ship again. He no longer leads the way, allowing you to explore all on your own, only keeping a hand on you to ensure steadiness as though your dwindling cough might blow you over. At least, that’s what he would tell you if you asked why he insists on keeping a hand on you.
His ship is vast. It could be compared to several acreages where your ship is barely the equivalent of a small apartment. The size is staggering, and you begin to realize exactly what he meant when he said Simurians enjoy having large properties to themselves.
“So, do your instincts just like… line up with the other person?”
“Generally.”
“How do you tell one another that you’re in love?”
Sukuna is silent for so long that you stop at the precipice that leads down into a storage and whip around to face him. He’s scowling at you with that kind of look that has you realizing your bug-based brain has missed a very Human– or in this case, Simurian– social cue.
“We nuzzle.”
You purse your lips as you’re faced with an intensity that’s oddly sweet given the frown it’s accompanied by. It’s not like you haven’t figured out by now that Sukuna is fond of you, but the reality of Humanity and Simurians is that he’ll outlive you. You’ll be nothing more than a distant memory by the time his hair goes gray. Assuming it does that, anyway. That’s not even beginning to address the planetary differences, atmosphere issues and dietary needs amongst other things.
Or the fact that you’ve known him for only a few weeks. Unusual by Human standards to be in talks of marriage, but by Simurian standards, you suppose he’s implying he chose you already. As much as the very Human part of you wants to call him yours, the scientist in you knows only compatibility. He’s a Thorny Devil Stick Insect to your Isopod Cubaris. Everything about the situation is absurd and your brain and your heart are fighting for keeps– Sukuna, or the reality that you should return to Earth and let Sukuna find a Simurian that allows his instincts to kick in.
As you stare blankly at him with pursed lips, he steps closer into your space, examining the way you fiddle with the hem of the hoodie draped over your shoulders. His movement kicks you back into the present.
“O-oh–! The nose, uh– The nose thing? The kiss?”
He huffs, shockingly cross as he averts his gaze. “Yes, the nose thing.”
You swallow hard, the reality of your harshly pounding heart bringing to light every issue you’ve already gone over in your head in spite of the fact that you’ve spent so long craving the touch of this ten foot tall man you have no right to. “Sukuna, I barely live like a thirtieth of your life span.”
The noise he lets out is something between an affirmative chuff that he knows and a grumble of sorts. He lets the moment hang, unsure what to make of it before brushing it off with something too simple. “Instincts,” he grumbles, nearing you again as his face lowers to yours. Without knowledge of dates or Earthly traditions, the most he can do is press his lips to yours. There’s something pleading in it that melts every reservation your brain screams at you.
His lips are never soft, neither in texture nor movement. He’s a being that lumbers around and his strength is beyond obvious. You feel that, too, in the way he aims to claim you, should you let him. When he leaves the ball in your court, you press forward, wrapping your arms around his neck as the kiss deepens.
Your tongue slips against his lips like an invitation that he doesn’t hesitate to grasp as he takes charge again. He still tastes of something with an overall spicy tang that you can’t place, but it’s no less pleasant now than it was the first time. No longer weakened by illness, he takes the opportunity to lift your thighs with his lower arms while his upper arms support your torso as he hoists you up, straightening. His lower hands knead your thighs in what feels like a subconscious manner, thumbs gliding over the stretch marks and scars of a life not yet fully lived.
He stumbles towards the wall, caging you between him and it, the strange coarse texture of the metals that make up his ship cool against the spot where your hoodie’s ridden up. He presses in, his lips moving faster, his body pressed against yours so tightly that you can feel the fact that his stomach mouth is panting.
The things that does to your body should be studied. Just as you grip him tighter, fingers curling into fists in his hair, he pulls back with a strange rigidity to him. “You never– I can still bring you back. To Earth,” he offers through pants in a tone that doesn’t suit his usual clipped and formal one. The uncertainty swimming in his gaze is unbefitting of him.
“Wh–” You look around like someone might be around to share your incredulous stare. “You’re asking that now?”
He swallows hard, the movement betraying his embarrassment. Good to know he’s capable of that, truly. “I want to give you the option.”
“Is it greedy of me to ask for both?”
He tilts his head curiously, something of a clicking noise coming from deep within his throat as he places just enough distance between your faces to take in your expression.
“It would be nice to make sure the cure gets delivered to the right people when we get there,” you admit, “but I’d like to say bye to Shoko and my family.”
He sucks in a breath. “You lost ten years getting here. You would lose another ten returning, and–” his hands dig into your thighs, his shoulders tightening as he calculates distance based on where you identified the Milky Way in your many scientific discussions prior to your illness. “Seven more, at least, on the trip to Simuria.”
Your gaze falls. “Oh.” Leaning back against the cool wall that suddenly feels nice on the back of your head, your fingers curl into Sukuna’s multi-sleeved compression shirt. “So I’d be over fifty,” you murmur. It shakes you to your core, and you lean into Sukuna.
He adjusts his arms to embrace you, nuzzling his face into the crook of your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
The silence that follows is a welcome one of mourning. You had accepted death sealed in a tin can in the void of space. You had accepted death faced with illness, grateful to have met such a wonderful otherworldly being. You had been satisfied knowing you fell for someone, even if it never came to fruition. It had all been enough.
Until Sukuna came barreling through the hull keeping you imprisoned, unwilling to let death be an option.
To say you fell harder would be an understatement. If the option ever presented itself, there was never a question what you would choose. There is no question what you’re choosing.
After an extended period of silence, you lift your head from Sukuna’s shoulder. “The pods aren’t too damaged to make it to Earth?”
He blinks a number of times, questioning your decision-making. “I didn’t damage them.”
“Then… As long as my friends and family know I made it to the cure, that’s enough.”
Slowly, Sukuna sets you back on the ground, a surprising amount of conflict in the way he runs his tongue over his teeth, casting his glance at the makeshift garden whose artificial sun has set.
The low bioluminescence of the hall light glows softly over his features as you watch his expression pull taut. “You don’t seem happy.”
“I am,” he argues, flashing you a glare as he mutters something under his breath in Simurian.
“Then what’s wrong?”
He sucks in a breath, stepping forward as he leans his massive form down to your height. “You’ll be stuck aboard this ship until I can figure out something better.”
“I could use a suit!” You offer gleefully. “Actually, that would be kinda cool if you think about it–” you begin, your mind wandering. “It’ll be kinda like all the movies and shows I watched growing up and then I can come back to my little– no, actually this place is huge– my huge ship, or I guess our huge ship–”
Sukuna doesn’t interrupt you for once, chuffing not in affirmation but amusement. There’s almost a purr to it as you prattle on about how every kid on Earth dreams of being an astronaut and here you are on an alien ship. He casts you a sidelong glance as you make commentary on the hot alien company you’ve found, sidling up to him with a grin as you compliment him.
“Hey, um– Do you wait until marriage?” You query with warmth in your cheeks, sending the conversation in a complete one-eighty.
“For what?”
“Sex.”
Sukuna’s jaw shifts as he regards the small being beside him. “Sex?”
“Um–” Your gaze averts as your cheeks warm further. “Like reproduc–” you pause when you narrowly catch his lip quirking up out of the corner of your eye. “You know what I mean. You’re fucking with me.” You face him with a deadpan expression.
The creature rumbles in amusement. “Noisy human,” he chides. “I’m not having sex with you here. My ship is meant for one. We don’t wait, but this is unsightly.”
“Oh, so now you have decorum?”
Using context clues to put together the meaning of your retort, he straightens. “When have I not?”
“You call me annoying all the time!”
“I call you noisy. And I’m right,” he puffs his chest out as he crosses his arms over his chest as he continues your little tour.
–
The long-awaited day comes far sooner than Sukuna could have imagined. After countless temperature adjustments and endless suggestions from you that may have had him rolling his eyes weeks ago, the fresh Kerm stem cells attack the infected Alveolar cells, curing them.
He straightens, watching the immediate reaction under the duress of an exact temperature, and replicates it once more. Then again. And again.
You’re already watching, on the edge of your seat as you set aside the roasted turnip you were eating. You both wait with bated breath as the fifth experiment comes out as a success.
“It worked,” you breathe, getting to your feet. “You did it.” Disbelief coats your tone, the dimmed lab lighting reflecting off of Sukuna’s gloves as he discards them and steps back, staring at all five successes.
“A cure,” he states. His disbelief is plain, but there’s something far greater woven within the way his fists ball up at his sides and his shoulders rise.
He failed once and his species suffered for it. Maybe it’s not Simuria, but Earth means something to you. And this time, he didn’t fail.
As control weaves itself back into his grasp, he stares down at his hands, sucking in a breath. Blinking as tears prick his waterline, he stays put so as to not reveal his vulnerability to you.
But you’re already bounding towards him, practically whipping yourself around his immovable form to hug him with unmatched ardor. “You did it!” Your whole body trembles with relief at the thought that just maybe Shoko is still out there, and this might save not just her, but your entire home. Your family.
With a sharp inhalation, Sukuna’s arms curl around you, lifting you effortlessly, as he hides his relief in your shoulder. “We did.”
But as you put together instructions for cell breeding and duplication and prepare the cure to be sent to Earth, so too comes the day Sukuna has been dreading.
Staring out the window after sending off the cure, you lean over the control panel, wide-eyed as the stars twinkle back at you. You whip around to face your companion, but your question is met with a solemnity you aren’t expecting. “What now? To Simuria?”
Sukuna’s lips are drawn into a frown. It’s not unbefitting of him, but the dullness of his cerise eyes tells another story.
The pieces fall into place with every ounce of tension in his musculature. The gleam in your eyes burns out like a solar system’s light at the realization that faces you. “You’re gonna destroy the planet.”
Two slanted eyes turn to face you, followed by the two more humanoid ones, his arms crossed over his chest as his heart pangs at your disappointment. He’ll never fault your compassion, but this is something he can’t let go.
“It’s a sacrifice,” he admits. “A few to save many.”
“I know they’re the cause of so much destruction but… do you have to? It feels… wrong. Even if they’re artificial.”
The alien’s voice is a low rumble. “You’re kind, little human. I like that.” The warmth in his compliment echoes over hard stone lining the interior of the bridge. “I flew over the planet’s surface while you recovered,” he explains as he stares down at the stark green gas buildup around the planet that’s been increasing the longer the ship sits just outside of orbit. “There are no other species on the planet. No flora, no fauna. Where there were cities, there are now ruins. Trees are shredded. There’s nothing left. If I leave them, they will evolve. Someday, they will escape, or another unsuspecting species will do what Simuria or Earth did.”
When he puts it like that, you can understand his reasoning. After two hundred years of searching for the Kerm, you can sympathize with his need to follow through.
“This decision doesn’t need to involve you. This would have happened regardless.”
You turn to face him with your arms around your middle, hugging yourself. “I know, but after letting that one go on Earth, I feel like I’m involved now.”
“You had no way of knowing. Then or now,” he excuses your action, something you’re grateful for, as much as you’ll always harbor that guilt and the vision of a creature tearing through a crew.
After a moment of silence as he allows you to grapple with reality, he moves towards the control panel, sliding his finger along a series of sensors as his ship turns to move further from the planet while more systems come to life as he prepares a laser.
The planet looks beautiful from a distance. Pinks and blues scatter the surface, while a gaseous blue-green surrounds the planet. You don’t doubt Sukuna told the truth, but your heart pangs to know that the gorgeous sight will dissipate in mere moments at the hands of someone you care for. Hell, maybe even at your hands, if you think too hard about it.
Guilt bubbles in the pit of your stomach as the whirring of Sukuna’s ship ramps up, a bright light beginning to form somewhere from the side of the bridge where you can’t see. The brutish alien glides his hand over a few sensors, pressing something with finality before returning to your side. His palm settles along your shoulder, pulling you into him as his chest rises and falls, his own guilt palpable in the air between you.
The whirring of the ship comes to a sharp halt, the laser’s light suddenly brighter than the sight of the sunlit planet itself. Sukuna’s grip on your shoulder tightens as he moves deftly, pulling you face-first into his chest and wrapping you tightly in all four arms to prevent you from seeing the blast. With one hand on the back of your head, he prevents you from turning your head.
Even in your peripherals, you see the light. You shut your eyes tight, Sukuna’s grip on you increasing as the blast goes off. Some part of you expects to hear something, forgetting that space is a vacuum, and you’re met with nothing. But nothing is worse. An entire species eradicated, and you’re met with nothing.
Sukuna’s heart pounds hard as he watches the planet splinter. His curse to live with, but never your burden to bear. He won’t let it be. He holds you tight until the planet’s remains are little more than debris floating every which way. You’re far enough away that whatever else was blasted into space isn’t visible, and for that, he’s grateful.
He holds you so long that he isn’t sure whether it’s for him, or for you.
“It’s done,” he murmurs, allowing you at last to look out over the wreckage as his ship’s whirring slowly winds down.
“They won’t hurt anyone else,” you murmur as your brow tents when you look over the wreckage of stone and crystal that floats where Methalon–as Sukuna referred to it– once was.
“Let’s hope that’s true,” he murmurs in return, his body hunching over as he drops his face to your head, eyes shutting tightly.
–
It’s a wonder you make it to Simuria at all. Not because of any extenuating circumstances, but because you have so many questions and queries and noisy impulses that Sukuna seems to perpetually scowl at you. On equal grounds, however, you catch him with a longing stare when you least expect it.
In the midst of a full explanation on the reproduction of Scorpions. When you’re desperately trying to yank a Simurian radish’s roots from the ground while it protests you, sweat dripping down your spine. Even when you’re sifting through the remnants of your belongings from Earth. He trails after you with nothing short of zealous loyalty.
When you arrive on Simuria, you’re trapped on the ship as you expected, only able to experience the planet from the bridge’s window. Still, it’s more than you ever could have hoped. Not unlike Methalon, Simuria is primarily crystalline in nature with petrified trees growing crooked from mountains. You’re able to expand your diet to more vegetables, supplementing your vitamins with injections that Sukuna is damn-near overbearing about.
“Sukuna, I can do it myself!” You try to insist as he nuzzles you, intermittent with kisses.
“It’s my job to take care of you,” he insists into your neck, nipping at the sensitive skin to distract you before pulling back to inject your daily supplement into your thigh while you’re distracted.
“You’re a menace!” You insist through giggles, and the injection becomes nothing more than an afterthought.
Still stoic, you see his warmth within that familiar four-eyed gaze. “You chose me without instincts,” he points out in a teasing manner, pride held within his straightened back. “Now come.”
Rolling your eyes at his shockingly witty retort as he gets too good at your language, you let him lead the way through the ship until you reach the exit door. You’ve only seen the planet’s surface through glass as he promised you an oxygen tank to withstand his atmosphere someday. It had been taking so long that you figured he ran into a snag, but as you stand at the bay and watch his hand glide along the sensors, you realize just how foolish you had been.
For the first time, the bay opens up and you find yourself instinctively trying to search for a way to protect yourself from the sulfur.
“Sukuna, I–”
“Give me your trust, ange.” He holds your bicep as you begin to back away, his gaze insistent.
Ange. The syllables that, intermittent with clicks and growls, make up the word ‘angel’ in Simurian, and french–the language of romance– and his favorite nickname for you. He had explained that when he takes you to meet the rest of his kind, it would be helpful for you to understand more of his language, and that if you paid attention to– and spoke– in only the syllables of the words, you would largely be able to communicate with his kind without issue. The clicks and growls come out of necessity of Simurians having broadly low voices and living in craters. The second ears and extra sounds in each word allow them to communicate from longer distances without the necessity for the syllables, but the same is true for communicating without the clicks. The syllables can also stand, mostly, on their own.
Your jaw tightens as you stop resisting his grip, allowing him to lead you through a small bay door where you’ve often seen him leave through the pressurized chamber. When he leads the way through it, there’s shockingly no change in barometric pressure. Or oxygen.
Off to the side of the ship where you aren’t able to see from the bridge, Sukuna has built out a massive domed biome with oxygen production within, allowing you to touch the surface for the first time. Your lips part as your feet scuff over the crystal-threaded dirt beneath your shoes.
You take small steps at first, glancing to the left where petrified trees protrude from a cliffside within the barrier of the biome, hanging over the mild seafoam that coastal waves leave behind. You tread towards the beach, your shoes sinking into the sand as you take in the smell of the salt water, your mouth still agape at how massive the space is.
To your right is a cavern that you know to be partially artificial, Sukuna’s home held within. You turn to face him, the shock of it all pinning you in place, when you’re met with another surprise.
He’s not down on his knees, but in his hand is a ring crafted from metal with a gorgeous off-pink crystal in the center, clearly carefully procured. It’s simultaneously gorgeous and obvious. The jewel matches his hair. It’s romantic, but it’s claiming too, something you’ve realized of Sukuna over the months that you’ve resided within his ship.
Your hand raises to cover your lips as you stare down at it. “Are you…?”
He runs a hand through his locks. “My hair’s not long enough yet for a ceremony,” he states, the strands falling through his fingers, “but I think your traditions are different.”
“I–” You breathe, staring down at the stone. It’s not like you didn’t know this would all happen in time, but to wrap your brain around being proposed to by an alien who made a barometric dome of oxygen for you is still a feat. Slowly, you reach for the gorgeous stone. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”
His brow scrunches as though there was no need for an answer and he already knew such a thing, but he hands the ring over regardless, watching as you slide it down your ring finger with a gorgeous grin.
“This is beautiful, Sukuna,” you breathe.
He chuffs pridefully, four palms finding their place along your body– two on your hips and two your waist. He doesn’t hesitate to pull you in, his fingers kneading your skin as he nuzzles you hard. His hooked nose rubs against yours before he dips down to kiss you passionately.
Given that kissing in its Simurian form is so different from Humanity’s version, it’s almost unfair just how good he is at it. Your body goes warm as you grip the Simurian robes he’s begun wearing now that he’s home.
Kisses with Sukuna are never slow and sweet. There’s intention behind every swipe of his tongue as he invades your mouth, pleasantly flooding your mouth not with the usual herbal tea you’ve come to expect, but something more minty, like there was thought behind this kiss that makes you smile into it.
He swallows your smile as he deepens the kiss, tilting your head up. There was a point where you were convinced you would die alone in the darkness of a welded ship without feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin again, and by some miracle, the very man who held your life in his hands now holds your heart instead.
When he pulls back, his thumb brushing your waist softly, he inhales, long and deep. “It isn’t Earth,” he concedes, a rare vulnerability within his baritone voice. “But I hope you’ll be happy here.”
Reaching for his cheeks, your thumb brushes the plating along the side of his face. “Sukuna, this is everything I could have hoped for.” You smile softly, turning around in his grip to stare out at the ocean as you shed your shoes and wriggle your toes in the sand, his hands never once leaving you. “I could live here for a lifetime.”
“Good,” his chest rumbles behind you as he chuckles, watching the tide swim ashore to your feet. “Because you very well might, ange.”
You grin up at him, wading further into the warm water. The planet is so much warmer than Earth due to the heavily gaseous atmosphere that the water isn’t cold like much of Earth’s oceans, pleasant around your ankles. “I’m kinda like Sandy Cheeks, if you think about it.”
“What?” Sukuna’s nose wrinkles, perplexed.
You laugh heartily, staring down at the stone around your finger. “Don’t worry about it.”
–
“Are you sure I look okay?”
“You,” your fiancé heartily purrs, “look like my dinner for tonight.”
The worst part is that you can see the maw on his stomach grinning from under his white robes.
You whack his arm softly, earning a playful chuff in reply as he looks you up and down, already mentally undressing you of the traditional Simurian wedding gown that Sukuna had an elder Simurian make for you, giving your measurements and no further details as he perplexed the poor elder on just who his bride-to-be might be.
The robes drape over your shoulders elegantly, the pale green accents of the off-white robes complimenting your traditional makeup. The sweet young (in Simurian years, anyway) woman doing your makeup and using traditional natural skin dyes hadn’t stopped gushing the entire time about Sukuna finding a mate, something you had picked up through broken understanding of their language.
You had even caught on that as it would turn out, he was the only Simurian adult who lacked a mate of those remaining.
“Have you picked out your tattoos yet?” She excitedly inquires, sure to slow her speech down so you can piece together what you can.
In extremely broken Simurian, you reply, “Yes! He chose design and I chose placement.”
She squeals in excitement, going on to tell you about how a Simurian named Dura recently took up tattooing, and you two would be his first wedding tattoos. There’s a certain solemnity in knowing that, with dwindling numbers, you very well may be his last, too.
Your nerves hit hard as you grow closer to emerging from Sukuna’s home where you’ve been prepping.
“If you’re still worried,” Sukuna offers as the young woman heads off to prepare herself for the ceremony, “just remember you and I are the only ones that can breathe oxygen. They’ll all be in suits.”
You’re pretty sure he just told you to picture them all in their underwear essentially, but it helps ease some nerves regardless.
“You’ve got a point,” you breathe out a sigh of relief before sucking in a breath. “Remind me how this goes again?”
Sukuna steps towards you, lowering himself to a knee to speak with you. His hand raises, his fingers gliding along your palm as he takes a moment to stare at your palms pressed together. To think that glass once separated you feels like another reality now. His gaze moves from your hands to your eyes as he intertwines your fingers. “You will wait in a tent by the beach as I am readied,” he explains, referring to his own traditional makeup that needs to be applied, his hair shaggy and a complete mess now that it’s much longer and ready to be braided. “Dabura is to wed us, as he’s my closest ally. He’ll come get you. There will be a ceremony with dancers and a large bonfire, then Dura will tattoo us.”
“And then?” You chew on your lower lip eagerly.
“Then,” he nears you, his fingers delicately brushing your robes. “The night is ours.”
You let out a breath, biting back a smile at the thought given that you had chosen to wait to have sex after all when it took so long to get you out of the ship.
“Are you nervous?” He gruffs, tilting your chin with a calloused hand.
“For the sex, or the wedding?”
“Either.”
It takes you a moment to consider the thought. “Yeah, I guess so. Both.”
“No one can understand your language. If you need something, just say so. I’ll be here the whole time.”
“You know, you never would have had me thinking you were so sweet when we first met.”
His brow twitches, his gaze averting. “I’m not.”
Stubborn.
“Noisy.”
Your eyes narrow. “Just curious, can you hear my thoughts?”
“No, why?”
“No reason.”
The night carries out as he promised. Seventy eight Simurians gather from far and wide, of tribes from a bygone era, of all ages and appearances. A fire is stoked and dancers do what you’re sure was once a much more elegant dance without the added bulk of spacesuits beneath traditional outfits.
The Simurians are kind to you, regardless of your broken ability to speak their language. They pick up on the occasional word in your language too, not unlike Sukuna.
Once the grand part of the ceremony is over, the rest of the Simurians take their seats on the beachside surrounding you and Sukuna as you both take small portions of your hair and braid them for one another. Your husband’s fingers are surprisingly deft, and upon finishing the braid, he gets the rest of his hair cut back down to his preferred length. Once the ceremony is complete, you’re met with cheers as Dabura declares you officially wed.
The horned alien is somehow more aloof than your husband, and the largely disinterested looks he shoots everyone you come to realize is his neutral. Were you not surrounded by far more boastful Simurians, you might even think they’re all like this.
Following the cheers of the ceremony, as things begin to quiet down, you’re approached by a Simurian with long, flowing white hair tucked into his spacesuit. He has a friendly look about him as he grins at you. “Dura,” he introduces himself, extending his hand.
Your brow raises at the realization he’s given you his name in your language, keen to the fact that your ability to speak is broken. Sukuna seems to respect that, taking a step back from the protective shadow he’s been all night with so many people so close to you, wary that someone might disprove his choice to wed a Human. You shake Dura’s hand in turn, offering your name as though he hasn’t been hearing it all night.
“Have you chosen a design?” He asks in his mother tongue.
He speaks slowly, allowing you to keep up. “Sukuna chose design, I chose– um–” your brow furrows as you attempt to place the syllables for the word in Simurian.
“Placement?” Dura steps in.
In a harsh tone, Sukuna steps forward, his lip curled into a snarl. “My wife is talking,” he snaps, the growls and clicks far more bitter than you’re used to hearing.
Dura’s hands raise. “I was just helping with words, Sukuna,” he smiles easily, waving the white flag before anything breaks out amongst the Simurians still lingering from the ceremony. “I wasn’t interrupting.”
You exchange a sympathetic glance with Dura, setting a hand on your husband’s arm. “It’s okay, Sukuna,” you murmur. “I just didn’t know the word, he was helping,” you agree.
Your husband’s shoulders fall slowly into something less aggressive, his gaze immovable as it glues itself to Dura. The tension between the two men is brief, before Sukuna gives into your sweet touch and softens, describing the design and placement to Dura. The white-haired man proceeds to prepare a table for you, sanitizing everything and pulling out what, by Earth’s standards, would be traditional handpoke tattoo materials.
Once ready, Sukuna goes first. The design is small, two zigzags mirroring one another with a simple tear in the center right where you chose– on the ring finger. He’s completely still throughout the process without any complaint, and you find yourself embarrassed when you wince at the first tap of the stone tool. Dura does what he can to distract you, attempting to speak with you– though at you is probably more apt given how broken your Simurian is. Still, you’re proud of yourself for your proficiency with the language and your ability to sit through the tattoo, which isn’t so bad once the first few punctures are through.
Once it’s complete, you hold your hand up to Sukuna’s, comparing the ink to one another with a bright smile before Dura bandages them. Your husband leans down to nuzzle and then kiss you, succinct but meaningful.
As the night winds down and the attendees begin to take their leave in ships of varying sizes, you sit by the entrance to your now-shared home with Sukuna. The stars twinkle overhead as you marvel at how different they are from Earth’s. In spite of everything, you stare out at the same vast expanse of space as your family back home does. You wish they could see that you got married. Pulling your knees to your chest, you rest your chin on them as you stare up at the sky, only able to wonder.
A bulky shadow leans over you after saying his goodbyes to Dabura and shutting the dome for the final time of the night. He blocks your view of the stars, pulling your attention to his ever-intense gaze. His chest rises and falls evenly as he regards you fondly. “I’m sure that was a lot.” Sukuna doesn’t often apologize, and you’re fairly sure it’s what he intends when he speaks.
“I liked meeting everyone,” you shake your head, relaxing as you lean back on your splayed palms. “I just wish my friends back home could see.”
“See how well the robes compliment you?” He comments in a smooth tone, although his expression remains unchanged.
You scoff, shaking your head. “The ring. The tattoo. That I’m married. Here, Simuria. All of it, really.”
Sukuna’s fond smirk fades as the moment hangs. The waves washing ashore have an ambient white noise that barely manages to hide his small sigh. “I’m sorry,” he starts, kneeling down to your level in an act that reminds you just how big he is. “But Humanity doesn’t deserve my ange.”
You let out a breath through your nose, offering a lopsided smile. “Thanks, baby.”
It took him a moment to get used to that nickname, but now he fondly chuffs. “But,” he tacks on, a little more chipper than you’re accustomed to. “I do have something for you, too.”
“For me? Is that something we were supposed to do?” You worry. “Oh god, I didn’t get you anything– I don’t even know what I would–”
“Always so noisy,” he jeers, growling out what you recognize as a Simurian word for ‘mouthy’ even as he offers his hand to help you to your feet.
“Hey!” You smack him playfully, earning a grin as he casts a glance at you, his gaze dipping down to the portion of your leg that protrudes from your robes as he helps you up.
He’s quiet as he leads the way into your shared home, strings of lights and domed bulbs decorating the walls at your request given that your then-fiancé lived largely in the dark aside from bioluminescence, much like his ship.
It seems to be the Simurian version of when men just put a chair and a TV in a room and call that decorating. Despite living in a cliffside, the rest of the house is well-decorated, just not well lit. It isn’t largely personal by any means, something you hope to change with art and photos, but at least you can say he does have furniture.
When you reach your bedroom, the most expansive room in the house, decorated with plants and a small bug-like creature you found within the dome that you’ve been studying– to Sukuna’s dismay– he reaches within a closet and pulls out a large box. Blinking as you stare down at what you recognize as a device, you slowly approach the box as he sets it atop the bed that you requested he make plush, rather than the conforming stone he was accustomed to. With a glide of his thumb, a hologram comes to light.
“What is it?” You ask your engineer husband, nothing immediately giving it away as the light displays nothing.
“Your species uses frequencies to speak from long distances on Earth, right?”
You straighten, staring at the brute in disbelief as he continues fiddling with the machine. “Sukuna, you didn’t.”
It’s all you can manage as you watch Sukuna fiddle with a dial, tapping his nail along the smooth surface of the machine as he makes calculations to figure out how many parsecs the signal will need to travel and at what speed in order to allow you to speak to your friend in real time. Once he’s finished fiddling with it, he turns back to you like this is just another day, handing you what, effectively, looks like an old phone hooked up to the box.
“You use numbers, right?” He chuffs for the latter portion of the sentence, completely ignoring your slack-jawed expression.
“I don’t– I can’t– You did all of this for–”
“Ange.” He chuffs, nuzzling your nose as he pulls you close. “Dial the number.”
A lump sits at the back of your throat, but no amount of swallowing will rid the feeling as you stare at your husband. Tears prick your eyes as slowly you find yourself needing to set the device down in shaky hands, curling into his chest as warm tears trail your cheeks. “You did this for me?” Your voice is hardly a whisper, frail in its delivery into his chest as your makeup inevitably stains his white robes.
“Obviously,” he clicks in his mother tongue, positive you know the meaning.
“You didn’t have to,” you sniffle, muffled. “I brought a bug into our room and I know you think I’m loud–”
“Human,” he growls, his voice clipped as he pulls back. The ceremonial red makeup streaking across his forehead and nose has smeared with the day’s activities, a sheen of sweat over his skin as he lowers himself to your height, holding your cheeks. “You are loud. You are noisy. And you are my wife. I want you to be those and more.”
“Even the bugs?”
A pair of eyes swivels across the room to the beetle-esque creature in a large glass enclosure. A grumble begins in his chest. “I’m less fond of those,” he admits. “But, yes.”
You smile. Lopsided, but genuine. “At least you’re honest.”
“Put in the number for your friend.”
Given that it’s not common to memorize numbers anymore, you’ve never been more grateful in your entire life that you actually know Shoko’s off the top of your head. Your fingers betray your disbelief by trembling as you turn back to the remote of sorts that he gave you, typing Shoko’s number with no regard for what time it might be. It rings once, twice, three times, and a final fourth before your friend picks up.
“Hello?”
Your voice breaks into something between a sob and a gasp the moment you hear her. She sounds older. There’s a rasp to her voice that betrays the weariness of her trade, but she also sounds well. Not sick. Alive. “Sho?” You breathe her nickname in sheer incredulity.
The shuffling on the other end is immediate, a flurry of static as you can practically imagine her flailing out of whatever chair or bed she was slumped over in. “You’re alive?” More static follows, a distraught shout for someone, then, frantically, “oh my god, I thought you were dead, or– I mean after the cure got here, I just had to assume you had taken the drug and I just– where are you? Can you facetime or something?”
It brings a smile to your face to hear your friend again, tears continuing to silently trail down your face in disbelief as tremors ripple through your muscles like waves. You laugh airily at just how much she sounds like you, her mouth at least ten steps ahead of her brain. Turning to Sukuna, you wipe your tears with the back of your hand. “Sukuna? Is there a way to connect to video?”
Standing idly behind you, his gaze lowers to the glimmer of fresh tear trails, his adam’s apple bobbing as he steps forward. He lowers himself to nuzzle your nose first, undoubtedly wiping tears along his own cheek, before fiddling with the box. “What frequency are your videos run on?”
Shoko is practically vibrating on the other end of the line. “Oh my god, who is that?”
“I don’t think Facetime uses frequencies, I think it’s on like… internet. Or LTE, or something.”
Sukuna hums, though he doesn’t seem confident.
“Google says two point four gHz to five gHz!” Shoko much more helpfully adds on the other side.
“Tell Google that helps,” he gruffs as he fiddles with frequencies until the blank hologram gains static.
There’s a brief silence on the other end as Shoko attempts to process how strange that sentence comes across to someone on Earth, but she doesn’t have time to question it when at last a video is displayed for each of you.
It’s clear when the video connects that life has been harsh in far different ways on each of you. Neither of you are the spry twenty-five year olds finishing up degrees and putting out papers that put you at the top of your fields at young ages. Smile lines adorn the corners of her mouth and her eyes have an ever-lidded look to them that only time and exhaustion could bring about. To your surprise, you recognize another acquaintance in the background in Utahime Iori, Shoko’s biggest crush at the time and a big rock on her ring finger.
A wide smile crosses your face and if she were right in front of you, you would surge forward to hug Shoko. Utahime, too.
Shoko’s gaze flicks around your surroundings as she holds up her phone. “Where the hell are you?” She queries as Sukuna rises from where he was fiddling with the long distance radio, popping into the frame behind you.
“Simuria. It’s gorgeous, and the people are so kind, you would love it here.”
“What’s on your face?”
“Oh–! Right, it’s ceremonial makeup,” you explain as you hold up your ring finger to display both your engagement ring and wedding tattoo. “I got married like two hours ago,” you giggle, bubbly.
The sight has your husband closing in on you, unable to stand so far apart when the very sound of your happiness draws him in like a moth to a flame.
With her jaw already on the floor at the revelation of your marriage, she can hardly contain her next question. “Who is that?” Shoko exclaims again, her image a blur as she nearly drops the phone at the sight of your husband.
“This,” you hold a hand out to the brutish alien, “is my husband. Sukuna, this is Shoko.”
It’s not often that Sukuna greets others in your mother tongue, so as he leans into frame, revealing four arms and four eyes, he simply waves at your gawking friend.
“Nice to meet you!” She starts, before it devolves into that scientific disbelief programmed into her brain. “He’s– I mean–” Shoko shakes her head incredulously as she attempts to make sense of the situation. “Aliens are real,” she mutters to herself. “Not just beetle things, either.”
“I feel like you’re really breezing over the four arms and eyes part here,” Utahime comments, surprisingly calm given the situation. You were never particularly close, but the way she evaluates you both seems to anchor your best friend. “Also hey,” she greets you by name with an easy smile. “We’re married too.”
Before you can even congratulate them as well, Shoko is already continuing, too many things to catch up on in too little time. “Honestly after CRM-12, nothing comes as much of a shock.” It comes as an observation more than any kind of blame as she evaluates your towering husband behind you. When he hums, you note that his more talkative personality may be reserved for you only.
“Congratulations, by the way! Wait– Sho, did the cure get there?”
“THE CURE!” She cries out suddenly. You grin through a laugh as everything hits you both at once, over ten years to catch up on. “Girl, yes. You saved– I don’t know, billions of people. And you didn’t even need to send any of those fuckass beetle things back. The company was pissed at first, but I swear they didn’t actually want a cure.”
“They still spread the cure out though, right?”
“They didn’t have a choice. One of the pods landed with NASA. We got lucky.”
“Thank god. I was worried about that.”
“Wait, speaking of beetles–” The hologram flashes and flutters as Shoko moves about the room, a clicking noise followed by something snapping and at last the camera faces her again. “Look!”
You stare in disbelief at the Stag Beetle on her fingers. Sukuna curiously leans forward.
“There’s no way in hell Spike survived this long.”
“Meet Spike Thirteen!” She grins as the stag’s antennae reach for her phone, its mandibles curiously snapping together.
Barking a laugh, you lean back into Sukuna’s warmth. Under the dim lighting of the strung up bulbs, he relaxes into your touch as he instinctively reaches for your waist. “Thirteen makes way more sense.”
Changing the subject again with so many things she wants to go over, Shoko sets Spike on her shoulder. “Are you able to come visit?”
You knew the question was inevitable. The one you were dreading hearing, for there’s no easy way to say it. “I can’t. We’re about seven years apart. I’d be almost sixty by the time we get home.”
There’s a brief somber silence, but it surprises you when Shoko smiles, genuine and kind. “Home.” She repeats the sentiment. “Never thought you’d find one. I think I’m okay with that, knowing that you found a home.”
Your vagabond tendencies make her sentiment make sense, and a tender smile graces your features as Sukuna’s remaining two hands find your hips, like he’s grounding himself in his own home. “Yeah. I hope you did, too.”
“Yeahh, Hime and I are doing pretty well,” she agrees, mirroring the sentiment that perhaps home can be unconventional. For you, an alien in a dome (and just one little bug in a tank), and for her, a person.
“Good. That makes me happy,” you murmur softly.
Shoko’s lips part and it’s clear she has further questions and ten years’ worth of stories to fill you in on, but she shuts them with a smile. “I should let you enjoy your wedding night.” She sits back, Utahime’s hand barely in frame as it rests on Shoko’s shoulder, opposite Spike Thirteen. “Can we talk again?”
You swivel towards Sukuna for confirmation. He shrugs. “I built it for you. Use it as you wish.”
Your hand finds his, threading your fingers through the thick ones resting on your waist. “Yeah, I’ll talk to you soon, Sho.”
“You too,” she can’t help her grin as the line cuts out.
Leaning back into Sukuna, you bask in the thrill of seeing your closest friend again. It doesn’t quite compare to your old dinner and ice cream outings where you claimed dessert was for your second stomach and nearly threw up when that proved to not be the case, but it’s more than you could ever have expected. The lumbering form of your husband leans down slowly, nuzzling your neck from behind. His hooked nose nudges your chin. “Happy, ange?”
“Than I ever thought I could be,” you murmur, tilting your head as you allow him access to the sensitive skin of your neck. There’s a level of harshness to just how much he grinds his face into your neck, earning a giggle as he pulls you closer with ease.
“My wife deserves nothing less.” His lower arms anchor you to his chest as his upper hands trail delicately along the green accents of your robe. One hand dips between your breasts, resting on the tie around your waist. In Simurian, he mutters, “may I make you mine?” against the warm skin of your neck.
A shiver runs stark up your spine as you nod. He sets the transmitter aside, effortlessly lifting you onto the plush of the bed.
“I don’t know how you ever had sex on those stone beds,” you comment breathily as Sukuna parts your legs with a knee.
“My skin is denser,” he replies between nips and licks at your skin. “You’re weak.”
“Yet you married me.”
“Weak and noisy.”
“Whatever you say,” you hum when his lower palms press your hips into the mattress, his torso slipping between your thighs. It comes as a shock when he’s wet on his abdomen and you’re damn sure you’re not the reason. You instinctively search for the cause to find his stomach maw must be drooling under his own robes, more emotive than your husband is himself.
Eager to feel him, your hands slip to the tie of his robes where he leans over you, pulling one end until they hang loosely from his shoulders, revealing a toothy smile along his stomach. The maw’s grin widens, his tongue slipping from within teeth so jagged one would almost think your husband were a predator, not that he eats rocks. Along with his drooling maw, you discover something far more debauched that you had yet to come across.
Simurians don’t typically wear undergarments during wedding ceremonies given that it’s typical to give oneself to the other following the ceremony, hence why the party left at a reasonable hour.
So why on Earth– or in this case, Simuria– does this man have two massive dicks?
“Why do you have two?” You query in bewilderment as he deftly unties your robes.
His expression twists as he lifts his gaze to you, searching for an explanation to your perplexity in the fact that–
“Why don’t you?”
“Why would I need two?”
He points to his two throbbing dicks, each with a black band around the base. “Two,” he states plainly.
“Yeah, I–” You chuckle at the absurdity of it all. “I see that you have two dicks, Sukuna.” Covering your face as you can’t help laughing, you shake your head from behind your palms. “But why?”
“Twice the pleasure,” he states, letting out a throaty noise that you recognize as Simurian for ‘duh’. “Where’s your second one?”
“I don’t– Humans don’t have a second one, Sukuna!”
He hums, something of a grumble. “We’ll make it work.”
Left staring straight through your husband as he moves on while you’re still caught up on him having two dicks, on top of the fact that he’s almost twice your size, he returns to his musings. His nose trails the length of your neck, nudging your robes aside and kissing along the red dyes used to mark you for the ceremony, leaving new marks in their place.
“Gorgeous,” he clicks and purrs in his mother tongue, slipping his hands beneath the ceremonial garments as he pulls your mind to the present. Slipping your arms from the sleeves, you let your hands run along the tattoos that wrap over his shoulders, reveling in the way his rough skin still seems to get a rise from your touch, goose bumps following your fingers’ trail. Ten feet of alien bulk and a tiny human still brings him to his knees.
You let out a gasp as drool from his stomach drips to your abdomen, trailing down to your thighs, warm and wet. If he wasn’t already obvious with how hard he is, his stomach mouth gives him away entirely.
“You’re soft,” he comments, the words slipping from his lips like an idle thought unintended to be spoken. A large tongue swipes from the bottom of your slit to your clit, the sensation sending shivers up your spine as you breathe in a soft gasp.
The room is already warm with the anticipation of arousal, the musky smell of the night’s earlier activities pungent around you. Your husband drinks in the way your back arches for him when he gets a taste of you, a languid pace to his movements as he crawls further over you in spite of his eagerness. Once he realizes he has something, he’s not quick to let it go. The size difference between you allows him to lap at your entrance with his second mouth while he delves his tongue between your lips. Your fingers curl into his shoulders as your nails leave stark half-moons in their wake.
When he adjusts the way in which he laps at your dripping pussy, the flat of his tongue puts pressure on your clit as you realize that his tongue has a mildly rough texture as though it’s intended for your pleasure. Your back arches once more, separating your kiss. One pair of hands drives your hips further into the mattress, while the other pair steadies your cheeks, allowing him to swallow your moans once more.
It’s downright euphoric the way he uses his tongue to work you to the edge so quickly. You want to chalk it up to being over ten years since you’ve felt this sensation, but the only thing to blame here is him. Not unlike your language, he’s learning your body. Fast.
“Hah- fuck–” You breathe when he finally lets up for air, his chest heaving as you cling to him for purchase. “Don’t stop, Kuna.”
His chest rumbles as he lowers himself to one pair of forearms, continuing to knead the plush of your hips with the other pair. His fingers run along the imperfections of your skin, committing each and every stretch mark, scar, and beauty mark to memory without so much as pulling his gaze from your expression.
He drags his massive tongue slower against your clit, the barbed texture pulling you closer and closer to the edge and leaving you breathless altogether. Blood roars in your ears as he slows his pace to keep you right where he wants you, crimson irises mere rings as his blown pupils watch whimpers pour from your slacked jaw.
“I like you like this,” he murmurs, his nose nudging your cheek where makeup has already smudged. “At my mercy and begging me not to stop.”
“That’s because you have a superiority complex,” you mutter even through the haze, still mouthy at the worst of times.
His tongue pulls back, your head lifting in disappointment just in time to watch his stomach maw nip at your inner thigh. You yelp, clinging tighter to his shoulders as you undoubtedly leave behind marks. “I like you noisy during sex, but not mouthy,” he coyly remarks.
“You’re such a–” You sharply gasp when his tongue returns to your clit with another long drawn out stripe up your slit.
“Don’t be smart,” he chides in Simurian, although he speaks so fast he’s positive you don’t catch it. Your head’s already in the clouds, thrown back into the mattress as you cling to him for purchase when at last he gives you what you want.
Adding to the pressure of his tongue, he finally throws you over the edge with shorter, faster licks. Stars encroach on your vision, your nails digging into his tough skin as he nuzzles your chin affectionately while your body twitches with each jolt of static to your abdomen that could damn well be slowing time and you would never know.
When your vision begins to even out, you shift against your husband, suddenly very aware of just how much drool and cum has collectively pooled between your thighs. Your movement rouses his attention as he lifts his head to inspect you. The bliss lighting up your features has his chest puffing out, that stupid prideful and boastful purr that you’ve grown fond of rumbling his chest.
Your lips part as you catch your breath, pulling him back into your shoulder. He doesn’t protest, nuzzling into you so hard you might think he wanted to live there.
“I love you too, Sukuna.”
He lifts his head, his slanted eyes curiously narrowing. “Is that how humans express partnership?”
You smile as he picks apart your traditions so scientifically. “It’s one way,” you murmur softly, tracing a finger along his cheek. His left eyes flutter shut, only opening when your nails rake through his hair.
He chuffs his approval, returning his attention at last to your body with kisses to your breasts. He shifts you up the bed, spreading your legs over his thighs as he sits between them. His cocks are heavy against your stomach, twitching, and equally slick with his own drool and your cum.
As he leans over you, kissing you once more with ease given his extra height. Two thick digits gather the mix of cum and drool, bringing it to his mouth. He runs his tongue along his lips, bringing his wet fingers down to your core. Regardless of species, he clearly knows better than to try sex without adequately working you open for him. You’re small and he has no intention of hurting his wife.
One finger eases in without any friction, the saliva coating it acting as a natural lubricant. The second is met with little resistance too, and he uses the opportunity to pump them slowly. He moves his fingers not like a human might, but as though he’s searching. Like he knows, biologically, that you derive pleasure from a specific point. And god, does he find it. Your hips buck for him as he locates your g-spot, a devious smirk curling on his lips. Your nails rake down his back with each slow pump of his fingers, your arms trembling as you cling to him.
A third finger swipes up the amalgamation of drool and cum and slowly he slips it in to the first knuckle. He watches your shoulders tense, allowing you to pull him closer until your chests are slick with one anothers’ sweat. Your walls don’t clamp so tightly around his fingers as you adjust and slowly, he slides the third one in to the knuckle.
The stretch of three fingers from your massive husband is immense as-is. You both know he isn’t fitting the second of his dicks in you, but he seems satisfied regardless as he watches your expression with blown pupils.
“Fuck, that feels good,” you breathe as he works you open slowly but surely, picking up the pace until he’s got you damn-near at the edge again.
He hums, pulling his fingers away with a wet squelch just as your nails dig into his skin. “Keep that feeling going for me, ange.”
When he lines himself up with you, a shudder rocks your body. He’s always been big. From this angle, he looks massive and his cocks are no different. The upper cock is heavy as it rests atop your abdomen, leaking pre-cum and coated in saliva all the same, both of you equally a mess. When he pushes in the tip, you suck in a breath, a hand flying to his chest to stop him from pressing in too quickly.
He hisses at how tight you are, the size difference more apparent than ever. Swallowing hard, all four eyes turn their attention to you. “Relax, baby,” he coos, his voice dropping an octave as he uses your preferred pet name for him on you. Anything to allow you to anchor yourself. His gruff attitude flips on a dime, with no intention of causing you anything but pleasure and the knowledge that it’s not only been a long time, but you aren’t the same species.
He wets his thumb with his mouth, bringing it down to your clit to massage small circles into it. Your lashes flutter, the muscles in your arms slackening as the pain of the stretch twists into ecstasy, searing and hot. His body runs so warm that the sensation of him stretching you open all the while warming you up is nothing short of heady and intoxicating. Slowly, he sinks in past the black band around his cock until he reaches the hilt, heavy balls resting against your ass.
Your walls convulse, still short of an orgasm but grappling with his size, until they finally let up and he shifts his hips slightly, testing how you react. You throw your head back in a searing moan as you grab his shoulders again, the kind that rips from straight in your chest and to your surprise, your husband groans in response. “Fuck, that’s it,” he gruffs with a pleasureful lilt to his tone. He’s only ever heard you curse twice, but it seems he got the gist of its meaning quickly.
He pulls out to the tip, his breath hot on your sweat-slicked chest, gliding back in swiftly, though he watches you carefully. When he’s met only with a louder moan and your hands raking down his back, he takes the opportunity to dive in.
His hips rock slow at first, speeding up as he chases both of your highs. He keeps one finger perpetually on your clit, moving in calculated circles in spite of the fact that his hips now snap into you. Moans, pants, and the sound of his balls slapping against your ass fill the air as the scent of sex fills the room.
Your head is too hazy to look, but you’re fairly sure his stomach’s tongue is pleasuring his upper cock, if the feeling of pressure on your abdomen is anything to go off of. It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before, and just as his hands ball into fists in the sheets where they rest on either side of your head, both begin twitching. A heavy load of cum fills your pussy and coats your stomach all at once. He doesn’t stop once they begin jerking, chasing your orgasm and riding his own out.
The sensation of his cum filling you is enough to push you over the edge moments later like glass shattering as it rocks your body in ways you’ve never experienced before. You cling to him as your vision goes black, the world around you fading into an afterthought when all you can think of is your massive husband, hunched over and finally having stopped his movement. All four of his arms hold him upright and in one unsteady movement, he lowers himself to his forearms.
Both of your chests heave as you ride the highs, eyes lidded when he nuzzles the crown of your head. “I love you,” he murmurs into your hair, a hint of a question to the statement, as though he isn’t positive that he’s using it correctly.
Through pants, you chuckle at his uncertainty, lifting your hands from his back to the nape of his neck. “I love you too.”
He slowly pulls himself from within you, rolling to the side so as not to crush you. As you come back down, you give yourself a onceover, blinking at the mess along your stomach and thighs and coating the sheets.
“Sukuna, there’s drool everywhere.”
“That’s your fault,” he grumbles, eyes shut as he lays to your left.
“Literally how?”
With no words in your language for the matter, he replies in his mother tongue. “You feel too good.”
You can’t help a smile, but you do take the opportunity to turn and curl into him, coating him in every fluid you’ve shared.
“Mm,” he hums as you intertwine your legs, your head resting on his bicep. “You might be right.”
“Just a little bit.”
“I’ll clean us up,” he murmurs, leaning down to nuzzle the crown of your head. “Just give me one more moment of this.”
–
The tides are low as you sit with your bare feet in the wet sand. The water scarcely reaches your toes, coming up to your husband’s calves as he naps in the sun, a hat laid over his head. He stirs every so often as you read a Simurian romance novel with your legs thrown over him, the written text coming easier to you these days.
The couple in the novel are so young– relative to the species– that it has you feeling wistful for days long past.
“Sukuna?”
You know he’s awake, having recently adjusted his hat. His chest rises and falls in a content sigh before he chuffs.
“What will you do when I’m gone?” You wonder about your husband, a species that mates for life.
He moves lazily as he sits up, hunching over you to parse what you’re reading. When it isn’t of interest to him, he adjusts the hat back over his head to block the sun. “I’ll mourn you.” He stares out across the ocean of the dome he’s grown into a much larger space over the years. “But I’ll celebrate your life, too.”
The thought brings a smile to your face in spite of the somber tone of your conversation. “Will you take care of my bugs?”
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
You shrug. “Yeah, a little.”
He sighs. “Not the ones that sting. I don’t like them.” He wrinkles his nose at the thought of them. “But the rest, yes. I like the ones with extra legs.”
“Yeah, the tarantula-looking ones are pretty cool,” you agree, leaning back into his chest.
His gaze softens as he looks over your features. You’ve aged beautifully over the past several years of marriage, and he knows your reservations about the difference in your species’ lifespans, but he knows something else, too.
Your aging has slowed to a near-halt. At around forty in Human years, your body stopped showing the signs of age that you so often describe. He’s more than positive that you haven’t noticed, but every minute change in your features is something he categorizes mentally.
It was never on purpose, but by the will of some God, whether Human or Simurian, his injected cells have slowed your aging. He isn’t sure if he’s gained a lifetime with you, or simply a few more years, but he considers the action the sort of thing you might call star-crossed. Like the gene therapy that saved your life acted as a string of fate too, bonding you together not just for your life, but several Human lifetimes.
One pair of arms holds him up as he leans back on them, the other pair sliding around your waist as he pulls you closer, the feeling of your bare skin familiar and comforting to the lumbering man. His fingers curl into your skin as he watches you happily turn a page, content with his reply. His gaze lingers on the ink on your ring finger that matches his.
However many lifetimes it may be that you’re blessed with, he knows he’ll cherish each and every one.
☾⋆ a/n ; okay so i watched phm and between that, iron lung, and alien earth, i got alien sukuna brainworms. i didn't anticipate it being like 38k 💀 i hope you enjoyed though!! this one was a lot of fun and i'm proud of how it turned out. you may also notice a difference between the tumblr and ao3/wattpad versions of this fic which is because i found tumblr's post limit (1000 paragraphs) and had to do some quick combining/editing. forgive me for any strange pacing on this piece in the tumblr version <3
i also wanna take the time to thank you all for the patience while i deal with some medical issues, i promise my regular series should be coming back soon <33
☾⋆ taglist ; @lilrosyhaven @tiny-mimi @grimm3r @yujisredkicks @knittybritty98 @sukunahs @saezzi @epicderpface @ynishalee @pandabiene5115 @silibiliballs @ane5e @feyrinnn @jkslvsnella @maomimii @megumuro @beereadzzz @sukunas-one-n-only-peach @beaniesayshi @ryomeowie @suguusatoo
fem!toji fushiguro x reader
you never cared about your bum ass roommate and his terrible flirting except when he comes back one day looking like the most beautiful woman you've ever seen ୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ
cw: mdni, oral sex, fingering, scissoring, big clit!toji
You slammed the apartment door a little harder than necessary after another long day, tossing your keys onto the rickety table by the entrance. Toji was already sprawled on the couch like he owned the place, which, technically, he did half of. His stupidly ripped arms were stretched out along the back cushions and he smiled wide the second he spotted you.
"Hey, roomieee. Miss me?" he drawled.
You rolled your eyes. "No. Did you even bother with the dishes like I asked?"
He chuckled. "Nah. Figured you'd come home and handle it. Either, I'm leaving now for a job." He got up from the couch, leaving his beer in the table, on his way of taking his jacket
"I didn't ask." That made him laugh again.
God, he was the worst. Toji had been your roommate for months now, and every single day was the same routine. Flirty comments, lingering stares, brushing past you in the kitchen way too close. You hated how full of himself he is. Of course he's way too hot for his own good, but you can't find him attractive at all. So ignoring him was your best defense.
You headed straight to your room without another word, shutting the door firmly behind you. Peace, finally.
That peace lasted until around midnight.
A loud thud from the living room jerked you awake. You sat up in bed, heart pounding and grabbed the nearest thing that could pass as a weapon, which happened to be your heavy lamp. Creeping out, you flicked on the light and froze.
There, standing in the middle of the room, was… a woman. Tall, insanely strong-looking, with the same sharp green eyes and messy dark hair, but everything else was different. Curves that filled out what used to be Toji's shirt in ways that made your brain short-circuit. Broad shoulders still, powerful arms, but softer features, full lips and a figure that screamed dangerous beauty. She looked like Toji if someone had remade him into the most stunning woman you'd ever seen.
"What the actual hell?" you whispered.
The woman rubbed the back of her neck, looking equal parts pissed and sheepish. Her voice was still deep but smoother, with a feminine lilt that sent an unexpected shiver down your spine.
"Don't laugh now, I'm the one freaking out."
"Toji, do you do drag? Is that why you work at night?" you teased him, knowing damn well that's not what he did, but the look on his face was enough for your entertainment.
"No, I don't!" he said, rolling his eyes. "Even if I did, I wouldn't appear in the living room in full drag, you dumbass."
You lowered the lamp slowly, stepping closer without thinking. Toji… she… whatever, looked even more striking up close. The way the shirt clung to her chest, you wonder how her boobs might look behind it, the subtle flex of muscle under smooth skin. Your usual irritation disappeared because she was too hot to be mad at her.
"So that's really you, hm..." You circled her once, eyes wide. "Holy shit. You look… I mean, damn."
She raised an eyebrow, sensing something predatory in your eyes. "You're staring. Thought you hated me."
"I do," you shot back, but your voice lacked its usual bite. You stopped right in front of her, close enough to catch the faint scent of sweat and whatever cologne he always wore. "That doesn't mean that you don't look hot as fuck.How does it feel?"
Toji let out a low laugh, crossing her arms under her chest in a way that did not help your focus. "Weird as hell. Balance is off a bit and my... pecs?"
"Breasts. Definitely breasts."
"I don't know how to feel about calling them breasts. They're heavy as fuck."
That's soooo sad. You felt heat creep up your neck, but instead of backing off like usual, you reached out and lightly touched her arm. The muscle was rock hard under your fingers. "Were you always this jacked?"
You look up at her, battling your eyelashes as you hand was fully palming her bicep, pressing it down with your fingers.
"Yes! I've been working out, you know that!" she exclaims, still not understand why you are suddenly so interested in her.
"Hm..." you nod slowly, now wrapping your hand against her wrist. "Let's sit down."
You pull her down on the couch, your thighs pressing together as you keep palming her arm because you cannot stop yourself from touching her. You're waiting for the perfect opportunity to just jump on her and eat her alive.
"How long are you stay like this?" you ask, praying it's forever.
"A few days. A week at most," she tells you, crossing her legs and turning her body so she's fully facing you. Her legs are covered by her sweatpants but you bet she also has the juiciest and strongest thighs ever.
"Oh..." you mumble, looking down a bit sad.
Your fingers trailed up her bicep slowly, feeling the definition there. It was fun, watching her try to keep the attitude while her eyes darkened a little.
"It doesn't hurt, right?" You tilted your head, voice dropping softer.
"No, no," Toji huffs a laugh, her full lips parting. She glances down at your hand on her arm. "You've never touched me this much."
You laugh, heat flooding your face. "Well, you've never looked this hot."
She was the one laughing now, breaking eye contact and even looking flustered. This was ridiculous and thrilling all at once. The guy you'd been dodging for months was now this gorgeous woman standing in your living room and suddenly ignoring her was the last thing on your mind.
"Aren't you curious?" you ask her, now tickling the back of her neck.
"About what?" She blinks, eyebrows furrowing just a little.
"About how some things feel. If I get turned into a man the first thing I would do is find someone to give me a blowjob."
"Oh wow, okay."
"So?" You were still expecting her answer.
You watch her face carefully, your heart hammering against your ribs, Toji shifts on the couch, powerful thighs pressing together under the soft fabric of her sweatpants. Her cheeks have this faint flush now, making her look less intimidating.
"Yeah… maybe," she mutters after a long pause, her voice lower than before. She uncrosses her legs and leans forward a bit, dark green eyes flicking over your face searching for any sign that you're joking. "Being eaten out or whatever. Scissoring, too, if that shit works."
Your pulse spikes. You don't even hesitate. "I could help you with that," you say, voice coming out breathy and eager. "If you want. I'd make it feel really good, Toji."
She stares at you for a second, lips parted. Then a challenging smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth. "You serious, roomie? Alright. Show me what you got."
You stand up so fast, grabbing her hand and tugging her toward your bedroom. Her palm is a little rough, bigger than yours even now. The walk down the short hallway feels electric, every step making your skin tingle with anticipation.
"God, you're gorgeous," you whisper, fingers tracing the curve of her waist.
She lets you push her down onto the mattress, and the way her body sinks into it, all that muscle and softness, makes your mouth water. You climb over her, straddling one of her thick thighs as you lean down to kiss her neck.
Toji exhales sharply when your lips brush her collarbone. "Don't get all sappy on me," she grumbles, but her hand comes up to rest on your back anyway.
You smile against her skin and trail kisses lower, pushing up the hem of her shirt. Her tits spill out as you tug the fabric over her head, full and heavy, nipples already pebbled in the cool air.
"These are perfect," you whisper, cupping one in your hand, feeling the weight of it. You squeeze gently, then lean in to drag your tongue over the stiff peak. She tastes clean and a little salty, the soft groan she makes vibrates through her chest.
"Fuck… that feels weird," she breathes, but her back arches, pushing more of her breast into your mouth.
You suck harder, swirling your tongue around the nipple while your fingers play with the other one, pinching and rolling until she's squirming beneath you. Her thighs clench around your leg, you can feel the heat building between them even through her pants.
You spend a long time there, worshipping every inch of her chest. Licking slow circles, nipping lightly with your teeth just to hear her hiss, then soothing it with open-mouthed kisses. Her breathing gets heavier, little sounds slipping out that she tries to swallow back.
Eventually you slide lower, kissing down her stomach, feeling the faint ridges of muscle under the softer layer. You hook your fingers into her sweatpants and panties, peeling them down her strong legs. Her thighs are everything you imagined, thick and powerful, skin smooth where it counts. And between them… god. Her pussy is glistening already, lips puffy and flushed, with a big and swollen clit peeking out at the top. She's tight, you can tell just from looking, the entrance small and inviting.
"Look at you," you say softly, spreading her legs wider and settling between them. You press a kiss to the inside of one thigh, then the other, breathing in her musky scent. "So wet already."
"Shut up," she mutters, but her voice cracks a bit.
You tease her first, because you can't help it. You kiss everywhere but where she wants it most, dragging your tongue along her inner thighs, nipping at the sensitive skin. Your fingers trace light circles around her clit without touching it, watching her hips twitch.
"You like that?" you ask, voice muffled against her skin.
Toji growls low. "Stop fucking teasing and do it."
You grin and finally give in, flattening your tongue and licking a long, slow stripe up her slit. She tastes tangy and addictive. Her whole body jolts. You do it again, savoring the way her juices coat your tongue, then focus on her big clit. You circle it lightly at first, teasing the sensitive bud with the tip of your tongue before flicking it gently.
"Oh shit," she gasps, thighs tensing around your head.
"Breath, pretty," you remind her.
She's so tight you can barely push a finger inside at first, her walls gripping you as you slide it in slowly. You curl it upward while your mouth works her clit, sucking softly then harder, alternating between licks and gentle nibbles.
You keep teasing her the whole time, pulling back to blow cool air on her wet folds just to watch her shiver, then diving back in with more pressure.
"You taste so good, Toji," you mumble against her. "You gonna come for me?"
She tries to stay cool, biting her lip hard, but her hips start rocking against your face. "Nngh fuck, you're… good at this," she admits, voice shaky. Her free hand tangles in your hair, not quite pushing but definitely holding you there.
You add a second finger, stretching her carefully since she's so tight, pumping them in and out while your tongue dances over her clit faster. The sounds are obscene, wet and slick, mixed with her growing moans. She tries to keep quiet at first, but soon she's whining, little desperate noises spilling out as her cool facade cracks completely.
"Right there… d-don't stop, you little shit," she pants, legs shaking. Her clit throbs under your tongue, you tickle it with rapid flicks until her back bows off the bed.
When she comes, it's loud and messy, her pussy clenching hard around your fingers as she floods your mouth. You keep licking her through it, gentler now, until she tugs you up by the hair.
"Enough… holy fuck," she gasps, chest heaving. Her face is flushed deep red, she looks wrecked already and you haven't even gotten to the scissoring yet.
You wipe your chin with the back of your hand and crawl up to kiss her, letting her taste herself on your lips. She kisses back hungrily, hands roaming your body.
"We're not done, baby," you whisper, pulling off your own clothes quickly.
You position yourselves carefully, legs tangled, pussies pressing together. The first slide of her hot, slick folds against yours makes you both moan. She's still sensitive from coming, so when you start grinding, rolling your hips so your clits catch against each other, she jerks.
"Ah… that's… nghh intense," she groans, but she grabs your thigh and pulls you closer, matching your rhythm.
The friction is perfect, wet and slippery, you can feel every little twitch of her body, the way her strong thighs flex as she rocks against you. Her clit grazes with your perfectly, your pussy lips kissing as you take control over her once again.
You reach down to hold her hip, guiding her movements. "God, Toji, you're so fucking hot like this."
Your voices mix in breathy moans and whines. She tries to keep some control, muttering curses under her breath, but soon she's a total mess. Her head falls back, full tits bouncing with each grind, nipples hard and begging for attention again.
"Shiit, ah! H-how are you soooo good at this?" she whines, voice cracking as she grinds harder, chasing the feeling.
"Don't you worry your pretty head about that, baby," you tell her, giving her left tit a rough squeeze before picking up your pace.
Her desperation makes you even wetter. You speed up, the slick sounds filling the room along with her growing whimpers. She's trembling, fingers digging into your skin as another orgasm builds fast. You lean forward, sucking on one of her tits while you keep scissoring,
Toji comes with a broken moan, body shaking hard against yours. Her pussy pulses, flooding warmth between you, the feeling drags you right over with her. You collapse together in a sweaty, sticky tangle, both breathing hard.
She stares at the ceiling for a minute, then turns to you looking a little bit shy. "That was way better than I thought it'd be. You really know what you're doing down there."
You laugh softly, tracing a finger along her arm. "Told you I'd help. How long did you say you're staying like this again?"
She smirks, pulling you closer. "Long enough for round two, probably."
THREE DAYS LATER
You were sure you fell asleep with Toji's big and beautiful breast inside your mouth after a long session of sucking them in her lap while she played with your pussy, but when you wake up, your mouth is empty. Still, you can feel her arm under your head as a pillow and the warmth of her body.
You rub your eyes, yawning and stretching as you sit up a little. When you finally get to see clearly, your face fills with horror.
Toji is back to normal.
No beautiful breasts, no gentle and soft curves, NO PUSSY. That was the best pussy you've ever tasted in years, what are you going to do without it?
"Toji!" you say, voice higher than you mean it.
He blinks his eyes open, staring at you with his eyebrows furrowed. "Huh?"
"Get out."
"What?"
"GET OUT, YOU HAVE A DICK AGAIN."
a/n: a little warm up before i start writing my long femtoji fic
Reader making shy Nerdjo squirt for the first time, with soft aftercare😫
“I have to study, baby…” he muttered, trying not to let the soft, cheeky kisses you pressed to his neck distract him.
One thing about him was that he would get his assignments done with flying colours. He had an A in every subject that existed, and he was not about to jeopardise that.
Then there was you. His only weakness. You just had to flutter your eyelashes and look up at him with those pretty eyes of his, and he melted. Wallowed away like a deserted flower. Which is why, in the said moment, he wasn't looking at you. He did everything he could so that he wouldn't have to look at you.
“But baby…” You whined, wrapping your arms around your neck. His breath hitched when you sucked at his earlobe, before pressing another teasing kiss to the sensitive spot right below his ear. Sticking out your tongue, you licked a stripe down his neck, and he whimpered. Then you got on your knees right in front of him, spreading his legs. Taking off his pants was easy since he did nothing to stop you. For someone who supposedly didn't want this, he sure was quite compliant. Too compliant. Maybe he had been waiting for you to distract him all along. And you couldn't blame him.
After hours of studying, breaking his pretty little head over theories and coming up with answers, he deserved a break. Even if he didn't want it to seem like he needed it. So he continued studying while you unzipped his pants. Continued studying when you pulled down his boxers just enough to let his dick jump up and slap against his stomach. Continued studying when you wrapped your pretty hands around his length, squeezing it softly. Pumping it a few times, running your hands up and down his shaft.
His hips twitched slightly. And when you looked up at him, his face turned beet red. But he still wouldn't look at you. He couldn't. Because he knew he was going to lose himself in your eyes. So he muffled his moans using his hands, eyes glued to the sheets right in front of him.
When you wrapped your soft lips around his tip, tongue circling the perimeter of it, he let out a breathy whine. It was so warm, wet, and you sucked him in so hard he started shaking. You laughed, slapping his tip against your tongue. You hadn't even started yet, and he was already falling apart? Cute.
Taking his dick into your mouth again had him gripping the arms of his chair. The feeling of you wrapping your warm mouth around him after having the surrounding air hit him served as a contrast. You bobbed your head softly, slowly, sinking before rising again. The parts of his dick you couldn't fit in your mouth, you used your hands to stroke.
“F-Fuck… Y/n!”His hand rested on top of your head, and for the first time, he looked at you. Finally, he looked at you. And fuck, you looked so pretty with his big dick in your mouth. Slowly but surely, he started moving his hips. Gently fucking your mouth as he tried chasing his high. He bit down on his lower lip, squeezing his eyes shut.
“‘M g-gonna-” That's when you pulled yourself off him. He was absolutely no fun. There was no way he was going to come already. Not on your watch. His dick twitched in anticipation, sad at the loss of pleasure and a possible orgasm. He let out a series of whimpers, stopping himself from plunging into your mouth again. Smiling up at him, you grabbed his dick again, pumping it softly. And he whimpered, dick twitching at the overstimulation. “I thought you had to study, baby.”
“Please don't d-do this…” You burst out laughing. It seemed like you had gotten to him. His thighs were shaking like crazy, and he let out whiny breaths. Yes, you were in. In his head, in his heart, and soon you would be inside him.
“Get on the bed.” And reluctantly, he got into bed. Shutting down his laptop, getting off the chair, acting like he wasn't just asking you to make him cum. While he got into bed, you grabbed your strap, putting on the harness and getting ready. Lubing up the toy was easy. And it was even easier pushing it inside him.
Since he had been loose from the last time you two had played with his hole, it didn't take much for you. The toy slipped right into his hole after lubing him up properly. It slipped in, brushing past his soft walls as his hole made an embarrassing squeaky noise. His face turned beet red, and he covered his face immediately. “Sorry…” he had never heard himself make such noises. And frankly, he was embarrassed. But all you did was laugh. He was such a cutie. The cutest.
Pushing one of his legs up to his chest, you slammed into him, making him gasp. As you found your rhythm, hips slamming against him slowly but reaching deep, he threw his head back, mouth falling open. Whimpers slipped past his lips as you fucked him into your sheets. At some point, you let go of his leg, pinning his arms to his sides instead. “You're going too deep…!’’ To you, it wasn't deep enough. Your hips moved violently, moving in slow but deep waves. ‘’W-Wait! This feels weird…” Pressing his flat hand against your chest, he tried getting you to stop. Seconds prior, he had freed one of his arms from your grip in a hurry, eyes fluttering open.
While you were still drilling into him, he explained that you were going way too deep. Deeper than you had ever gone, and it felt weird. Yes, the knot in his stomach tightened, leaving him shaking beneath you. There was also something unusual, no wonder. You were actually going as deep as he thought because when you looked down at his stomach, you could see a bulge forming every time you thrusted into him.
“Oh? Would you look at that…” Your curiosity got the best of you. Stopping your movements momentarily, halting deep inside him, your fingers brushed over the bulge lightly, feeling it up. Then you moved again, carefully, pulling out slightly before pushing back in. He winced at that.
Suddenly, you picked up the pace of your movements, making him whimper and whine. This time, you pressed down on the bulge while fucking him. His eyes widened, and he let out a high-pitched scream as a see-through liquid squirted out of his dick. That didn't stop you from fucking him, though.
“Babe, wait!” You didn't.
“That was so fucking hot…” Instead you pulled out momentarily, making him get on his hands and knees before fucking him again. Drilling into him, treating him roughly, pulling at his hair, slapping his ass occasionally. He was screaming like crazy. You were sure the whole neighbourhood would have been able to hear him right now. “Let's make you do that again.”
And you made him squirt again. By the end of the night, he had gained a new nickname. You called him your cute little fountain as you prepared a bath for him. He layed on the bed fucked out, chest rising and falling rapidly, legs shaking like crazy. He couldn't believe he had actually done that.
the j in jujutsu corp stands for jeez why are we still working here...
【 A FIVE PART SERIES 】 . . . the hectic life of sleep-deprived employees, their shithole of a company, and you, the friendly new intern who wears the chanel spring 2026 two-piece to work. welcome to jujutsu corp, where your arrival finally brings color (and much needed gossip) to the office.
warnings + additional tags: language, crude humor, crack fic, modern au, office au, female reader, intern!reader, reader is a nepo baby but everyone loves her bc she’s cool, reverse harem, everyone is an adult, the company stuff in this fic is not peer-reviewed
✶ MASTERLIST UNDER THE CUT !!
ㅤ
ㅤ
✶ 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 (can be read in any order)
( the ones marked with ✶ are written parts )
┊ our new intern wears chanel to work
┊ boss if you make her cry one more time our stock plummets ✶
┊ team building is why our company’s in shambles
┊ do ghosts work overtime?
┊ the security files (they almost got fired)
ㅤ
ㅤ
✶ ݁ TAGLIST
the ones that filled up this form will automatically be tagged! you can also comment or send me an ask :)
.ᐟ.ᐟ : college AU , swearing , death threats (in a /joke way) , very blunt and kinda rude nerdjo , a bit of fratjo, slowburn , opposites attract, nerdjo HATESSS fraternities & sororities.
(psst.. read authors note at the end pls. thank u <3)
a/n : please take note that I am not sure if this is accurate to how irl fraternities and sororities work, so please do educate me and correct me if I make any mistakes whatsoever while writing this <3
a/n: hahaha guess who's back from her sickbed.... lowkey after getting sick, I had ZERO motivation to write dude it was TORTURE. after reading other people's smau's I'm back in tiptop shape, I fear this series is probably gonna end soon omg thank u to everyone whose been so (not so)patiently waiting for updates, I love u guys🥺🥺🥺💗💗💗 also, the taglist for this series is officially CLOSED, I'm sorry to some of the people I didnt get to put into the taglist.
ノノ very important query, if I did a small written section for the next episode would ygs fw it? lmk in the comments (I'm thinking of writing a dramatic confession or something idk I'm still thinking)
mdni - your boyfriend Sugu sharing you with Toru <3
You were grinding on your boyfriend Suguru's cock on the couch, sleepy with little whines, having half fallen asleep in his lap during the movie you all had on.
"Mnh, Sugu..." you were gasping out. Too sleepy to realize your roomie and best friend Satoru was right there, blushing.
Oh, Suguru knows- he just didn't care, not when you feel that good. He already knows Satoru wants you, he'd walked by him as he jerked his cock mumbling your name.
You feel too good grinding on him not to grip your ass, moaning in your ear -
"Princess, Toru is right there," you had bit your lip, pretty, fucked out eyes looking right at Satoru Gojo, who was blushing in the dark, the TV light casting shadows on his face.
"Toru," you mumble, rolling your hips again, lashes fluttering shut. "I'm sorry, feels s'good and..."
"It's okay... " he mumbles, his cock leaking sticky precum against his boxers, as he hears the rustle of clothing, the sound of Suguru’s cock rutting your panty-clad pussy, the slight motion of his hips.
Satoru almost cums just from hearing your sleepy little whine, you can see his cock straining underneath his pajama pants, making his gut clench up.
Fuck he wants to feel you - any of you - the amount of times Satoru has listened to you both fuck is obscene.
"Oh," You blush, leaning to whisper in Suguru’s ear. "He is um...he's so..."
"Why wouldn't he be hard? Pretty little thing right here," Sugruru tugs your top down as his breath ghosts your skin, showing one of your cute nipples right for Satoru to see, who bites down on his plump lower lip. "Look at her, isn't she pretty?"
"Very pretty," Satoru's words are strained, adjusting his cock to see your lips part, your eyes darting to that bulge.
"Why wouldn't he be hard? Pretty tits right for him to see," Sugruru sighs, leaning back and tugging your panties aside, eyeing your slick, messy cunt. "Do you like him here, princess? Watching?"
You do - but you're sleepy, embarrassed, so wet and horny it's painful. "Toru do you... does it..."
"I uh.. " he sighs, running a hand over his cock and wincing at how bad it's straining. "I can go take care of this. Or..."
"Or I could?" You peek at Suguru, who had you lifted, his fat cock nudging your slick hole, that piercing catching your twitchy clit. "Mnh! Sugu..."
"You wanna make Toru feel better?"
You nod, blushing then.
"He did have a bad break up."
"Toru!" You pout. "You didn't tell me..."
"Yeah," as if Satoru wasn't picturing you arched in front of him when he hit it from the back. You look all sweet, all concerned, before Suguru glides right in your cunt, and your eyes roll back in your skull, stretching you out without any play you're so wet.
"S-Sugu! Ah!"
Satoru tugs out his cock, thick and veiny, watching that mess of slick drool down his best friend as h e leans back. Satoru can't help but whine out as he stares at you, riding his best friend's cock, his own hand tentatively brushing your cheek, leaning close as his friend pummels your cervix.
"So pretty," he whispers, feeling your blush heat your skin, you lean close, your eyes all sleepy as Satoru strokes his own cock.
"Can I taste you?" He almost cums from that damn question.
"Yes! I mean... yeah..." He eagerly swipes some of his precum, slipping it between your lips as Suguru bottoms out. You suck Satoru's milky cum off his thumb while you whine out, cheeks hollowed.
"Wanna suck his cock, Princess?" Suguru asks, it's hard to speak looking at you like this, when you turn back and he sees his friend's cum on your lips, he can't help but flick his tongue against them, tasting it and moaning, his cock pulsing inside.
"Yes... please..." You cry out when Suguru pulls out with a mess falling, laughing at just how wet you are.
"Then get on your knees for us."
You eagerly obey, knees sinking into the cushions of the couch, mouth open and eager to take Satoru's pink tip, you feel his hands grip your hair tight, hear his gasp. "Oh f-fuck... your mouth is s'good, sweetheart..."
"Isn't it?" Suguru asks, lining his tip back up and filling you, all while you look up at Toru whose glasses are fogging with his breaths, his hands trembling just a bit when they pull too hard, making you whine around his cock, pretty tip soft like velvet on your little tongue.
"M'sorry... too rough I..."
"She loves it," Suguru murmurs, gripping your waist to drag you down his cock, his balls smacking your neglected clit, shoving Satoru's cock so deep you choke around it. "Don't you, baby?"
"Mmm," you pull back with a messy pop, lips coated in spit. "I do."
Satoru thinks he's in love with his best friend's girl once she makes his goddamn cock dissappear - all eight inches, too, nose nestled against the little light smattering of white hair. You're drooling down his heavy balls, tight and ready to pump you full - as him and his best friend take turns fucking your holes, using your body between them faster and faster.
Satoru doesn't make it long, he pulls back and sucks in a breath, but the way your throat is reflexively pulsing while Suguru pounds your messy cunt is too fucking good.
"S-sweetheart... m'close...." He goes to pull back when you grip his thigh, nails pressing into the bare muscle where his pants are shoved down, looking all lovingly and pretty up at him.
"She loves swallowing," Suguru says, all proud of you clearly, his cock slamming inside so deep it kisses your cute lil cervix. His long hair falls against your skin as he hovers over you, fingertips trailing down your spine, while Satoru's whimpering. "Go ahead and show him how good you take it. You're such a good girl like this, isn't she?"
"She i-is," Satoru tries to pull back, worried about hurting your throat with the flood of cum about to pour from his pink tip, but you suck harder, lips wrapping so goddamn pretty, he moans your name, head falling forward, gripping your hair till he's pulling at the strands.
You do love to swallow, and Satoru is salty but somehow there's a little sweetness, it coats your mouth as you gulp, shattering around Suguru's length that's curving just write, piercing dragging on your sweet spot just so, till you're a gushing little mess between them.
Suguru's following Satoru, pumping your cunt so damn full it's already trying to spill out with it, white coating your spread wide lips. He leans back to watch, groaning as he slowly fucks it back into you, and Satoru eases out, cupping your face and damn near collapsing on the couch.
"Feel better about the breakup?" You whisper, he moans and gives you a little nod, leaning down as Suguru pulls you up to your knees, wrapping an arm around your waist, kissing up your neck.
"Much better," Satoru leans forward and kisses himself off you, blushing. "S'that okay?"
"I just swallowed your cum, you can kiss me," Suguru snorts, but you find it adorable when he kisses you again and again, moaning as Suguru's release pours down your inner thighs, and Satoru's fingers slide down, shoving it back on. He's filthy with it as he licks his own cum off your tongue, and Suguru's lips are just a breath away from Gojo's.
"Could we share her, Sugu? Pretty please?"
"We just did-"
"No like... be my girlfriend too?" He's all pouty and cute, but Suguru scowls, tugging you back, just for Satoru to finger more cum in your sore cunt, his cock already throbbing and hard again. "I said please!"
"No!?"
"You never shared when we were kids, you're selfish!"
They bicker as they fuck you again, until you're so full of both their cum in all three holes that you give up and go to sleep.
*****
we already know when I'm horny I write satosugu filth lol
request based off on nanami’s texting this smau! no nanami or shoko in this one!
warning: one (1) mention of abortion in shiu’s
｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ
｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ
a/n: i have a couple written requests but they will be on hold until chapter two of the zombie au is out :( @tojis-parking-lot-crytpid for this request! thank you for reading, i love you (. .*)β
info: I wrote a part two because we love to see a big man grovel ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk, let me live, luv u all (i entered a flow state at one point, idk if it's good, but fuck I liked it)
warnings: violence mentioned, but not really on the page. This is all just hurt and angst and eventual comfort...
wc: 4.5k
You’re surprised when you wake up.
That you wake up.
At first, you think you’ve given in to death, that the light seeping through your eyelids is the light. It’s warm, a sunset orange where you expected blinding white, and you’re glad for it. Glad and desperate to feel its embrace, but when you try to reach for it, try to pull yourself through the portal from life to death, you hear it.
… beep… beep… beep…
Then, you feel it.
All of it.
Every breath sends a fresh spasm of agony cracking through your chest, as if you’re one inhale away from shattering your ribcage. Even with your breathing as shallow as it is, you feel how tight your belly is, like you’ve swallowed a balloon that’s expanded far past its limits. And your head… fuck, your head… It’s like the pain can’t decide where it wants to locate, the front or the base, so it radiates between each spot, pounding so hard you just want your skull to split open and your gray matter to spill out like slush.
You open your eyes before you’re ready, not even realizing you’re doing it until you’re blinking against the blinding fluorescents overhead—which, of course, makes your headache a thousand times worse. Your vision seems to warp, like you’re looking in the reflection of a funhouse mirror, and bile starts to claw its way up your throat.
You hiss out a curse word, a fuck so jagged it’s like it’s been dragged through razor wire, and as your gaze sharpens, he’s the first thing that comes into focus.
Ryomen Sukuna.
He’s not facing you, and his sweatshirt hood is up over his head, but you know it’s him as certainly as you know your nose is broken. And when he whirls around, activated by your broken groan, your whole being goes weightless, like you’re made up of helium and nothing else.
You don’t know how long the two of you stare at each other, how long you examine every millimeter of his appearance, looking for a flaw, a clue that he’s not real. That none of this is real. That he’s still dead and gone, and all you have is this hallucination from a very, very bad concussion.
But he looks so like himself, his light pink hair pushed back from his forehead, revealing those angular features you’d spent night after night memorizing while he’d slept. If anything, he looks even more built than before that night in the alley, like a broken bone that healed stronger from its injury. Sukuna is right there.
And suddenly, you’re terrified, because if he vanishes again, blowing away like loose sand… you can’t even imagine the agony… how can you shatter when you’re already in pieces? How can… You can’t… He isn’t—
“Hey, hey, hey!”
The hallucination lurches around the side of the bed, grabbing your IV hand in his familiar, calloused grip. At your side, your heart monitor screeches too fast, an urgent underscore as you realize you’re hyperventilating. Your breath seems to trap in your throat, backing up into your lungs, and all you can do is gawk at the ghost of Sukuna, too petrified to be comforted by his presence.
“You’re n-n-not real,” you stammer, your voice sandpaper hoarse. “I saw—blood, I—”
“I’m real,” he insists, but you can’t understand him. He shouldn’t be able to touch you, and you try to pull away. Try to force your skin to forget how his feels.
“No, no, no,” you groan, the heart monitor screaming next to you. “No, no, no.”
Hallucination Sukuna calls your name like he’s begging, and you shake your head too violently. The room around you spins and pulses, lights flaring like gasps, and you think you choke on something—air, spit, vomit—but your body, mercifully, sends you spiraling in the dark before you can feel anything else.
The second time you wake up, floating up through the sludge of oblivion, Sukuna’s sitting next to your bed, crimson eyes glued to your face. The moment your eyelids open, he takes your IV hand with urgent softness and holds it up to his throat. Before you have a chance to process, to panic, you feel it.
His pulse, steady and strong beneath your fingertips.
Your hand trembles beneath his, but Sukuna holds you there, forcing you to comprehend that he’s not a ghost or a hallucination or a manifestation. He’s alive, and somehow, your already-annihilated heart breaks further, vaporizes into dust that you’ll never be able to recollect.
You open your mouth, try to speak, but all that comes out is a rasp of a sound, and you realize you’re desperate for water.
Sukuna sees it in your eyes, like he always has. Almost every night before bed, without you even asking, he used to fill up your favorite water bottle, a pink Owala covered in the stupidest meme stickers you could find.
Slowly, carefully, he places your hand back in your lap and pours water out of a beige pitcher into a plastic cup with a straw. Then, he holds it up to your lips and watches intensely as you suck down the cool liquid faster than you thought possible. It’s a balm to your aching throat, and a break in an otherwise suffocating moment. You try, you really do, to understand, but you can’t.
Insurmountable blood loss.
No security cameras.
Already cremated.
Gone.
Uraume’s voice, steady in their sorrow, echoes in your ears, as it has every day—every hour—since that night. Since Sukuna died.
You’d soaked in his blood, pressed against his gunshot wound, grasped at his too-still body.
Sukuna had died, he’d—he’d…
The cup falls from your hand, clattering lightly against the floor as you grab at him, at his clothes, his hands, anything you can touch. Is he truly solid? Is he truly here? For a moment, Sukuna’s eyes widen in confused panic, but only for a moment. Then, he understands.
His tattooed jaw clenches, and then he’s tugging his black hoodie off and climbing into your hospital bed, tucking you into his side and guiding your ear to his chest. Now, through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, his heartbeat thrums into your ear, a soundtrack you never thought you’d hear again. Before, you’d fall asleep every night draped across his bare chest, listening to his heartbeat like your favorite lullaby while his fingers tangled and twirled in the ends of your hair.
As you curl into him, slowly letting yourself slide back into unconsciousness, you feel Sukuna’s body beneath yours. More specifically, the way his muscles tense like a dam straining against the power of a roaring river. You think about picking up your hand, of placing it on his side and running your fingers up and down his ribs like you know he likes. But you’re too tired.
Far too tired.
When you wake again, Sukuna is no longer in the hospital bed. Instead, he paces back and forth along your bedside, eyes cast down and the hinge of his jaw clenched tightly. His lips twist in a deeply carved scowl, and his fingers flex, as if debating whether he wants to hit something or not. You’re not sure how long you’ve been asleep, but clearly, it’s been long enough for him to spiral down a black hole of thinking. One that’s left him shrouded in an air of violence so thick you can see the way it drapes around his shoulders like an imperial cloak.
You blink once, twice, and on the third time, he notices you’re awake. He stops in his tracks as if suddenly made of stone, his fingers mid-curl, and his crimson eyes regard you as if you’re a fawn seconds away from fleeing. Which, you can’t blame him for. The last two times you were conscious, you could barely handle that the dead man was in front of you, decidedly not dead.
You don’t know what to say, how to even begin to process that Sukuna’s here, really here, now that the mere sight of him isn’t sending you spiraling into a delirious panic attack. During all those months alone, wrapped in the freezing cold of isolation, you’d dreamt about what you’d say to Sukuna the moment you saw him again, but you’d always assumed that reunion would only occur in death. You imagined yourself running out of a gray miasmus of pain and desolation and into the arms of the man you loved. He’d kiss your tears away as you inhaled his trademark scent of gunsmoke and spice, and you’d slip your hands up under his shirt and dig your nails into his skin so he couldn’t leave you again.
And you’d apologize, over and over, for getting him killed.
Because, really, you knew it was your fault. You’d distracted him that night, had dragged him into the alley where he’d lost his life, had been utterly useless when that pack of men had you both cornered. You’d as good as killed him with your own two hands.
At least, you’d thought you had.
You’d grieved like you had.
Punished yourself like you had.
But here he was, alive and angry.
You know the men who’d attacked you are dead. In fact, you wouldn’t be surprised if Sukuna hadn’t cut up their bodies and littered the streets with their limbs—he had a flair for the dramatic when he had a message to send. So who was there left to be mad at?
“What the fuck were you doing in that bar?”
Oh.
Sukuna glares at you as if he can see inside you, as if he can find the answer he’s looking for just by scaring away every layer of you until he’s satisfied. Beneath his fury, you see the fear, though. You see the desperation in his eyes like burgeoning tears, the tremor to his fingers as he digs his hands into a tuft of blankets at the end of the bed.
He thought you were going to die, you realize.
Which, yes, that had been the goal at the time, but only because Sukuna was dead. Because you’d tortured yourself for almost a year, grieving the other half of your heart and soul, and dying at the hands of violence was the only way you could think to truly and finally atone for what you’d done.
Except, Sukuna had never been dead.
“You’re mad at me.”
You barely have a voice, but the statement still hangs in the air between you, as if giving Sukuna a chance to reconsider what he’s about to say. Of course, he doesn’t. Whatever flashing warning lights he sees exploding around your head, he ignores, and for the first time in almost a year, your heart begins to burn with something other than self-hatred.
“How could you be so careless?” Sukuna demands, words sharp as needles. “How could you be so reckless?”
The chuckle that tumbles from your lips is broken and sour.
“You watched me,” you say, the puzzle pieces of the last eight months clicking into place. “I always thought it was Uraume, but it was you, wasn’t it?”
Sukuna freezes like an animal under a floodlight, and you think you might be sick.
All of that pain, all of those moments spent tearing yourself apart from the inside out, thinking you deserved misery… Not only was he alive, but he witnessed it all. He let it happen because… because…
“Why?” you ask, the question dripping in venom you didn’t realize was pooling in your mouth. You don’t clarify—you don’t need to. From the guilt that flashes across his face, Sukuna knows exactly what you’re asking.
“It was too dangerous,” he states, but despite himself, he doesn’t sound as convicted as you know he wants to. “So I did what I had to do.”
Fuck, you could slap him.
But fine, if he was going to be obtuse, so would you.
“So did I,” you retort, and Sukuna growls like a frustrated dog.
“You could’ve been killed!”
“That was the intention, yes.”
“How can you be that fucking stupid?”
The flames inside your heart flare into an inferno, consuming every bit of pain in your body and transforming it into fuel.
“You died, Sukuna! Whether or not you stopped breathing. To me, you were gone. No—no, not gone. You were murdered right in front of me because of me! Because of me!”
In all these months, it’s the first time you’ve truly said the words out loud, and distantly, in another world maybe, you find it disturbingly hysterical that you’re saying them to Sukuna himself.
“I hated myself, you fucking bastard!” You’re screaming now, shrill and thin and awful. “Every day, I just wanted to hurt because I thought I deserved it. I thought I’d gotten the love of my life killed, and I couldn’t stand myself. I couldn’t stand being alive, and I thought maybe, maybe, I could finally put an end to it all. I could finally be fucking selfish and just die!”
Sukuna seems to shrink with every word you spit, as if finally, finally, he’s realizing just how far you’ve ruined yourself. How far he’s let you ruin yourself.
“I wanted to die like you, Sukuna,” you say, your voice suddenly flat. Suddenly too tired to hold emotion. “I wanted to die in pain because I didn’t deserve mercy, but now…” You gesture a hand weakly at him, at his body that’s stronger than it was the night you went out to that god forsaken bar. He’d healed while you’d rotted.
Sukuna whispers your name, his voice steeped in so much sorrow that you have no choice but to ignore it.
“You let me think you were dead.”
You let the statement settle there, in the chasm between you, so wide and deep it seems bottomless. Insurmountable. Sukuna opens his mouth and then closes it, and you just shake your head.
“Don’t ask me why the fuck I was at that bar,” you say finally, “Ask yourself.”
You see it all in his eyes, see the spiral of thoughts that bring him down to just how low you were. He’ll never understand it, not truly, but now he’ll suffer like you did, and that’s all you’ll get.
Suddenly, you want to kiss him. You haven’t since that night, and your body craves him. Craves his lips against yours, his arms around your body. You crave his comfort because it’s one of the few places you’ve always felt safe. But now, now you know what it feels like to have that comfort ripped away because of him. Because he chose for the both of you, and in doing so, destroyed you.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” you murmur, “But I need you to get out.”
And he does, leaving you alone once again.
The sounds of your hospital room are strangely comforting—the consistent beep of your heart monitor, the wheeze of your oxygen tube, the delicate drip of your IV… It welcomes you when you float into consciousness, and it lulls you back into unconsciousness just as kindly.
Shoko had visited a few times, bringing you your favorite fuzzy blanket and one of Sukuna’s old hoodies that you’d used as an emotional crutch for the best eight months—it was his favorite, the one he got most pissed at you for stealing. You’d thought about telling her that he’d been alive this whole time, but something kept you from telling her the truth. A protective something that knew she’d hate him for it, that knew Shoko would go on a diatribe about how selfish and horrible Sukuna was for putting you through that. And she was right, but also, you couldn’t hear it.
You should hate him, but you just… can’t. Beneath it all—the fury and the hurt—you’re just so fucking happy he’s alive. There’s a relief so extreme that you can barely comprehend it, knowing that you still exist in a world with him.
You love him, you don’t think you’re capable of not loving him, but that doesn’t mean you forgive him. And you’re not sure you ever can.
As happy as you are that he’s still here, you can’t ignore that he let you go eight months thinking he was dead. For what? For the vague reason that it was too dangerous? What did that even mean? You’d known about Sukuna’s world since the night you found him in your bathtub, had woven yourself into that same world over the course of four years, and then suddenly he decided to just rip you out? Not because you’d asked him to, but because he decided he knew what was best for you? No conversation, no choice, and no more Sukuna.
And then he let you self-destruct.
No, you’re not sure you can forgive him for that.
It doesn’t take long for you to slip into Sukuna’s hoodie. You tell yourself it’s because you’re cold and the hospital’s freezing (it really actually is), but there’s something about the familiar black hoodie that brings you comfort like nothing else. When you’d thought Sukuna dead, you’d don this hoodie while trying to sleep, and you’d pretend the perfectly worn fabric was his embrace. You’d gotten so good at pretending he was the one keeping you warm that you could sometimes feel his arms tightening around you, as if scared to let you go.
You hate that the hoodie still comforts you now, but more than that, you hate that you crave the real thing now that you know you can have it.
You’ll never admit it, but wearing Sukuna’s hoodie does help you sleep better.
Before you open your eyes, you know Sukuna’s back in your room.
It’s been two days since you sent him away, but according to the nurses, he’s never actually left the hospital. He’d just camped out in different hallways, eating vending machine snacks and chugging cup after cup of crappy cafeteria coffee. Whenever he saw your doctor, he’d ask for an update, but the doctor had refused to give him answers other than vague she’s stables and she’s healings. It gives you a sick satisfaction knowing he’s being choked out of information, knowing he’s dealing with a fraction of what you had.
But also, you knew that sooner or later, he’d end up back in your room, the volatile mixture of frustration, anger, and desperation pumping through his veins finally getting too much for him to suppress. You knew it was never a question of if, just a question of when. So, when you blink into consciousness to find him sitting in the chair next to your bed, elbows on his knees and head in his hands, you don’t so much as jump.
“Have the nurses seen you yet?”
Sukuna does jump at the sound of your voice, his head snapping up so quickly you hear a distinct crack. His swollen eyes find yours… he looks utter shit. The flesh beneath his eyes is sunken and purple, and the rest of his face seems sallow and gaunt. His bottom lip is split in the middle, as if he’s been gnawing on it nonstop. When your gaze drops to his hands, you find the knuckles bloody and raw, and you’re sure there’s a wall in some stairwell somewhere that served as his punching bag.
“No,” he finally says, clearing his throat. “They’re all busy right after the shift change, so I managed to sneak by.”
“Ah.” You nod, then wince at the way your concussion has you completely destabilized, and Sukuna jumps to his feet.
“What do you need?”
You wave him off, pressing the heel of your hand to your forehead.
“I’m okay,” you mutter, “Just brain-damaged.”
It’s a joke, you think, but neither of you laugh. If anything, Sukuna seems to sink under the weight of your words. He’s in the same clothes from the last time you saw him, and his pale pink hair hangs limply on his head, falling into his eyes.
You don’t like the silence between you two because you don’t know what it means. For the last two days, you’ve been drifting in the currents of oblivion, but clearly, Sukuna hasn’t. His mouth twists in a grimace, like he can’t stand sitting with his own thoughts, and you almost reach out to him, but he’s too far away.
“My love.”
Your eyebrows shoot to your hairline at those two words.
My love.
He’s never called you that before, not even in those fragile moments where he’d been at his softest, letting you hold him in bed while the moon spilled through the window and your nails skated across his scalp. He’d called you plenty of other names, teasing names and precious names, but never that.
Never my love.
Whatever is happening now is delicate, and you don’t know who’s more terrified to break it.
“My love,” he repeats, inhaling as he rubs his palms on his thighs. “I… I betrayed you.”
You breathe in sharply, but Sukuna keeps going like a runaway train. His crimson eyes lock onto yours, and you’ve never seen him so scared.
“I betrayed you that night. I always thought I’d be able to protect you from my enemies, but that night, I was proved wrong. Seeing you hurt like that… It was my fault. I wasn’t alert enough, I wasn’t strong enough, I wasn’t fast enough… I wasn’t enough to keep you safe.”
He pauses, his fingers trembling against his jeans.
“I saw you in the hospital,” he says softly. “You looked so broken, and I hated myself—I still do, hate myself—for what I’d gotten you into. I thought the only way to protect you was to remove myself, so I did, and I did it in the only way I knew would keep you from looking for me.”
You almost smile at that, despite the way it feels like a serrated knife to the stomach, because he’s right. If you hadn’t thought him dead, you would’ve torn the world apart looking for him.
“I stayed close, though,” he continues, and his expression darkens. “You’re right. I did watch you. I watched you every day, waiting for the morning where you’d wake up and realize I wasn’t worth crying over, but you never did. You just got… smaller, and that’s my fault. I did that to you.”
Violence flashes through his eyes, violence in a dance with hatred, and his nails dig into his jeans now, as if he wants to hurt himself at the memories replaying in his mind. Memories of you starving and slipping further into yourself.
You want to make him feel better, want to soothe the storm inside him, but you don’t. He needs to feel it. You need him to feel it.
“I thought it was my fault,” you whisper, “I thought I got you killed.”
Sukuna lets out an animalistic sound, something between a growl and a moan, and then he’s at your side, hands grasping yours like a lifeline.
“You abandoned me, Sukuna.” Fuck, your voice is so small, so brittle. You don’t know how to explain it to him, how to choose the right words to let him know exactly how you hurt because how can you describe something so deep? “You took away my power, my choice in my life.”
“Because you would’ve chosen me!”
Thwap!
You don’t realize you’ve slapped him until your palm is stinging and his head is jerking left. Your fury from two days ago returns, white hot and all consuming, and it churns with the hurt pounding beneath your rips, causing you to explode like a volcano.
“Yes!” you hiss, leaning forward, “I would’ve chosen you, you fucking asshole! Because I get to choose you if I want to. If you don’t want to choose me back for whatever pseudohonorable reason, then don’t, but don’t be a god damn coward and just disappear!” Your throat is too raw for this kind of anger, and you know you’re on the cusp of losing your voice, but you just need to finish. To say it all now, while you can. “You made me powerless, Sukuna,” you say, emotion leaking into your words, “and I never thought you would do that to me.”
Slowly, he looks back at you, and the utter devastation written plainly across his features—features you once through too hard, too sharp for such emotion—takes your breath away. He reaches for you, but instead of cradling your face like you expect, he brushes his thumb against your cheek. It comes back wet, and immediately, your own hands go to your face. Sure enough, salt-slick trails descend down to your chin—you didn’t realize you were crying, but at the sight of your tears, a sob wrenches from your lips.
“Kuna…”
“You were at that bar because of me,” Sukuna says roughly, like the words are scraping the inside of his throat as they come out. “Because I wasn’t there. Because I chose wrong. Because I was wrong. Please—” He stops abruptly, like he’s scared, like he has to force the words out because he’s almost too terrified of what you’ll say.
“Please,” he repeats, looking at you with a desperation you’ve never seen before. “Please, choose me, because I’m begging for you.” It’s as if whatever you decide, it’s a decision between life and death. And, yeah… it is.
But you don’t know what to say. You can’t explain it—how much you want to forgive him right now, but how you know that you can’t. You know It can’t be that easy. You deserve your forgiveness to mean something, to be something hard-fought-for. You need to know it's valuable, and you need Sukuna to know, too.
“I don’t—” Your voice breaks, so you stop and take a second to breathe. You’re one misstep away from sobbing, and you can’t right now, not when what you need to say requires a steady voice. “I don’t know how to forgive you.”
He takes your hand and holds it against his face, pressing his reddened cheek into your palm. For a moment, he closes his eyes, and you can’t stop yourself—you let your pointer finger trace the obsidian black lines at the crest of his cheekbone, and Sukuna sighs at the touch. Slowly, his hand comes up to completely cover yours, his rough calluses aligning with your knuckles.
“Then don’t,” he says finally, opening his eyes. “Don’t forgive me right now. Just… let me try to earn it. Let me try to prove that you can trust me, that I’ll never do anything to hurt you again.” He tilts his chin up and carefully kisses your pointer finger. “Please?”
Before you can answer, there’s a brusque knock on your hospital room door before the nurse rushes in, her gray hair pulled back in a claw clip that matches her matcha green, dinosaur-adorned scrubs. She’s halfway through smiling at you when she sees Sukuna at your bedside, and her beautiful, wrinkled face immediately turns hostile.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” she growls, jabbing a finger towards him.
Despite being an absolute beast of a man, panic flashes across Sukuna’s face, and you can’t help yourself: you laugh.
Then, because he was right, you choose him. Because you can. Because despite everything, you want to.
“It’s okay,” you say, brushing Sukuna’s hair back from his face. “He can stay.”
I s2g, that slap came to me in a dream HIT HIM, BITCH!
Info: this quite literally came to me in a dream, and now I just wanna get it out of my google drive finally 👉👈 just lots of angst, probably toxic idk and idc
warnings: mdni, obvi. VIOLENCE, LADIES! She purposefully gets the shit kicked out of her. Major character death but also not really (it makes sense, lol). I guess there's a threat of sexual violence, because a woman in this situation would be under that threat, but I don't really mention it (on purpose, I don't want it in this fic frankly). Angst, angst, angst, grieving, not taking care of oneself... just, dark shit guys.
wc: 4k
That night haunts you, the details etched on the backs of your eyelids like you’d just watched them play out seconds ago.
You and Sukuna were on your way home from your favorite bar, a little hole in the wall that served the best southside fizz this side of the city. You wore your new dress—an emerald green babydoll that hugged your tits in that gentle, seductive way you knew Sukuna couldn’t ignore—and he wrapped his arm around your shoulders, holding you tight against his side as the late-night wind whipped through the empty streets.
You were a drink past buzzed—god, why had you insisted on that last round—and giggly, poking Sukuna in the ribs as he grunted at you about being a lightweight.
You were the reason the two of you had ended up in that alley, the gin in your veins like fire. You pressed him up against the brick wall, wrapped your arms around his neck, and stood on your tiptoes, fitting your bodies together as you molded your lips to his, memorizing the electric feel. He tasted like cinnamon and mischief, like violence and sanctuary, and you burned with need. You were hungry, starving, famished, and only Ryomen Sukuna could satisfy you.
You’d found each other four years ago—well, no, he’d found you. He’d broken into your shithole studio apartment one night, beaten and bloody and literally shot, while you’d been out working as a waitress in a skeevy bar. When you’d come home, you’d found him passed out in your bathtub, gauze in one hand as his breath had rattled shallow through his lungs. You hadn’t screamed, your first instinct to grab the taser in your purse, but there was something about the pink-haired man in your cracked tub. You’d stared at him, at the obsidian black lines inked across his face, his forearms, dipping down across his broad chest. He was all sharp angles, his body chiseled into a lethal weapon beneath the black slacks and black button-down shirt stuck to his body with clotting blood.
He was a stranger in every sense of the word, but something in your soul knew him. And, hell, you couldn’t stand the thought of someone, handsome or not, bleeding out in your bathtub.
So, you’d knelt down and got to work cleaning his wounds (thankful he’d managed to dig the bullet before losing consciousness). At one point, he’d jerked awake, made to reach for a weapon that wasn’t at his belt, then noticed you crouched in front of him.
He’d called you an angel before promptly slumping unconscious against the wall again.
So you’d patched him up, wrapped him in a fuzzy pink blanket from your couch bed, and left him there.
When you’d woken the next morning, he was gone, and the only thing that kept you from thinking you’d hallucinated him completely were the rust-red drops of blood still dotting the off-white tile of your bathroom. You’d missed him, though the two of you hadn’t spoken, hadn’t even really made eye contact. There was something about him that called to you, that seemed to pull at the frayed edge of a memory, a life, just beyond your grasp.
And apparently, he’d felt the same, because Sukuna came back that next night, roses as red as his eyes that bore into you the moment you’d answered your door. As red as the blood you’d washed from his flesh. You’d stood there for a few moments in silence, you in your giant Venom t-shirt, hair loose and tangled as it often was on your nights off; Sukuna in another pair of black slacks with a black button-down shirt, with the sleeves rolled up and the fabric mercifully free of knife-cuts and bulletholes. Your eyes had traveled from the roses to the cords of muscle in his forearms to the way the black fabric pulled against his chest to the blade-like edge of his jaw to his eyes. And his gaze made a similar journey, traveling from your bare feet, toes freshly painted a deep purple, to your own ink, an abstract swirl of black lines like smoke climbing up your thigh and beneath the hem of your t-shirt, to your cherry kool-aid stained lips, to your eyes.
“Sukuna,” He’d said, his voice as deep and rich as an inhale. “Ryomen Sukuna.”
You’d given your name back, and when he’d repeated it, you couldn’t stop the shiver that skittered down your spine.
He’d smirked at that, his features lighting up like neon.
You’d taken the roses, and then his hand, and that was that.
You were his, and he was yours.
You’d known from the moment you’d met him that Sukuna’s life was one of danger. Not in a fun, Hollywood way, but in a real, could-be-dead-at-any-second way. He would leave at a moment’s notice, his absence feeling too big in your shared apartment (he’d moved you out of your shithole as soon as you’d agreed, though it didn’t take much convincing). You wouldn’t ask questions—you knew he wouldn’t answer them, not because he didn’t trust you, but because he wanted to keep you safe—and to be honest, you didn’t need to ask questions. You just needed him to come home safe. You just needed him to come home so you could patch him up and give him what he needed, whether that was to fuck his stress out until the sun rose in the periwinkle morning or to hold him against your chest, your fingers twisting gently in his freshly-washed hair.
He’d taught you how to handle a gun, bought you a knife for your first anniversary that he demanded you carry with you whenever you left the safety of the apartment. He didn’t keep you trapped, you could truly go wherever you wanted whenever you wanted, but he was always there, too. Sometimes at your side, sometimes in the shadows. Just watching. Protecting.
And when he couldn’t, he had Uraume, his handler and a perfect ghost to everyone but you. You always knew when you were being watched, a skill as sharp as an icepick honed in a childhood home you’d rather forget. But you didn’t mind, not when you knew it was one less thing for Sukuna to stress about. To be distracted by.
Distractions.
You knew they were dangerous, but sometimes… sometimes you got reckless, and sometimes then, Sukuna got reckless, too.
Sometimes, you were each other’s perfect storms.
It would be romantic if it hadn’t gotten him killed.
You just wanted to kiss him. There was something about the way the warm beams of the streetlights caressed his face, made his crimson eyes glow, made his pink hair look ironically like a halo. You just wanted to kiss him, to make sure he was real, to make sure he knew you were real.
And so you pulled him into that alley.
And you pressed your lips to his.
You kissed him like he was salvation, and he kissed you like you were destruction.
And for you both, the world stopped.
So you didn’t hear the group of men advancing from the mouth of the alley, cutting you off from escape and help.
“King of Curses,” one of the men said, snapping you both back into the real world, and it’s very real danger. “You’re a hard man to track down, and an even harder man to get alone.”
Quicker than a gasp, Sukuna tucked behind his broad, muscular frame, one hand tight on your wrist and the other suddenly holding his glock, cocked and trained at the man who spoke, the apparent leader of this five-man gang. Sukuna wore a mask of indifference, almost boredom, but you noticed the way his jaw clenched just the slightest, the way his fingers pressed into your pulse point, hard enough to bring you to the edge of pain.
“Gentlemen, must we ruin your night?” Sukuna sighed, his aim unwavering.
The leader shrugged, but his lips pulled into a smirk so smug it sent a chill down your spine. He knew something you didn’t… That Sukuna didn’t, and that was rare.
“I think we’ll take our chances,” The leader drawled, and your frown deepened as he planted his hands in his pockets, like he was relaxed. Like he wasn’t facing off against the deadliest killer in the city. Sukuna could kill five men as easily as he could make a cup of coffee in the morning, whether he had a gun, a knife, or simply his bare hands. You’d seen it yourself, when they’d dare challenge him when you were out together—you’d seen him stab a man up through his jaw, blood spraying from his mouth like bright red seafoam; you’d seen him crush a man’s chest simply with his foot and enough force to cave in his ribcage. Hell, Sukuna had once ripped off a drunk man’s thumb when he’d grabbed you at a bar and refused to let go.
These stories swirled through the city streets like wind, howling a warning of how vicious, how fatal he could be, so why were these men smiling? No, not smiling.
Grinning.
A sound, a quiet scuff against the pavement, sounded behind you, so you turned your head to find more men emerging from the shadows like street-starved rats.
“Kuna.”
And then it started.
The men rushed at you from both sides, barely flinching as Sukuna pulled the trigger, downing one of the men from the mouth of the alley in less than a second. Your breath caught in your lungs and gunsmoke clogged your throat, but you weren’t useless. You pulled your knife, a beautiful black butterfly knife, from your boot and flicked it open with ease, your muscles proficient in all the necessary movement after hours of training with Sukuna. Yes, you’d brought a knife to a gun fight, and fuck did you hate that you didn’t have a better weapon, but not all of these men had firearms, and you knew enough to take at least help Sukuna.
At least, you thought you did.
Sukuna yanked you across the alley as another man took a silenced shot, and as he fired back, you turned to face the men coming at your other side.
The first man charged you, his own serrated blade in hand, and you ducked down, twisting your body and slicing across his thigh as you went. He squealed as blood sprayed against gray brick, and for a moment, you felt triumphant, powerful even. But then another man kicked a piece of trash in your path, and your legs caught on each other as you jerked to avoid it, sending you off-balance and stumbling.
A hand grabbed your bicep, and immediately you knew it wasn’t Sukuna. You stabbed frantically with your blade, clipping flesh but not sinking into it, not doing enough damage, and from nowhere, a foot connected with your stomach hard. You gasped, hot blood shooting up your throat and spraying from your lips, and the knife was yanked from your weakened grip. You tried to yell, but it was wet and muffled, and then your own blade was pressed to your throat as a pair of arms and thick and strong as iron banded around your waist, pressing down painfully, purposefully against your injured stomach. Your arms were held tightly against your sides, and when you bucked, you felt your skin start to split beneath the knife.
Fuck.
“Keep still, pretty,” your captor growled in your ear, and you realized it was the leader of the gang. There was pomp in his voice as he gave a small chuckle and called out, “King of Curses!”
Sukuna’s head swiveled as he parried a blow from one of the gang members, and damn him, he froze the moment he saw you. Saw the small bead of blood dribble a scarlet trail down the column of your throat.
“Kuna!” You screamed, but that split-second of stillness was enough for one of the men to land a blow to the back of his head, the sickening sound of skin-on-skin ringing in your ears like a gunshot. Your whole body jerked as he stumbled forwards, your stolen blade cutting even deeper into your flesh, but you barely felt it.
You barely felt anything other than the white-hot surge of self-hatred as it pulsed through your body, numbing and excruciating in your veins. This was your fault, from the alcohol in your blood to the stupid tryst in the alley to the suckerpunch that has Sukuna unsteady on his feet, blinking too much and swinging too wildly. His gun was gone, lost somewhere in the scuffle, and you looked wildly for it, as if you could find it, free yourself, and shoot every man who dared attack the man you loved more than your own soul.
Two of the men grabbed Sukuna by the arms, and a third captured him in a headlock, keeping him restrained and vulnerable. Then, they waited, and your stomach seized in terror.
“You picked the wrong man,” The leader whispered in your ear, and you could feel the way his lips cut up into an awful, cruel smile. Your body, as if recognizing a warning, tensed, and a second later, your stolen knife was hitting the pavement with a muffled clatter as the leader launched you headfirst into the brick.
…Sukuna screaming your name…
…your body shuddering once… twice…
…blood in your mouth, metallic—too salty, too rich…
The gunshot brought you back to earth, to the alley, to Sukuna.
You screamed, the sound as jagged as shattered glass, and in the haze of your mind fighting against the tendrils of oblivion, you saw Sukuna’s body collapse to the ground, crimson spreading around him like shadow. You screamed again, but it sounded so far away. So separate from you, like this was a dream.
Distantly, you hear the men leaving, bloated with confidence that the job was done. That the King of Curses had been put down.
But he couldn’t be.
You tried to stand, but your surroundings tilted too violently, a world distorted. So, you dragged yourself, gasping and choking, and as your fingers sliced through the pool of his blood—his life—you dug in his pockets for his phone and called for an ambulance. Your words slurred as your hands fumbled for the wound—fuck, fuck, FUCK—and in the moments right before you passed out again, you laid yourself against Sukuna’s stomach, praying that it would be enough to stop the bleeding until help arrived.
But it wasn’t.
You’d woken in the hospital, pumped full of drugs that somehow didn’t touch the pain splintering through your skull. Uraume had been there, and before you could ask, they'd told you.
Insurmountable blood loss.
No security cameras.
Already cremated.
Gone.
When Sukuna died, you died, too.
Those first six months, you were a ghost in a woman’s body. You didn’t eat unless Shoko made you, didn’t shower or leave the apartment unless you were forced. Your body was a husk, filled to bursting with a grief so vicious that it was comforting. You deserved to suffer, to shrink, to wither.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Shoko demanded, standing in front of you with furious, pleading eyes. She gestured at the food on the coffee table, noodles untouched from her visit the previous afternoon. She didn’t have to ask if you’d moved from the sofa since she’d been over—the answer was obvious.
You just stared past her, out the window to the gray-orange sky of dusk. There was no point in answering her question, not that she expected you to in the first place.
Your body was covered in a layer of grime—when was the last time you showered? A week ago?—and in another lifetime, you’d be disgusted. In another lifetime, you’d be scrubbing yourself raw in the shower with a loofah and your favorite shower gel. But in that lifetime, Sukuna would be alive, and he’d be in the shower with you, taking over as you allowed yourself to relax in his big, capable hands. He’d grumble about how hot the water was, how overpowering the citrus scent of your soap was, but the moment you’d insist you could just shower yourself, he’d silence you with a kiss. In another lifetime.
But in this lifetime, he was dead.
In this lifetime, you couldn’t stand the thought of taking a shower.
In this lifetime, Shoko would try to get you to eat, fail, and sit with you until the silence became too suffocating. She’d leave, and you’d wrap yourself in the shadows of before.
You became addicted to misery, a devotion so consuming that it wasn’t enough for you to inflict it on yourself. You needed others to hurt you, to make the pain that lit you like a lantern even more real.
So, you weren’t careful anymore.
You would take walks after midnight, that fucking butterfly knife Sukuna had bought you long gone to that night. You would drink alone and heavily, talking to men you knew Sukuna would’ve beat the shit out of just for glancing at you twice. You would even leave your apartment door unlocked half the time, your ears pricked for the slow rattle of the brass door knob as you lay in bed, halfway between sleep and hell. You waited, almost impatiently, but Sukuna’s reputation succeeded him, and everyone knew who you were.
His pretty little widow.
The two of you had never gotten married, never even had the chance to go ring shopping, but it didn’t matter. You were his, in life and death, so no one messed with you. Not out of fear, but out of respect.
And you hated them for it. Hated them for making you live such an empty life.
Fushiguro, Gojo, Geto… they could go to hell. They didn’t understand. They were torturing you by keeping you alive, and maybe you deserved that—no, you definitely did, torture was merely a drop in the bucket for what you’d done—but you couldn’t stand it, anymore. You weren’t strong enough.
It takes eight months, but you find a bar on the other edge of the city, in a particularly dangerous fringe that seems untouched by Sukuna’s influence.
If you had it, you’d wear that babydoll dress, but it was cut off of you at the hospital, the scraps of fabric gone to biohazard disposal. So you settled on a different dress, a short, black slip that would get you the attention you wanted. You cleaned yourself up, and with the knowledge that this was the end, it was almost enjoyable again. You did your hair the way Sukuna liked, glossy and wavy and free down your back, and painted your lips the same crimson as Sukuna’s eyes.
When you walk into the dive, you feel the eyes as they latch onto you like leeches. You ignore them as you approach the bar and slip onto one of the stools, the hem of your dress riding high on your thigh. You first ask the bartender for two shots of whiskey, which you down without so much as a wince—ironic, since you’d always hated whiskey, something Sukuna teased you for.
When the men in the bar realize you’re there to get drunk, they’re only too happy to oblige, buying you shot after shot of the nice shit as they try to make you laugh, or smile, or do anything other than stare at them with dead eyes. They don’t even try to read between the lines, to understand why you’re letting them ply you alcohol, why your body is too skinny, your face gaunt beneath your makeup. Instead of arriving at a place of concern, the men around you go from enjoying the challenge of cracking you to getting frustrated. To taking it personally that you’re not hanging off their arms, giggling at their jokes, gazing at their lips as you hiccup in the warm embrace of alcohol. To a strange place of fury borne from insecurity.
Good.
Insecure men are violent men, and you want to hurt.
When you get up from your barstool, the room swims, your limbs simultaneously too heavy and too light. You couldn’t fight back, even if you wanted to, and you’re glad for it. You don’t want an escape route. You want to cut off every source of oxygen until you suffocate.
You brush the men off, stumbling out of the bar to the soundtrack of their anger.
“Bitch, what the fuck?”
“God damn tease!”
“You owe me, slut!”
You feel the evening chill more than you feel the sting of their words, but as you stagger down the sidewalk, you hear them pour out of the bar after you. Hear their footfalls against the broken sidewalk as you step into a particularly dark spot in front of an empty lot between two buildings.
You fight back, at first. You have to, to keep their interest.
Even wasted, you’re a good fighter. Sukuna made sure you would be, hours spent together at Fushiguro’s gym after hours practicing self-defense. So, you know exactly where to jab the heel of your palm to break one man’s nose, a howl of pain ripping from him as blood gushes from his nose. You also know how to angle your elbow to connect with the most sensitive part of the jaw, sending another man’s head snapping backwards as his teeth snap painfully.
Now, they’re angry enough to kill, the liquor in their blood only helping assure them that this kind of violence is warranted. That you, a measly woman, deserve death for daring to fight back against them. For daring to hurt them, to cause them to bleed.
You find yourself smiling as they land blows up into your gut, blood spraying from your lips as your soft insides burst and bruise and swell. One yanks your hair so another has a clear target, the punch landing on your right cheek and sending your head snapping to the side. The force sends you to the ground, gravel embedding itself into your skin on impact, and when your head bounces against the concrete, a sound like a sob and a laugh heaves from your lips.
“This bitch is crazy!”
“Is she laughin’ at us?”
“Fuckin’ cunt, give ‘er somethin’ to laugh at.”
One of the men kicks your face, and your nose gives a sickening crunch as cartilage splinters and flesh rips. You have to open your mouth to breathe now, every inhale wheezing down your throat before a kick to your ribs forces it from your lungs.
Your body is a giant bruise, sensitive and exposed, and you don’t know if the warmth on your face is blood or tears. You curl in on yourself, your animal instinct kicking in, but it doesn’t matter.
It’s almost over.
Almost.
You close your eyes.
And then it stops.
The men don’t touch you again.
Instead, they start screaming.
Wait, you think distantly. Finish it.
FINISH IT.
The men scream and scream, and beneath it, you hear the awful echo of flesh-on-flesh.
Don’t save me!
Please!
DON’T SAVE ME!
When the screaming stops, you realize broken sobs are spilling from your lips. You don’t feel the pain, yet, and you don’t want to. You can’t. You can’t handle it. You’re not strong enough to be saved. You just need to die, you just need to die!
Hands, gentle as those of a lover, ghost over your face, and your heart stops.
Impossible.
But you open your eyes, and there he is.
Even in the fog of near-death, you see each feature clearly.
Inked jawline. Soft pink hair. Crimson eyes.
Sukuna, alive.
Too bad you’re as good as dead.
idk, man, I just like shit like this. Gimme all the dark shit, inject it into my veins
first day, first lecture, actually. he stepped in late, and the only empty seat left was beside you. you both stared at the professor in pure, utterly confused silence, question marks probably floating on top of your heads as you tried to gather anything. after five minutes, you simply turned and asked him to let you pass so you could leave.
he grabbed his stuff, joining you. he asked if you wanted to grab coffee, and that’s how it all started.
three years later, you were the untouchable sukuna ryomen’s girlfriend. your relationship was private, no one knew any details (it wasn’t like anyone would dare to ask sukuna, especially with the way his resting face was a terrifying glare to everyone else) and you two preferred it that way.
no one knew the details. no one knew how sukuna was deeply and utterly smitten— the scowling, terrifying, muscular 6’4 man turning immediately into lovesick puppy for you. clingy, needy, obsessed, your guard dog of a boyfriend never ever let you doubt his love. he always made it clear, whether it was his arm’s wrapped around you every chance he got, or him spamming your phone whenever you weren’t around, using any excuse to talk to you, or the way he dropped everything for you, making it clear you were his first priority, or the way he listened intensely to every word that left your mouth and noticed everything about you— which showed when he referenced your words from months ago, or bought you gifts you didn’t even mention, or could tell you weren’t okay from a single glance.
it really was not a lie that sukuna ryomen loved you. he knew it. you knew it. his frat knew it. everyone that really knew sukuna knew he loved you.
which was why the break up broke you.
that night didn’t even seem real. he had ignored you for a total of three days, replying to your texts dryly, which was already odd. then, he showed to to your place in the middle of the night, jaw clenched, eye bags dark, like he hasn’t slept in days. he didn’t elaborate, didn’t explain— simply told you he was tired, that he couldn’t do this anymore, and walked away.
like he didn’t just ruin you. like you two weren’t discussing your shared future a few days ago. like you two hadn’t already agreed what stupid fucking roses you wanted at your wedding. like he hasn’t kissed you so softly just a few days ago, murmuring soft pleads for you to never leave him.
to make it worse, he didn’t disappear after. he attended your shared lectures as usual— sitting behind you, always behind you, like he needed to keep you in his vision. he left your notifications on, which you knew because he remained the first to view every story until you blocked him. he kept going to your favorite cafe beside campus (he didn’t even like their coffee) at the exact same time you always did, his sad eyes set on you, buying a single water bottle each time, until you stopped going. you even had to stop going to the library late at night, because he would always be there, blank notebooks open as he pathetically pretended to focus when his eyes wouldn’t leave you alone. even late at night, when you would scroll through your chats, you would see his bubble. tying. erasing. there.
it was worse, because it was obvious that he still loved you.
it made you want to scream, really. it would have been better if he just… pretended you didn’t exist. ignored you. blocked you first. flirted with girls in your vision. did anything to make you feel like he didn’t care anymore. like he didn’t give a fuck, so you could move on. so you wouldn’t get the stupid urge to show up to his place and ask him what the fuck his issue was. so you could hate him.
but again, unfortunately for you, sukuna was never good at hiding his love for you.
it was going to be okay, though. because sukuna already broke it up, and moving on was clearly the only good solution. it wasn’t like he will ever come back, anywa—
bzzz.
dilf420: bro. ur fucking bf is sulking and ruining my party. can you come pick his drunk ass up. ill pay u.
you blinked once at the notification, then twice, then immediately opened it. you really should have blocked the whole frat.
you: broke up. no longer my bf. also, ur broke.
toji replied immediately.
dilf420: idc that u two broke up he’s drunk and blabbering about missing his fucking wife come pick his ass up
you stared at the dm blankly, eyes staring at the words like it would disappear if you blinked.
his fucking wife.
your throat felt dry. heart physically hurting, like someone’s fingers were digging into the muscle and squeezing it the way sukuna used to squeeze your fingers before kissing each knuckle. it hurt, so much, your vision slowly blurring the longer you stared at the three words.
on the other side of the phone, sukuna was pressed against toji, shoving his face into the cracked screen, face flushed from the alcohol, lips almost pouting, hair messy from running his hands through it so many times. “is she answerin’?” he muttered, voice slurred. “my pretty wife, is she comin’?”
toji sighed. “nah, man. she left me on read. you’re so fucked.”
sukuna groaned, stumbling slightly before he was leaning on the wall, eyes shut in pure devastation. “she hates me. what if she doesn’t wanna get back?”
“…you showed up at three in the morning and broke up with her without giving her a reason, bro. on gojo’s soul, she does not want to get back.”
it was silent for a few seconds before a quiet sniffle echoed in the room, and toji’s head snapped to the untouchable, scary figure sliding down the wall, face buried into his hands, shoulders trembling. toji’s eyes widened briefly, but sukuna grunted, the sound shaky. “not a fucking word.”
the next monday, you were still recovering from toji’s dm as you slid into your morning, 8:30 am lecture. you were half-asleep, buried in sweatpants and a hoodie, hood up in an attempt to hide from the world. your eyes were drooping sleepily, head slowly slipping from where your head rested on your palm, the tip of your pen slowly seeping ink into the paper.
someone slides beside you, and you freeze. you knew that cologne. you bought that cologne.
you didn’t move a muscle, shoulders tense, eyes suddenly focused as they stared ahead. you could feel his gaze, his thigh pressing against yours in the annoyingly small seats. you could feel the heat from his skin, even from the thick fabric of your sweatpants.
…what the fuck was he doing?
your jaw clenched, before you took a quiet deep breath, convincing yourself he must have not looked properly when picking a seat. it takes a few minutes, but you’re finally able to focus back on your professor again, ignoring the way you could feel his gaze shifting to you ever few seconds.
“…i’m sorry.”
you sucked in a sharp, annoyed breath, gaze still ahead, fingers tightening around the pen in your grasp, eyes unamused. he slowly placed a cup on your desk— your favorite coffee, from your favorite cafe. you froze, and you could see him wincing from your peripheral vision.
“…give me a chance explain, please?”
you carefully pushed yourself up, grabbing your bag and notebook, and silently stepped out of the hall. outside, toji was standing, a sigh on his lips as he caught up with you despite how you only spared him an annoyed glare.
“he loves you, you know that.” toji murmured. “give him a chance to explain.”
“no.” you muttered. “he’s a coward who left me without an explanation. now he wants to give me one?”
toji grimaced. “that wasn’t his brightest moments, but… come on, he’s your sukuna.”
“he made it clear he’s not.”
that night, you were dragged to one of their parties, curtesy of gojo begging you to show with tears and snot running down his face, using a lame excuse about how everyone in the frat misses you. you didn’t buy it, but you had to stop the embarrassingly loud bawling boy on your doorstep.
now, you sat in their kitchen, perched on the counter, an overly sweet drink between your fingers, and a staring ex-boyfriend on the other side.
sukuna was sulking.
eyes set on you, lips pursed, arms crossed— he ignored everyone who stared at him just so he could keep his eyes on you. geto and nanami sighed as they passed, geto offering him a bottle casually, and sukuna grabbed it, eyes still on you before he tilted his head back and drowned half the bottle down, only stopping when nanami pulled it back while snapping about expensive liquor.
the thing about sukuna? he was a lightweight, and an emotional drunk. that usually manifested in a shorter temper when he wasn’t with you, and him being unbelievably clingy with you, and now, a few hours after gulping random drinks down?
it manifested in him dragging himself to stand in front of you, lips wobbling and eyes tearful, looking like a kicked puppy instead of the frat bro everyone was terrified off. “baby…”
you hated how your own heart clenched, fingers digging into your palm to prevent yourself from cooing at him and tugging him into your hold safely. you only narrowed your eyes at him, and his eyes glossed even more. he opened his mouth, probably to beg, only to halt dangerously.
you, unfortunately, knew him too well. you let out a loud groan, quickly jumping off and dragging him to an empty bathroom upstairs, shutting the door just in time for him to drop to his knees and empty his stomach out into the toilet. he let out a choked sob between retches, and you sighed, sitting on the edge of the bathtub, a hand slowly rubbing his back. “dumbass.”
“i miss you so much,” he immediately whimpered, eyes shut painfully. “i miss you so, so, much. please, angel, forgive me, please— i want you back, i need you back, ‘m a stupid son of a bitch for every breaking it off, i need you in my life, please—“
he was interrupted with another gag, and you sighed, resuming to rub his back as he continued, your own vision blurry, heart shattering at the broken sob he let out once he was done.
“breathe.” you murmured softly. “come on, kuna, breathe for me. you can do that, yeah?”
“no,” he choked out. “i can’t— can’t even breathe without you, baby. please, please, forgive me for being a dumb idiot, i need my wife back, please—“
“if you breathe now, and we can talk tomorrow.”
it was almost humorous how he immediately straightened up, red, watery eyes wide, nose red and cheeks flushed from the alcohol. you sighed, reaching over to wipe his tears away, and he let out a pathetic whine, immediately leaning into your touch. you finally helped him up, forcing him to brush his teeth before you opened the door, quietly leading him into his room.
inside, he immediately flopped into bed, tired, sad eyes staring up at you. “you’ll… talk to me, right? please, baby?”
“tomorrow,” you murmured, throwing him a pair of shorts. “just sleep now, okay?”
he nodded frantically, eyes shutting quickly, obediently.
no one would believe this was the version of sukuna ryomen you knew— now when everyone else got the loud, short-tempered, rude, asshole version of him. you stared at him softly, watching his breathe even out, eyes fluttering shut, before you sighed softly, and stepped out of his room.
the next morning, you woke up to sukuna in front of your door, hair messy and eyes exhausted, yet holding a bouquet of your favorite flowers and your favorite coffee, the other messily trying to adjust his shirt to look more presentable. the second you opened your door, eyes sleepy and hair messily, lips pulled into a frown, he froze.
red eyes widened softly before his body relaxed, eyes softening, and breathed out slowly. “…hi.”
you reluctantly opened the door wider, letting him in. he stepped in, 6’4 solid figure suddenly seeming small, gently setting the items down, hands that are used to throwing punches leaning down to carefully adjust a delicate petal before he straightened up, eyes falling back on you, so full of unsaid emotions that they were already glossing over.
after a few seconds, he swallowed harshly, throat bobbing before he took a step closer. “i missed you.”
you frowned, eyes narrowing. “why did you break up, sukuna?”
“please,” he choked out the second the name escaped your lips, eyes wide in pure devastation. “please, angel. ryo, kuna, baby, pretty boy— anything but that.”
your frown deepened. he let out a defeated, shaky breath, and stepped even closer. “i broke it because i was a fucking idiot. i… i never loved someone so much, angel, i never cared about someone so much. you made me the happiest person alive, and… i knew you deserved better.”
you froze. he sniffled, taking another step closer, eyes desperately and voice breaking. “angel, i… i’m a selfish, possessive asshole, and you deserve someone perfect. i was so scared that you’ll wake up one day and end it, so i… just did.”
your vision clouded with tears, and he dropped to his knees, eyes wet with unshed tears. “i was a stupid, fucking idiot. i should have stayed, talked to you, got the reassurance i know my angel would give me, but i didn’t want to be selfish… i thought i was doing what’s best for you…”
he let his head drop, face falling to press against your abdomen, a loud, pained whimper escaping him. “turns out i was a fucking idiot for ever considering letting you go. i… i have been miserable, angel, bawled my fucking eyes out an embarrassing amount of times. i miss you so much, baby, i can’t— i can’t live with you. i can’t sleep, eat, breathe,” he gasped, hands trembling as they slowly reached to hold into your waist, and let out a louder sob once his fingers touched your body, tears soaking your shirt. “i need you in my life, angel. please, i can’t live without you. my heart only exists to beat for you. i was a fucking moron to ever think about letting you go. you deserve so much better— and i promise, ‘ll be better. i’ll be a better boyfriend, a better partner, a better everything— just, give me a chance,”
you sniffled. the second you did, his head snapped up, eyes wide and tearful and horrified, and he immediately shot to his feet, ignoring his own soaked face as gentle fingers slowly cupped your cheek, wiping your tears away. “please don’t cry, i can’t handle you being upset, please—“
“you idiot.” you finally whispered. he froze, eyes wide and pained, and you only stepped closer, letting your head drop into his chest. his arms immediately wrapped around you, pulling you until no space existed between you both. “are you stupid?”
“i am. i’m sorry, baby,” he whispered back. “i’m so sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m—“
“shut up.” you croaked out. “you’re an idiot. i love you as you are, you asshole.”
“i know, baby. i’m sorry.” he buried his face into your neck, his tears damping your shirt once more. “i’m never leaving you again, angel. not even physically— i’ll be so clingy you’ll get sick of me. i can’t live without you, i’m sorry, i’m sorry.”
you let him hold you, eyes shut tiredly. “…idiot.”
he let out a sharp laugh, holding you even tighter, pressing wet kisses all over your face until a smile broke on your pretty lips, and you could physically feel him finally breathing normally, still pressing kisses to your face, gentle and needy and desperate. “i know, angel. only an idiot would ever walk away from you. never, ever again. i love you. never, ever again. i’ll marry you, my love. never leaving you again.”
a/n i hate tumblr i had to write this three times </3 anyways hi ^^ still obsessed w these headers…
Frat geto and frat gojo getting out freaked by nerd reader? It could both or separate but imagine their at a study session and things start getting spicy, and maybe the think reader is a virgin but suddenly they start taking control of the situation, like making them 69 or something like that while he preps them. This is crazy and makes no sense I’m so sorry😭hope you’re having a good day or night!
“I Want My Boyfriends to Kiss” — Ashnikko
Frat!Gojo x Male Nerd!Reader x Frat!Geto
CW: Threesome(obv), kinda toxic if you squint..?
(Not proofread I got lost in the sauce)
You were a means to an end, at first.
Both Satoru and Suguru weren’t failing, whatsoever, yet they called your number on the flyer because they knew exactly who you were. Everyone on campus did.
You were that one smoke-show on campus nobody could believe was a complete nerd, and yet, that made you so much hotter.
You were that guy that everyone knew about but nobody knew. You kept to yourself and your few friends seemed to carry all the conversations while you listened.
Everyone either wanted to get a hit of you or wanted to see who finally would. As far as rumors went, you hadn’t slept with a single person for the past two years of school. Your roommate was a gossip, telling all his friends about how you’ve never brought someone back, not even once!
Satoru and Suguru were on the side of wanting you. It was a mix between wanting you because you were hot and the novelty around you. If they could brag about having you, then they’d be the first. Everyone would be so jealous, and they could then have you to themselves since nobody would dare try to live up to them.
So when they saw you put up a flyer offering paid tutoring they were the firsts to call. Couldn’t let anyone else take advantage of the open invitation. They made up some lie about struggling in a random subject from your list— was it statistics?
They had no problem with getting the money, frat “donations” and all, so the next part was just picking a place to do it.
Between the frat boys, it was a question of Suguru’s place or Satoru’s. That was until you offered up your place. How bold of you!
They didn’t hesitate for a second. Getting to bone you AND getting to be one of the few people who see your bedroom?? Score.
The next day, right on your agreed-upon time, the two boys showed up in their most fuckable attire. Suguru in a short-sleeved button up with way too little buttons, and Satoru in that shockingly tight, bordering-on crop-top of a t-shirt he was so famous for. Both in their respective ass-hugging jeans, of course.
And you, more than likely not even trying, were just as hot to them. God, you were perfect.
“So, what parts of stats aren’t you getting? Is it formulas or something?” You didn’t even greet them, just getting straight to business. Honestly, they were a little disappointed at the lack of cute nerd stereotypes they’d dreamed of but they got over it.
“Yeah, formulas and all that. Real hard to memorize, y’know?” Satoru agreed, acting half-assedly. He just wanted to get to the fun part already. You looked really fucking good, sleeves rolled up to your elbows all sexy-teacher-like.
Suguru was kind enough to pick up the slack for him, “Maybe you can explain a few of them? Slowly, please.” He smirked, clearly up to far more than studying.
You weren’t stupid, obviously. You knew the target on your back around school, your friends never let you forget it. You knew the two’s reputation and why they were trying to get closer to you. Everyone knew that Satoru fucks like a bunny and Suguru has a long trail of broken hearts following him.
And yet, you didn’t refuse them or tell them to go away. Partially because you did need that money, but also because you were strategizing.
If you slept with the two, nobody else would try getting into your pants. It would intimidate everyone who tried. The frat boys were jerks but everyone admitted they were good as hell in bed. Anyone who tried you after them would just become insecure.
So, you let them think they were using you, so that you could use them. And… a little fun in the meantime wouldn’t hurt.
It was Satoru who made the first move, a hand to your thigh not even 20 minutes into your studying. How impatient.
“I’m pretty tired. Can we take a break?” He tilted his head all cutesy as he asked. He’s so obvious it’s not even funny.
Then you felt a weight on your shoulder, Suguru with his chin on your shoulder. “C’mon, we’ll work right after.” He pushed, moving to whisper in your ear “We’ll do whatever you want~.”
That’s how the two ended up making out on top of one another, each with your fingers stuffing them full.
Satoru was kissing Suguru so sloppily, hardly able to focus with your right hand smothering his prostate and Suguru’s boner smothering his own. Suguru wasn’t in much better shape, gasping and panting against Satoru’s lips due to, not just the weight on top of him, but the inescapable pleasure he was being put through. Unable to squirm away.
You hadn’t let either cum yet, telling them it was “Just the prep” as if you hadn’t been at this for the past 30 minutes. With each added finger you’d say, “Just a bit more.” And every time they’d whine and groan against the other’s lips.
It was three fingers in that Satoru reached behind him for your hand. “Pleeaasee…. can’t… can’t do it anymore..” He pleaded.
Suguru joined in, unable to reach your other hand so resorting to holding Satoru for comfort. “Just.. hah… just fuck us already… however you want- js’ do it…”
You thought for a minute, unsure if you wanted the fun to end, until you felt the neediness of your own cock, desperate for release. So, you relented, pulling your fingers out of them slowly, which of course caused them to whine at the loss. It was like they couldn’t make up their minds.
They moved off of each other while you lubed yourself up, needing to breathe and cool off. Their chests felt like they’d explode any second. Fuck, they really miscalculated thinking you were a virgin. When did you have the time to learn all this??
Their break was cut short however when you spoke up, “I want you two back on each other. Face me this time, Gojo, ok?” You spoke so clearly, like you were completely unashamed of the situation. It’s not like they were but they didn’t expect anything like this from you!
They listened, surprisingly obedient for them of all people. Suguru was back on his back as Satoru carefully laid himself back onto Suguru’s chest, nearly sitting on his dick while he was at it. He mumbled a small ‘sorry’ to Suguru when he accidentally did, eliciting a groan.
“No reason to apologize,” you cut in, “It’s exactly what I want you to do.” You slipped your hands between them, gently grabbing at Suguru’s length, causing him to whimper quietly. That whimper soon turned into a full on moan from both of them when you began slowly inching Suguru into Satoru’s entrance.
“W-what are you-“ You cut him off, “Relax, Satoru. I’ll fill you myself after. I can only fuck you one at a time, y’know.” He kept quiet after that, apprehensively watching you stuff him with his best friend’s cock. He and Suguru had slept together before, that’s no shock, but you would soon be the first person they’d ever do it in front of.
Once Suguru was snug inside his best friend, catching his breath after to adjust, you began inching into him. He groaned behind those perfect teeth, head falling back on your pillow, haloed by his own raven hair. And of course, each movement he made, Satoru felt. He could also hear every one of Suguru’s groans loud and clear beside his ear, biting his lip to cope.
After giving everyone a moment to adjust, you suddenly brought your hand up to Satoru’s length and began rocking your hips into Suguru, stroking him at the same pace. Soon just rocking turned into thrusting into Suguru, which of course added to his own thrusts into Satoru.
“F-fuuuuuck…” Satoru moaned, voice wobbly with the movement as his head fell back beside his beat friend’s. The two boys were moaning, almost in harmony to one another. They really were joint at the hip, how cute.
The tangle of legs between the two was getting awkward so Suguru busied himself with holding Satoru’s thighs up to his chest, spreading him open for the both of you to see. He let out a more open-mouthed moan at that.
You worked diligently at keeping a pace in your movements, the other two falling behind by a second. Your thumb was rubbing and stroking at the underside of Satoru’s length whilst your hips were pounding into Suguru’s harsher and harsher over time.
Suguru had yet to make too much sound, compared to his loud mouth roommate, and you decided to challenge yourself. You angled your hips in numerous ways, searching and searching for that one, special-
“Fuck!” Spot.
Soon enough Suguru was panting open-mouthed right next to Satoru’s ear, and you could tell by the look at his face that he was envious. After all, in this position— especially with how distracted Suguru is— Suguru couldn’t really hit his sweet spot the way he needed.
You decided to be generous, after all, you had a free hand.
Satoru gasped at the newer intrusion, looking down between his legs to see you squeezing a finger into his already stuffed hole. “He’s not hitting it, huh? So selfish of Suguru. He’s not even trying to make you cum.” You sank your fingers deeper, eliciting a groan out of both of them. “I guess it’s up to me.”
“Hah hah… anngh!” Satoru’s teeth clenched as his back arched, mouth almost immediately falling back open to moan loudly yet again. “Oh fuck- oh fuh- haaah..” He was now desperately bucking up into your fist, unsure which side of his pleasure to lean into. Suguru wasn’t in any better spot, nails digging into Satoru’s thighs as his hips wriggled aimlessly.
Suguru wanted to run from the overwhelming pleasure but there was nowhere to go. You were nonstop pounding into his entrance and Satoru was clenching around him like he intended to never let go, that tightness greatened by the bonus of your fingers. All that and he was stuck under Satoru’s weight, literally held down. He just had to sit and take it.
Fuck, he was so close.
“Y/N… oh, god, Y/N… ‘m close.. Satoru m’ close..” he warned you both, hips beginning to buck harsher than before, sending Satoru right to cloud nine. As Satoru’s back lifted off Suguru’s chest you knew he was close as well.
“It’s fah…. ‘s finee.. yer c-clean jus’- fuck! Just cum in me..” Satoru rambled, assuring his best friend it was ok to let go. Almost as the universe’s reward for his kindness, your fingers finally managed to push Suguru’s tip right into his prostate, causing him to cry out.
It took only just a few more thrusts from the both of you for Satoru the spill all over himself, legs kicking around at the overwhelming pleasure only to be stabilized by Suguru’s hands. And of course, due to Satoru’s squeezing, Suguru came right after him, staining both Satoru’s walls and your fingers with white.
The two ground together for a bit longer before stilling, coming down from their respective highs. They panted almost in sync, lost completely in the bliss of their orgasms.
That was until they both gradually realized you hadn’t cummed at all, looking down at you in confusion. You met their gazes simply, “What? I told you, Satoru would get his turn.”
They both looked to each other.
They were so bragging about this if they could walk tomorrow.
Reader surprising Sukuna with a tramp stamp of his tattoo, slightly yearner Sukuna x brat & baddie reader
My works: enjoy
Bye now - Mars ♡
You've been avoiding your husband for three days, three whole days. He was losing his mind, rightfully so.
What did he do this time?
Did he accidentally say something to annoy you?
He didn't eat your leftovers, and he didn't make any insensitive jokes so why couldn't he just see you?
He HATED to admit it, but he missed you.
He missed you.
Everytime he showed up, you told him to go away, you were busy. You shooed him away like he was a stray.
You shooed away the King of Curses.
And every time he threatened to show up, you threatened to lengthen this "ban" he apparently was on. He had no idea how he even got put on a damn ban in the first place!
What did he do to deserve this torture?
He'd been through war, literally, and it hurt less than not getting to see his woman for three days ...and three nights, four hours two minutes and 27 seconds, 28 now, great!
The most he got was phone calls. Short and simple, just to let him know you're well, and still a brat from your sass.
Unfortunately for him, it turned him on to no end
He dragged himself home, opening the door and dropping his stuff on the floor, yawning as he stumbled over to the couch. His bed has been left untouched for three days, it was cold and uncomfortable without you
Pausing at the sight of you on his couch.
His woman in his home?
Was his four eyes deceiving him?
Immediately he was wide awake, no longer droopy or tired, his face was stern but that tummy mouth betrayed him with how wide it stretched, smiling.
He was happy. Thrilled even.
"You came" he pounced onto you, cradling you in his arms, burying his face into the crook of your neck, "I've missed you, woman"
"Yeah, yeah, I know" you patted his back, knowing it would annoy him more
"Tell me what I did and how to fix it" large hand cradling your cheek and turning your face to his, all four red eyes staring at you expectantly
"You did nothing, did you do something I should know about?" You trace the mark on his forehead absentmindedly, also having missed your lover.
"No" he pouted, it was barely there but you've ground used to his mannerisms to know a pout when you see one
"I've...behaved" he reluctantly murmured
"You don't sound sure" you teased
"I haven't killed anyone" Sukuna said flatly, a bit annoyed now
"Oh wow, in three days? I'm proud of you" you said sarcastically, caressing his cheek
"Just because I have missed you immensely, does not give you a free pass to be a brat" he kissed up your jawline
"I don't need a pass to be a brat, for your information" you rolled your eyes, making the curse smirked
"That's my woman" he finally kissed you, it's hungry and all consuming and desperate even though if you bring that up he'll deny it until his last breath
One hand closing around your neck as he pulled you onto his lap, not letting you breathe as he continued kissing you with such deep passion you feel it in your bones
"Stop" you pulled away, catching your breath
"I don't wanna, missed you" he kissed down your neck, biting down on the fading hickeys
Finally, he paused, resting his head on your chest and looking up at you, "Why did you punish me"
"I didn't, you're dramatic"
"I'm a King, how dare you speak to me like that"
"Yeah, a drama king"
The scoff on his face was bone chilling, yet to you it was incredibly attractive
You smooth your thumbs over his pink furrowed brows, straightening them out
"I got a surprise for you"
"A surprise? That made you avoid me for three days?"
"Yes"
"Hmph"
"Has anyone ever told you you're a big grumpy cat?"
"No, for they'd be dead before they finished that sentence"
"Well you're a big grumpy cat"
He groaned, nipping your neck in retaliation, "you're only alive because you amuse me"
"Keep telling yourself that pooks" you peck the tip of his nose, he wrinkled it in disgust
"Alright release me now, I wanna show you your surprise" he grumble as he released you, lower pair of arms lingering on your thighs as you stood up
You smacked them away, "Behave"
"Woman, you're pushing your luck"
"I'll make that ban three weeks"
That shut him up real quick. The giant man was scoffing quietly
"Close your eyes"
Sukuna closed his main pair, the lower pair still staring curiously at you
"All of them"
"Hmph!" Now with four eyes closed, he waited patiently
Turning around, you were completely unaware of the eye that spawned on his palm watching you as you lifted your shirt to show off your new tattoo
A trampstamp of his mark
The eye on his hand widened in awe, then without permission he opened all four eyes and stared lovingly at the new mark just above your behind
"Open your eyes" you turn to check on him, finding heart eyes on your man
"You were watching the entire time" you accused
"Yes" he grinned, all four arms finding your hips and pulling you closer to inspect and admire his mark
"Oh, you insane woman" his fingers lingered, hesitant to touch, "You kept me from seeing you for three days because of this?"
"It was healing" you turned to face him
"Weak excuse, I will heal it for you" he used his cursed energy, palm just hovering over your tattoo as he sped up the healing.
You felt a warm heat on your lower back as your lover did his thing
He manhandled you around, touching the tattoo for the first time, "Does it hurt, my love"
"No" you smiled when you felt him lean in and kissed the tattoo
"It's almost as perfect as you are" he rasps, letting his tongue poke out to lick the tattoo cause he was a weird fucking freak like that
"Ew"
"Woman I've been inside you"
"So?! This is different, don't lick my tattoo"
"I've eaten your as-"
"OK! SHUT UP NOW"
That gets a rough laugh out of him, he pulls you closer, grabbing your face with two hands and kisses you once again, "You amuse me"
Touching Each Other While Our Friends Sleep Next to Us
JJK men x reader
modern college AU
MDNI (18+)
Context: Post-frat party chaos. Your friends were passed out in every corner of the frat house. Some in different bedrooms, some on couches, bodies tangled. Because your boyfriend had a couple of drinks, his car is off the table, you two have to share the same makeshift bed with your friends until dawn.
INCLUDES:
Satoru Gojo
Suguru Geto
Choso Kamo
Ryomen Sukuna
Toji Fushiguro
a/n: This is my personal take on the characters. If it's not your vibe, that's cool, no need to hate. XOXO
Satoru Gojo:
His big, muscular body pressed into your back, his breath fanning against your hair. It seemed like he had already fallen asleep. You couldn’t. The feeling was so unbearable, almost suffocating, as you stared at the blank white wall in front of you.
You sighed and tried to shift, searching for a little more space. If the warmth of Gojo’s chest kept radiating against you like this, you were sure you’d lose it.
Then his long fingers found your hip, followed by his mouth on the shell of your ear.
“Stop squirming,” he murmured. “You’re already making this hard enough for me.”
Right on cue, the front of his jeans brushed against your back. Yeah… you definitely weren’t the only one feeling this way.
“Satoru,” you whispered, slowly grinding your hips back against him. “Please.”
“You want that cock, baby?”
You pressed yourself more firmly against him in a response.
“Unfortunately, that would be too risky,” he whispered with a quiet chuckle. “But what about these fingers, hm?”
His palm was already cupping you from behind, your little dress riding up around your thighs. Your panties were pushed aside.
“Always so wet for me.”
His knuckles spread the slickness between your folds while his other hand slid beneath you, covering your mouth to muffle the sounds threatening to escape. The movement of his hand quickened, and the quiet, wet sounds between your legs grew louder.
Yeah… the fact that Geto and Shoko were sleeping just a few feet away definitely made it worse.
“Come on, baby,” he breathed against your ear. “Ride my hand.”
Suguru Geto:
The scent of his perfume was intoxicating, and the way your head was nuzzled into his collarbone wasn’t helping. You wanted his hands all over you right now, just the two of you in his bed, not on this sofa with Gojo lying a few feet away.
“Sugu,” you whispered softly, peppering small kisses on his neck. “Are you awake?”
You pulled back slightly, and his intense gaze met yours in the dark of the night.
“What’s the matter here, sweetheart?” he murmured.
His fingers combed through your hair while the other hand rested on your waist. You took that hand and guided it between your bare, plush thighs, your dress no longer sitting where it should.
“Please… just touch me,” you whimpered, growing more impatient by the second.
A quiet chuckle vibrated in his chest.
“So needy tonight,” he murmured, voice low enough that only you could hear.
You captured his lips with yours, moaning softly as one of your hands slid down to stroke the outline of length through his pants. At the same time, his cool fingers met the heat between your thighs.
“Fuck, baby,” he breathed against your lips. “I wish we were home right now. I want to feel that pussy so bad.”
Then you heard a noise behind him.
A small movement.
You lift your head just enough to glance past Geto’s shoulder. Gojo facing the two of you but he was still asleep.
Your heart nearly stopped.
For a moment you thought those blue eyes would open.
“Eyes on me,” Geto murmured, pulling your attention back to him.
One of his hands inside of you while the other guided your over him.
“You don’t want to wake him up, do you?” he whispered. “Then we should hurry… and get the hell out of here.”
Ryomen Sukuna:
After the challenge you faced, both Sukuna and Toji were bulky as hell and there was barely any space for you on the sofa, you eventually managed to find a position, almost drifting off to sleep.
Then you felt movement behind you.
Sukuna’s hand settled on your stomach.
“Y/n,” he whispered, his lips brushing the bare skin of your back above your dress. “Have you fallen asleep already?”
“What’s up, Ryo?” you whispered, knowing damn well what he wanted. In answer, he rolled his hips just once—slow, deliberate—letting you feel the thick line of his cock pressing against your ass through his pants.
“Let’s take this off, shall we?” he murmured, sliding your panties down and lifting the dress. “I couldn’t help myself. I behaved all night, but this dress was a treasure and a curse.”
His voice dropped lower near your ear as he unbuttoned his pant.
You stomach curled, warmth pooling low in your body.
“Can I?” he asked, the tip of his cock spread the slickness from your entrance to your now sensitive clit.
“Please,” you whispered, lifting one of your legs slightly.
In the next second, he pushed inside you, every thick inch stretching you deliciously, and making you gasp softly.
“This pussy was made for me, princess,” he murmured. “Just like that, spread your thighs for me.”
Even though his movement weren’t fast at first, the quiet sound between you were impossible to ignore. Your stretched cunt that swallowed him whole. And they grew louder as his hips drove harder and faster into you.
“Come on my cock,” he breathed near your ear. “Make a mess.”
Choso Kamo:
Neither of you were asleep yet.
Both of you were painfully aware of the sexual tension between you.
Choso’s hand traced slow circles on your back while you cuddled against his tall frame. One of your legs slid between his calves, pressing your tits more firmly into his chest.
God, it was infuriating.
And it didn’t help that Yuki was asleep right next to you.
“Cho,” you whispered, letting your hand trail down on his lower abdomen.
He looked directly at you, the same raw, hungry look in his eyes. At the same time, there was hesitation too. Your friend was only a few inches away.
“You know we can’t,” he murmured.
He gently moved your hand away, lifting it to his lips and brushing a soft kiss across your palm.
“Please, baby,” you whispered, grinding your pussy slowly against his thigh, your hard nipples pressing closer to his chest.
His breath caught in his throat.
He didn’t stop you, but his hands settled on your ass, gripping slightly.
“What if she wakes up?” he asked quietly, uncertainty mixing with clear temptation.
“She won’t,” you reassured him.
You took his palm with one hand and guided it lower, until he could feel your soaked panties through the thin fabric. With the other, you freed your tits over the dress.
“Fuck. Me,” he breathed.
That was all he managed before he took one of your nipples into his, his restraint starting to slip.
Yuki mumbled something in her sleep and rolled onto her side, facing away from you both. Choso froze, his mouth still on your nipple, his fingers pressed against your thong. Neither of you breathed for three full seconds. Then she settled, her breathing evening out again.
Choso exhaled shakily against your skin. And then his fingers pushed your panties aside and began moving between your thighs, slow and hesitant at first.
“Such a good boy, baby,” you whispered softly in his ear.
At the praise, his movement became erratic, less controlled, his mouth switching your nipples, sucking around them harder.
You were both a mess.
“Please,” he whimpered hoarsely. “I want to taste you. Cum on my fingers baby.”
Toji Fushiguro:
Your body was trapped between the cold wall and Toji’s broad chest, his arms wrapping around you, his face resting against your shoulder.
You both were far from being asleep. You, because the space was so tight you could barely breathe. Him… well, the facts spoke for themselves, as his lips brushed your neck and his tongue grazed your sensitive area from time to time.
“Doll,” he murmured, the vibration sending jolts straight between your thighs.
His fingers slid slowly under the hem of your skirt, tracing deliberate patterns on your heated skin. He pressed harder into your back.
“I know you’re not sleeping,” his voice low, edged with warning, before his teeth gently nipped at your shoulder.
Your whole body tingled, the wetness in your panties growing.
“Toji,” you whispered, letting your legs part instinctively.
“Yeah?” His smirk audible in his voice as his hand moved beneath your skirt, slowly beginning to pull off your panties.
“Sukuna,” you whispered, remembering the friend asleep just inches away. “He’ll wake up.”
“I don’t think so,” Toji chuckled, lowering himself down your body, until his mouth found your pussy from behind. “Keep your mouth shut for me.”
Then his tongue licked from your clit to your entrance, circling, then up to your ass. His quiet groan vibrated into your body.
“Oh my god,” you whimpered, then clapped your hand over your mouth to muffle all the noises and moans that would spill off from your lips.
“Tastes so good, doll,” he muttered. “I’ve thought about this since the moment I picked you up tonight.”
Your back arched at his words. The moment he spat on you, the moan that came out was loud enough that your hand couldn’t stop it. Then he licked faster, harder, lapping at your ass, your entrance, your clit.
Then you both froze at the deep voice: “Mind if I join?”
it's the thought that counts...isn't it?
wherein the reader buys the jjk men the perfect gift and they somehow manage to fumble a simple "thank you"
tw : established relationships, miscommunication, accidental emotional hurt, dry humor, no fluff/comfort, pure angst
main masterlist
a/n : HELLOOOO 😭 lowkey back from my lil hiatus?? had to pop in and say THANK YOU FOR 1K FOLLOWERS ?!?!?!? that's actually insane. i genuinely can't thank you guys enough for all the love and support PLS y'all are the sweetest <3
+ also hope you enjoy this one 😭 this entire smau exists because i was lying in bed at an ungodly hour trying to sleep (insomnia is calling) anywayssss enjoy and don't be afraid to bully the men in the comments pfft they earned it.
summary: once in a lifetime you'll switch bodies with your soulmate and see the world through their eyes.
sukuna is initially frustrated when he's plunged into darkness in the body of a weak and blind woman, only to discover that there's more to her than he was expecting, leaving him on a mission to locate the shogi-playing courtesan whose soul called out to his.
word count: 11k
content: 18+ mdni, smut, soulmate au, heian era, initially rude sukuna, soft!sukuna, true form sukuna, courtesan reader, sickness, blindness, depiction of violence and death, happy ending, hurt/comfort, honestly its mainly fluff, devoted sukuna, piv, cunnilingus
a/n: after doing my satoru soulmate au i desperately wanted to do one for sukuna so here it is! inspired somewhat by komugi and meruem in hxh and ALSO by lakan and fengxian in apothecary diaries (as someone requested that from me!)
At one point in every person’s life, they will awaken in the body of another.
They will spend their day seeing through strange eyes, living out hours as a person they may have never met, trapped within their new form until sleep takes them and they are released back into their own body.
Those meagre hours are the only chance a person will have to find their other other half, to learn all they can about the body they’ve awoken in. There’s no second chance, no opportunity to swap for a second time.
If one cannot locate their soulmate after the day they’ve spent as them, they can find no further help. All they can hope for, is that they might stumble across their destined lover by mere chance one day.
Or, that their beloved did a better job than they did at piecing together the puzzle.
Sukuna found himself in another’s body in his mid-twenties, awakening one morning in complete darkness, even though he’d been certain his eyes were open. It was a strange feeling at first, a resignation to a suspicion he’d held all his life that there was no destined person for him, giving in to the belief that he’d spend a day floating in nothingness with no other half for his soul to cling to.
His assumption was broken swiftly, at the realisation that he still held some manner of awareness even if his sight was impaired. There was a breeze blowing against his body, chatter sounding off in the distance, and soft sheets were pressing up against skin which surely wasn’t his.
This person, whoever they were, had a body that was exhausted. He ached in places he’d never ached before, his shoulders and upper back straining, like their owner had been carrying a weight beyond their capability. He felt desperately weak in that form, suddenly aware that he only had a human number of limbs to control, and lacked the strength and size he was used to commanding.
In the darkness clouding his vision, he was surprised to find that the blackness wasn’t as deep as he’d originally thought, able to make out fuzzy shapes in the dark which he could only assume made up his surroundings. His hand reached for his eyes, setting his lips into a grim line at the confirmation they were open.
His destined lover was blind.
Disappointment settled into his chest. He had never taken much stock in soulmates in the first place, didn’t really believe in love, but this just furthered his confirmation that the whole matter was a farce. He found respect for the strong - strength was the only thing that truly mattered to him, and yet here he was, in the body of a blind woman.
A feeble little thing hardly able to fend for herself.
What good was she to a man like Sukuna?
A knock on the door startled him. “Are you awake? The madam wants me to help you get ready.”
Sukuna said nothing, trying to figure out why it felt like your body wanted to draw in on itself, your pulse quicking in a seemingly innate reaction to the voice at the door.
“Please, I know you’ve been ill but he’s been calling every day for the past week, the madam doesn’t want to keep him waiting any longer. He’s been bringing forth all manner of threat, and if you’re not careful he’ll buy you out. I know that isn’t what you want. Just let me tend to you and allow him a visit. Keep his temper at bay.”
Sukuna frowned, attempting to piece together what was happening. It was hard without the visual clues of his surroundings, but based on the snippet of conversation he concluded that you were likely a courtesan of some form. Once again, his view of you, and the soulmate system in general, dropped through the floor.
Blind and a whore.
Perfect.
“One moment.” He called out, taken aback by the lovely feminine voice that fell from his lips. It was a soft, delicate sound, one which wouldn’t sound out of place accompanied with a harp. He found himself shocked at how much he enjoyed it, considering saying something else just to hear it again.
Finding the door proved to be a more difficult task than he’d been expecting. He’d already stumbled standing up from your bed, thrown off by his lack of vision and by feet that were ridiculously small compared to what he was used to. His centre of gravity felt all wrong, and his body felt generally unbalanced without his lower set of arms.
Moving at a snail's pace, he made it across the room, impressed that he didn’t run into anything on his journey over. He was grateful for the shadowy outlines present in your visionless gaze, certain that the situation would be made harder without even that as a guide.
Fumbling for the handle, he slid open the door. “Morning. Oh honey, you look like a ghost.” A hand pressed against his skin, and he was ushered over to another part of the room, grateful for the guidance. There was the sound of a chair being moved. “Take a seat.”
Sukuna hesitated, not quite sure where the chair was. He reached out nonchalantly with his hand, trying to feel for it while the other woman’s focus was elsewhere, seemingly rifling through a bag of something. Able to just about make out a black splodge in the centre of his vision, Sukuna took a seat, only to thud down onto the floor.
It hurt. It hurt significantly more than pain Sukuna was used to enduring. He’d experienced all manner of injury - he’d had his blood and guts pouring out onto the floor in the midst of a fight, but somehow this was worse. How fragile was this body of yours? He was glad that he wasn’t born as some weak human, grateful that the abominable aspects of his body increased his strength rather than weakened it.
How could you live like this?
“My lady?” The woman seemed immediately panicked, reaching down and easily hoisting you up by the arm, aiding Sukuna onto the chair. “I’m sorry, you usually tell me you don’t need assistance, I wasn’t expecting-” she cut herself off for a moment, leaving Sukuna in silence and struggling to read the room with no visual cues. “You don’t seem like yourself at all this morning. You’re being very quiet.”
Sukuna said nothing, certain that he could hear the hint of a smile in the woman’s tone.
It was said that when soulmates swapped bodies, you could not under any circumstance tell someone that you were a different inhabitant to usual, else the spell would be broken and you’d both be immediately sent home.
It was an option Sukuna had contemplated the moment the woman walked in, eager to return to his own healthy form. However, he was also a man of great curiosity and it wasn’t like he had much going on at his estate that day anyway. So he opted for silence, figuring he’d at least see, or hear, how the day played out.
There was no harm in that.
Regardless, the woman had seemingly sensed it immediately based on her sudden change of demeanor, but being likely as aware of the rules as Sukuna was, she kept her suspicions silent.
“It's Officer Sugawara who’s set to see you today,” she explained, soft hands running through your hair with a comb, giving Sukuna a shiver of pleasure. “You usually play shogi with the guy for a while and let him get drunk. He’s a proud man who’s desperate for a legitimate win, so you always give him your best and he refuses to give up until he’s too pissed to think anymore. So be on your best game, or he might want to pass his time in another way.”
The warning was clear and Sukuna found himself disgusted. If that man tried to lay a single hand on you while he was inhabiting your body, he’d make sure Sugawara wouldn’t walk out of the establishment alive.
Fortunately, Sukuna was an avid shogi player. He held a great love for the game and was self-assured where his skill was concerned. No one in his estate could beat him, so he was certain he could beat some Officer of the Shogun.
Although, he’d never played it blind - a fact that mildly concerned him.
He hoped the pieces were skillfully made with deep indents, else he’d be completely lost.
“Even though you’re usually talkative with me, you’re not all that chatty with regulars, so it’ll be fine if you stay quiet. On account of you not feeling yourself and all,” she said with a knowing giggle.
It took an ungodly amount of time for that woman to get you ready, and Sukuna wondered how you could bear experiencing such a thing day after day. It seemed such a waste to have so much effort devoted to doing your hair and make-up, and dressing you up, when you couldn’t even see the end result.
For all you knew you could look like a clown.
But Sukuna quickly became certain that wasn’t the case when he was led into another room, your helper grasping his arm in a steadying manner and making sure he was settled down on a pillow before introducing him to a man sitting opposite him. Sugawara wasted no time with greetings, letting out a gasp of awe at your radiant appearance and reaching out to kiss your hand.
Sukuna wanted to reel away at the feeling but remained still all the same. He hoped he didn’t have too much of a scowl on his face.
Even if he didn’t have any interest in you, he didn’t really want to ruin the life of some random blind girl. He loved cruelty, but even for him that felt like an unnecessary slight to a person who was supposed to hold the other half of his heart.
“You look gorgeous. Not sickly at all, might I add. I hope the madam hasn’t been telling lies.”
You were sick - outside of the blindness - Sukuna could feel it. At first he’d brushed off your frailty as something normal for puny little humans, but since rising from your bed he’d become aware that your quivering legs, aching bones and hummingbird heart were far from normal.
“I haven’t been well,” he said simply.
“Oh you poor thing, it's always the most beautiful ones who suffer the most.”
Sukuna found himself wondering what you looked like. He had a vague knowledge of Official Sugawara - he wasn’t an ugly man, certainly not one lacking in prospects by any means. He was powerful in his position in the government, and wasn’t the type who would visit some woman out of pity.
You must’ve been genuinely gorgeous to earn such affection from him.
It was a shame Sukuna would never know.
He wouldn’t look for you once he was back in his own body. He’d move on with his life and that would be that, leaving this day as nothing more than some distant dream.
The games of shogi went by quickly, and Sukuna found that it was easy to slip into your body without arousing suspicion. Once he’d gotten over the original barrier of having to feel each piece for their indents as he picked them up, he fell easily into the flow of it all.
This man across from him seeked little conversation once the games had started, and Sukuna was pleased at how well he was playing that afternoon. He didn’t let the man win once and, as your attendant had mentioned, Suguwara filled himself up with more and more drink. It felt nice to play someone outside of his estate, most of his servants were too afraid to face Sukuna in any sort of test.
It was equally nice to completely destroy a government official with his skill. He was certain this man was having the worst game of his entire life, unaccustomed to this treatment from the lovely courtesan he’d frequent.
But it was at the end of the seventh game, when Sukuna was feeling at his highest, that a disastrous hit would come to his ego.
“You’re really off your game today. I see you really aren’t feeling well,” Sugawara said. There was the sound of shuffling fabric, as if the man had leant forward.
“What?” Sukuna asked, the low disbelief coming out strange in your small voice.
“Your plays are much sloppier than usual. It feels like you’re going easy on me, given you usually destroy me before I can even think about what to do next. Today you’ve been giving me proper games. I don’t like it. You know I hate being pitied.”
Sukuna had to stop his mouth from falling agape.
He wasn’t playing bad games by any means, on the contrary, he was certain that he was playing better than he had in a while, happy to have a new opponent for once. Was this man really saying that you, the normal you, was more skilled at shogi than he was? He really found that hard to believe.
What would some blind courtesan know of tactics?
“Perhaps you’ve simply improved,” Sukuna mumbled bitterly, unwilling to accept that your mastery was greater than his.
Sugawara laughed. “How polite of you, my dear. I can assure you that isn’t the case, and we both know it.” There was some shuffling, and Sukuna sensed that the man was climbing to his feet. It was frustrating to have such limited vision, and he was glad to know that he’d wake up the following day able to see the world once more - he couldn’t imagine living like that all the time. “I’ll leave you to rest. When I return in a few days you best have returned to form, or perhaps the nature of our meetings will need to change.”
A heavy hand rested on your shoulder, wet and clammy against the silk you were draped in. Sukuna wasn’t sure if the disgust was born from his own thoughts on the matter, or from an impulsive response from your body. From your attendant’s words it was clear that you would never sleep with the man, likely keeping your shogi skills sharp to ensure he never won.
Once he was gone, Sukuna sat there in silence, thinking on the man’s parting words.
Were you really so talented?
Part of him wanted to convince himself that he’d been playing worse than usual on account of not being able to see the board, making it difficult for him to think out moves in advance, taking more time than normal while he grazed the pieces with his fingers.
But deep in his soul he knew that wasn’t the case.
He’d played expertly, and still that man knew his opponent wasn’t the real you. All on account of how amateur Sukuna’s ability had seemed compared to yours.
And as his day drew to a close in your body, he realised that he had to know. He had to play you, had to see firsthand just how dramatically your skill exceeded his. He wouldn’t believe it until he’d seen it.
The soulmate thing didn’t matter.
But he needed to meet with you all the same.
Just to sate his interest. That was all.
—
Months had passed since the day you’d swapped with your soulmate. Since the morning you’d awoken to a world of light of colour you’d never seen before, and would never see again.
It was a day you’d never be able to forget - the image of the grand estate you’d awoken in seared permanently into your mind, just like the face of your soulmate who had stared back at you in a bronze mirror. You’d gazed upon his body for longer than you should admit to, wondering for a brief moment if you’d misunderstood how humans looked.
That thought didn’t remain for long. It took no expert to understand that the man you’d been paired with was something unique - the very four armed monster who had half of Japan living in fear.
And as such, you wished you could forget your experience in his body, wished you could see anything but his oddly charming face, because your promised beloved was a monster of the highest calibre. But with only one singular day of vision under your belt, what you’d seen wasn’t so easily displaced, and you found yourself thinking of him often with a longing that you knew to be wrong.
You had told no one of the experience, not even your handmaid, who had outright asked what your body swap experience had been like, what your soulmate had been like, claiming that whoever they were had presented themselves as rather reserved when possessing your body. You’d brushed her off with a shrug, claiming him to be some soldier and nothing more.
No one could know the truth. If they knew you to have any link to such a terrible man they might view you as an associate, and someone deserving of death for something you hadn’t asked for.
The workings of fate seemed strange to you. Was it not enough punishment to be born blind? Why would you also be paired with a monster who seemed to view the human race with general disdain? You were certain he cared little for love, his servant had made that clear when you were in his body, so any hopes of having a soulmate had been stolen from you as a result of this pairing.
Part of you wondered if a man so vile as him might even take things a step further and track you down to put an end to your life, insulted by fate to suggest that it could control him in any capacity. Perhaps he would be further insulted to be paired with someone so damaged rather than some untarnished beauty.
You’d always heard he held great hatred for weakness.
Even so, despite your fear and desire to conceal yourself from him, you couldn’t forget him, couldn’t stop the flicker of longing in your chest you were certain all people held for their destined lovers. Because while he was unquestionably a monster, with a throne of skulls you had witnessed through his very eyes, he also seemed to be more than that.
He was a man of great loneliness, living in grand halls with only a handful of servants for company - and all but one of them would scuttle out of the way when he approached. He seemed to hold a great love for art, with his estate packed with paintings and tapestries and great vases, all kept in pristine condition. For a cannibal, he seemed to take great pride in the cleanliness of his surroundings, in the neat nature of his gardens and springs.
Even in his own appearance, he seemed to take great care, for there was no denying him to be a handsome man even with his unique features. He had a voice to match that beauty, one that you could hardly peel from your mind any more than you could forget his image.
His body was hard to maneuver, too big and confusing to control his many hanging limbs. In a way, it felt akin to your blindness, something different to the way humans were built to be, leaving him to struggle with an issue that no one else could relate to. You wondered how it had been for him in childhood - if he’d felt as isolated and scared as you had to know that everyone else was normal in a way you’d never been.
You pitied him, even through all his sins. You felt you could understand at least a piece of him from a day buried within the confines of his skin.
But still, you would never reach for him - wouldn’t poke the bear even if you could understand why it might bite. You were certain that someone like him would be unwilling to hear you out, unwilling to love or reflect on how he became the way he was - he would swipe your head from your shoulders just like everyone else, and that would be that.
So you would stay away, keep your dreams of him locked deep within your chest, and accept that distance was for the best.
There was more to life than soulmates.
Unfortunately, that choice wasn’t yours alone to make.
The madame had knocked on your door early that morning, with the golden light of the sun only just starting to peek in through your window. Lately you’d been having longer lie-ins and taking less clients as the cold of winter gripped the region. Along with the blindness, you’d been born with a particularly feeble body as a result of complications with your mother during her pregnancy, ailments which were always worse for you in the colder months.
Your bones strained as you pushed yourself up to a sitting position, calling for the woman to enter. As much as you longed to slip back into your dream of red eyes peering back at you with fiery desire, you were still beholden to the will of your employer, even in your months of weakness.
“How are you feeling, my dear?” She asked, as she slipped in through the door. You felt her weight dip the bed as she took a seat beside you, a gentle hand coming to rest on your shoulder.
“Mornings are always the worst but I can manage once I’m up and about. Has Sugawara come calling again?” Most regulars were understanding enough of your condition, and those that weren’t would generally be chased off by the madame or unloaded onto another of the courtesans. Sugawara was one of the few that generally wouldn’t accept such treatment, with only eyes for you.
It didn’t matter too much since the man only ever wanted to play shogi, and that was manageable enough even on your worst days. It seemed that he had no intention of laying with you until he’d beat you in a game fair and square, claiming that if that ever happened he’d buy you out and take you home for he would’ve earned your heart.
That talk always made you uncomfortable, for you had little interest in the man, but you were more than certain he had no chance at ever defeating you at shogi, and could therefore never lay claim to you - assuming he kept his word.
“Not Sugawara…” There was hesitation in her voice. “We’ve received a request for our finest shogi player to be sent to the mayor’s home this evening. Apparently the other courtesan houses have received the same request.”
“I didn’t think the mayor cared much for shogi.”
Again, there was a moment of silence. “No, he doesn’t. A rather unwanted guest has taken up residence in his home, and this is the demand that has come of it.” Immediately your blood ran cold, thoughts drifting away from the madame’s continuing chatter to the red eyes that sat so prominently in the darkness of your mind.
There was no question in your mind as to who this guest was.
And to call for shogi players had you certain he was looking for you. Would he execute you when you walked into a room so clearly lacking in vision? Put an immediate end to the one person who could potentially stir his cold heart if fate were to be believed?
It seemed like the only reasonable explanation
The request to send another in your place died on the tip of your tongue as you once again tuned in to what the madame was saying. “...make sure you’re in top form, I’ve heard any who lose to him are immediately disposed of, but I’m sure that man will be no match for you.”
You wouldn’t send another to face their death. You were the only courtesan in the house who was any good at shogi, anyone else would certainly perish. This was a meeting dictated by fate and you had no opportunity to run from it. You would face him head on and deal with your death graciously, greet your end alone in the dark just like everything else you’d ever faced.
“I’ll do my best,” you said to the madame, and that was the final moment you had for yourself, your sacrifice sealed by your words.
The rest of the morning was spent in a frenzied rush, dressing you up and perfecting your makeup, turning you into a sparkling beauty ahead of your presentation to a monster. Based on the quiet nature of your handmaid, the experience felt more like she was dressing your corpse for burial.
Neither of you spoke such a thing aloud, but tears dripped from sightless eyes all the same when she led you out to the carriage, the madam trailing behind her, sending you off with a soft farewell filled with a sense of finality.
—
Sukuna had undergone an annoying few months.
Steadily, he had made his way, region by region, up to the north of Japan in search of a blind shogi player whose skill allegedly eclipsed his own. In each area, he would call upon all shogi-playing courtesans to meet with him and join him in a game, in the hopes that one day it would be you sitting across from him.
So far, he’d been unsuccessful, and had left a growing pile of bodies and burnt villages in his wake, utterly irritated that the thing he was seeking still evaded his grasp. No one had beaten him. A few had come close but none of them had been blind, so he could be certain that they weren’t you.
He was beginning to wonder if you’d gone into hiding somewhere, forsaking your courtesan life entirely in a bid to avoid him. It wouldn’t surprise him - you’d been in his body, you’d seen he was a monster, a fragile little thing like you was probably terrified at the idea of ever crossing his path.
Either way, he’d still persevere. He’d kill every shogi player if that was what it took to get to you.
He’d recently found his way into the mountainous region of Miyagi, where winter was in full spring. Taking up residence in the mayor’s home in one of the more populous towns in the prefecture, he once again started his usual process of gathering the shogi players. Word spread fast and droves of them appeared swiftly, waiting to be called before him.
It went much as usual, with boring girls presenting themselves before him and providing him with equally boring games of shogi. These people were painfully predictable with no appreciation for the art of the game - really it was a gift for him to steal their lives from them, because he couldn’t imagine living while being so pitifully unskilled.
The pool of Miyagi courtesans was gradually running dry and Sukuna was preparing himself for another disappointing journey further north when his luck finally shifted.
He knew he’d found you the moment you walked in through the door.
You’d stumbled in meekly, eyes averted down to the floor as you bowed low and shuffled towards the centre of the room. You were taking care not to raise your head for him to look upon, and he quickly realised you were making your best effort to conceal your blindness from him, like you could keep your identity secret that way.
It was a futile attempt, for the very atmosphere around you felt charged, his heart picking up inexplicably at the very sight of you.
To say you were beautiful was an understatement. Everything about you was gorgeous, from your soft hair to the striking intensity of your unseeing eyes. You wore the finest silks and they hung off you well, complimenting your figure. He found himself eager to touch you, to rid you off your lovely gown and have his fingers against your smooth skin.
But that wasn’t the reason he had come, and he would play you before entertaining any other matter.
“Sit,” he ordered, taking great amusement in the shiver that seemed to run through you at the sound of his voice.
You dropped to your knees on the cushion before the board, hands pressing against the edge of the table. It was the first chance he got to take a proper look at your eyes, expecting them to be clouded over, but taken aback by the lovely colour your irises still held beneath that mist.
“You’re blind.” He observed aloud, taking note of the way your teeth caught your lower lip anxiously.
“I see more than enough,” your response was guarded.
He hummed, a sly grin settling on his face. Idly, he wondered if you could sense it, because you seemed to tense up a little, fidgeting across from him in a way his traitorous brain seemed to register as endearing. “Is that so? Do you see enough to know my strategy before we commence? Or will you disappoint me like the others?”
“You tell me.”
Your words had his heart stirring against his will, impressed by your serenity before him, still sitting up straight and calm despite the fear he could sense within you. You were a woman who held confidence despite it all, harboured strength even in the face of your obvious weaknesses. He wondered what you were thinking, if you believed he was there to execute you for the mere transgression of being his soulmate.
It wasn’t a foolish assumption.
He would kill you without a second thought if you were uninteresting to him.
But he’d reserve that judgement until after you had played. He had been promised someone exceptional and that was what he wished to see, anything less and your blood would stain the floor just like every other woman who had sat before him. Would you still be so calm if you could see the bodies littering the room? He assumed not.
He wondered if you hated him, if you cursed fate itself to be paired with a man like him. Nothing about you gave anything away, all your focus fixed on the board in front of you, your hands moving steadily against the wood of the board, as if centring yourself.
“Shall we begin?” He asked.
“Yes.”
Sukuna couldn’t quite comprehend what had transpired in that first game he played against you.
He had approached things in much the same manner that he always would when playing shogi - opening strong and attempting to completely overwhelm his opponent, and yet somehow he found opportunities snatched from him at every turn.
Nothing seemed to catch you off guard. Any attempted play was greeted with an easy answer from you, as though you were battling a child. You were always three steps ahead of him, never hesitating in the shifting of a piece, moving with a certainty that had him transfixed.
He found that he couldn’t draw his eyes away from you, his struggle on the board forgotten at the realisation he’d been well and truly defeated. There was no point in struggling further - you had swatted him aside in the way that he usually defeated others, and you had done it with no glee or brag, nothing more than passive indifference once the games finally came to an end.
Your shoulders were raised, as if awaiting something you wouldn’t be able to see coming. A strike from him, perhaps? Or the neat removal of your head from your shoulders? The same fate of all others he’d played across the last few months.
But he wasn’t in the position to do anything at that moment, lashes fluttering as he stared at you, his heart hammering against his ribcage.
There had been no lie told about your skill - on the contrary, you had exceeded his expectations spectacularly. He wanted to play you again and again, wanted to witness the beauty of the way you played, wished to spend hours lost deep in thought considering how he could even begin to pick you apart in a match.
He could spend years sitting across you, gazing upon your lovely form while you worked away in silence with such unquestionable mastery.
No wonder Sugawara had been disappointed in Sukuna’s ability. He couldn’t hold a candle to what you were.
“How?” He asked, unable to think of another word to offer.
Your head was still lowered, eyes fixed elsewhere. He wished you’d look at him, allow him a clearer view of your face, but it occurred to him that such a request may not be easily granted with your lack of vision. You would never be able to lock eyes with each other - it would be something entirely meaningless for you.
“You aren’t all that good,” you spoke softly, a smile playing on your lips.
Sukuna disagreed with your sentiment, considering he’d never been beaten before, but perhaps you’d consider all his previous opponents to be genuinely pitiful at the game.
“So, will you take my life now? Or is that reserved for the losers?” You asked.
“To take the life of someone I could not best would be cowardly and pointless,” he said with a snort. “How would I ever grow to be better than you if I extinguished you from the world? Don’t be foolish. We will play again.”
And again you played.
Game after game until the sun began to rise in the sky, and Sukuna could sense exhaustion drifting through your fragile form. You were shivering from the cold, and he had Uraume bring in a robe to wrap around you, keenly aware of how sickly you seemed to look beneath all the beauty. You were setting up the board for your tenth match when Sukuna finally put an end to things.
“Enough. I would take no joy in defeating an exhausted opponent.” He rose to his feet, stretching as he moved. He wasn’t keen on remaining still for long periods of time, but you seemed accustomed to it, staying deathly still upon your cushion, uncertainty evident in your posture.
“Then, you will send me to my home?” You asked.
“No.” The word escaped him before he could stop it.
He did not wish for you to go anywhere, lest you slip from his grasp never to be found again. It was because he wanted to play you more, that’s what he told himself, but there was more to it than that, and in his soul he knew it.
He never wanted the image of you on your knees before him to slip away, never wanted to lose the pleasurable feeling of warmth that swelled in his chest with you there within his gaze.
“You’ll accompany me to my home, and we’ll play until I’m satisfied.”
—
Weeks had passed since you’d arrived at Sukuna’s estate in the Hida Mountains.
You’d been given no time to bid goodbye to the women at the only home you’d ever known, swept off in a carriage down south where you had to relearn your surroundings in a totally new environment.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time you’d been in the estate, but that experience made little impact on the ease of traversing around with no vision. You had to move slowly, fingers brushing on blurry objects shadowed in the darkness, hoping you didn’t trip over something or walk into a screen door.
For the most part, you were left to your own devices. Sukuna had spoken little to you on the journey home, opting to ride on his horse rather than in the carriage with you, and he’d been equally elusive in his own estate, leaving you in isolation for days at a time.
You couldn’t complain, for your days were spent in peace and serenity.
You would take long walks in the breeze of his garden, have his servants read aloud to you, and practice playing the erhu. On days where it was particularly cold and the chill seeped into your bones, you would remain in the grand bed he had provided and find greater comfort than you ever had in the old bed you’d laid upon in the courtesan house.
The only obligation you ever had to fulfill were shogi games. And during the times that he wasn’t absent from the estate, those would take place every evening, in Sukuna’s own private quarters.
It was an odd decision, considering that the servants played shogi out in the garden, where a proper table was set up for that purpose. But it seemed that Sukuna took care in ensuring your meetings were private - a decision you didn’t dare read into too deeply.
You didn’t dare read into any of his behaviour too deeply, lest you rip your own heart from your chest.
That first meeting with him had been like nothing you’d ever experienced - genuine desire overcoming you at the deep tone of his voice. Even knowing that he could cause your death with little effort, you couldn’t bury the lust within you, a fire that only burned stronger with each encounter with him.
It was hard to hold it together, to pretend that you wouldn’t fling yourself into his arms given the chance, but you tried all the same, keeping yourself distant and cold, like you didn’t dream of him between your legs each night, imagining the sound of his voice whispering sweet nothings against your ear.
Whether he felt the effect to the same extent you did, you weren’t sure. You were certain you’d never know. His interest in you was surrounding shogi, and shogi alone.
One evening, you were sitting across from him having played a handful of games, finding victory had fallen into your hands even more easily than normal. Sukuna seemed distracted by something, the sound of fidgeting settling in your ears. He hadn’t moved to start a new game, and based on the shadowy shapes in your vision, you could only assume he was leaning forward upon the table, bringing him close enough for his breath to fan your face.
“I killed today,” he said. Those were the first words he’d spoken to you that evening - you always followed his example with conversation, if he was feeling chatty you would indulge him, if he wished for silence you would give him that too.
You weren’t exactly sure where he was going with that statement, nor were you certain what type of response he was seeking, so you offered him a hum of acknowledgement and little more. You didn’t wish to think of the death that stained his hands, but nor did it build your animosity towards him.
To some extent you could understand lashing out at the world when you were someone so desperately lonely as he was. Part of you believed that if you hadn’t been so frail perhaps you’d lash out at the world for your own condition. His primary servant had told you he’d been despised throughout his life, and when you find only cruelty in humans it's difficult to cling to kindness.
Sukuna wasn’t so simple as a mere monster. You’d understood that in the day you’d spent in his body, and had only further confirmed it by the intelligence he displayed when you’d speak over games of shogi. He had a great admiration for art and skill, and had seemed rather taken when you’d recited poetry, responding with verses of his own.
He was a multi-faceted man, and much of what you saw only seemed to further your attraction to him, even knowing it was wrong, even knowing you’d be hated for it. For once, you felt you’d found someone who understood what it was like to be you, to be cut off from the easy lives lived by most others.
A soul that entwined so perfectly with yours, even if he’d never be aware of such a thing.
“Do you wish to know who I killed?” He asked.
“I know few people, my lord. I doubt a name would mean anything to me.”
“This one might. I’ve heard you’re familiar with Officer Sugawara? He’s one of the Shogun’s men?”
Thoughts of your regular flickered through your mind. If you were being honest with yourself, you were glad to not have to see him anymore - him or any of the other clients you’d been forced to take. Courtesan life had been difficult for you, forced into it thanks to the conditions of your birth and kept there by a disability that made it hard to escape the life for something better.
Life in Sukuna’s estate had been easier, especially as the weeks passed and you grew more comfortable in the belief that Sukuna wasn't going to steal your life from you. You’d lived in fear of Sugawara buying you out, of being forced to live like some doll in the house of a terribly boring man whose voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard to your ears.
“I know him.”
“Knew him, would be more apt. His body lies at the foot of the mountain.” Sukuna spoke matter-of-factly. “He came to claim you from me. I refused and we couldn’t reach an amicable agreement, so I dealt with it another way.”
You weren’t sure how to react, struggling to process the words. That Sugawara would follow you down to Hida already came as a surprise, you hadn’t known how deep his devotion ran. But somehow, you found yourself rather taken by Sukuna’s decision, by the certainty in his choice to keep you.
To kill a man whose death could cause him issues with the Shogun might as well have been an outright confession of love.
Sugawara’s death meant little to you. Men like that died all the time, and they saw women as little more than pretty objects to own. Sugawara had seen you as an impressive party trick, a clever cat rather than a human with depth and desires of her own. You hadn’t wanted to be his, wouldn’t have liked for Sukuna to surrender you to him.
“Are you irritated with me? When I controlled your body you seemed repulsed at his presence. Perhaps you have a heart too soft for blood and death.”
“No- I-” You hesitated. “Did you do this to protect me?”
There was silence for a moment, and you longed to see his facial expression, but were forced to settle for the hint of confusion in his tone. “Of course. I’ve protected you since bringing you here. You can hardly protect yourself.”
You couldn’t find it in you to be offended - he’d been in your body, he knew of your frailty better than anyone.
“Why? Just because you enjoy shogi so much?”
“Somewhat. Though I must confess, lately I have been losing interest in the game. I feel I’ve come up against an insurmountable wall.” Panic filled you immediately, mind running at a million miles a minute as you analysed his statement. If he was growing bored of playing would he cast you aside? What use did he have for you if not shogi?
But then again, why would he kill Sugawara if he was moments from disposing of you?
“Perhaps it is the fault of my own discipline, for I’ve found it hard to focus on the game for quite some time now.” He hesitated, and you found yourself flinching at the feeling of a soft hand caressing your cheek, leaning into it once you overcame the initial shock of touch. “It is difficult when you have a beautiful woman sitting across from you. It’s even harder when my soul calls for you whenever you're near, drowning out any thoughts I might gather of strategy.”
“Oh.” You weren’t sure what to say, wondering if you should pinch yourself, for many of your dreams centred themselves around such a confession. But the touch had never felt so real before, large fingers brushing against the soft skin of your face.
“I wonder if I’d be more focussed if I admitted fate might make some sense after all. I have never denied myself anything before now, and I’m tired of denying myself you. You have captivated me thoroughly, and I believe the hole in my chest was carved out to allow you to one day settle there.”
The words were by far the most romantic statement anyone had ever uttered to you. In your time as a courtesan you’d heard plenty of cheesy and affectionate lines, ones you’d brush off and forget by the time the client was done with you. Sukuna’s words would burrow into your heart and remain there for as long as you drew breath.
Could anyone fault you for loving a monster who would speak such beauty to you? Could you be hated for finding one who had been cursed by the world just like you had?
“I have no care for the Shogun’s men,” Sukuna continued, “in my eyes they are little more than flies most of the time, an annoying thing to be ignored unless they brush too close. Would it amuse you to know I killed Sugawara out of jealousy? To hear that my chest tightened at the idea of you being taken from my side?”
“Because you enjoy having such a capable rival in intelligence?” You asked, a wry smile creeping onto your face.
“Because I enjoy you.”
It was clear he was waiting for you to say something. The words that had poured from his mouth were unlike any he’d spoken before, and although you couldn’t see him, you could feel the sense of restlessness that gripped his body.
You would not leave him in uncertainty.
“I have only ever seen the world through your eyes,” you confessed shyly, “the only face I see in the endless darkness is yours, and I dream of it every night.” Sukuna’s fingers twitched against your face. “If you’ll have me, I am yours.”
“Even though I’m a monster?” He asked. There was no remorse in his tone, nothing to suggest that he was pained over who he was, it was just an honest question for you to answer as you wished. “You were scared of me when we met. I know you hid yourself from me after discovering our connection, eager to ensure our paths would never cross.”
“Because I believed you would kill me. I thought you to be a man who would stamp out any notion of love and eliminate me along with it.”
He hummed in acknowledgement, failing to deny your statement. You knew it to be true - if you had lost your shogi game on that first meeting, he would’ve done exactly that. It was in his nature to love only that which piqued his interest.
“Especially to be paired with someone so weak, I thought you would consider it an insult.”
He scoffed. “You are far from weak, I’ve found it impossible to best you.”
“I meant physically,” your voice went small. “I did not imagine the King of Curses would favour a sightless woman, nor one so easily broken.”
He was silent for a moment, seemingly processing your words. “I was small and frail once. Perhaps frailer than you. I wish someone had valued me then for my other virtues. I’m big enough and sharp enough to make up for your failings and you are clever enough to cover mine.”
Your mind was reeling at the idea of him admitting to having failings. Your heart stirring at his affection, and his easy desire despite your condition.
“I had not imagined a soulmate to be so well suited to me, for my tangles with fate have always been cruel,” he said. “But you’re something different, something I need at my side, and I will be your eyes, your protector, whatever it is you want in order to keep you there.”
“Oh.” You were positively blushing, whole body trembling beneath the weight of lovely words spoken in that deep voice of his.
Your soulmate wanted you.
A man hated by the world and filled with hatred in return had a space carved out for you, a space for love you hadn’t known him capable of.
You’d loved him from the first time you’d met him, drawn to him by an inexplicable force which seemed to grip him just as hard.
Soulmates really were wonderful.
Silence had settled between the two of you, only broken as the table screeched across the floor, the barrier between you removed. Sukuna shifted forward and an arm came to rest around your smaller body, pulling you towards him. His lips pressed against yours in a kiss you could only describe as sweet.
He didn’t dominate you in the manner you believed a man like him would, instead he took his time, mapping out your lips and drawing you closer to him, letting you bathe in the warmth of his body against yours. It was almost like he was trying not to scare you, aware that you couldn’t see anything he was doing and trying to move slowly as a result.
You wouldn’t have minded either way, your fingers clinging to the biceps of his upper arms, desperate for more of a touch you’d only ever dreamed of.
People always said that to finally touch your soulmate was a euphoria like nothing else, and you truly believed them to be right. Your head felt like it was swimming, chest swelling as if Sukuna’s own soul had wriggled beneath your skin to intertwine with your own.
It was a little overwhelming.
“How I long for you,” he murmured against your ear, breaking the kiss. “I was foolish to have not had you the moment I laid eyes on you, I’ve ached for your touch longer than I care to admit.”
His fingers moved down to your robes, and your breath hitched at the touch. You were no stranger to sex, your job had required it, but the feeling as he undressed you wasn’t like any previous encounter you’d had. What regulars thought of your body was insignificant to you, sex was nothing special with them, just something you had to do if you wished to make a living wage.
This was the first time you’d ever been touched for free by someone you desired, and you felt suddenly nervous at your frail body being judged beneath his crimson gaze - especially when you couldn’t look upon him in the same moment. There was no distraction in the darkness to keep you from worrying about how his gaze might burn through you, imagining discontent on his handsome face.
A cold chill caught you once your robes fell, leaving you kneeling and exposed in front of him. A soft breath fell from his lips, fingers moving delicately from your shoulders down to your breasts, as if checking you were truly real and there before him. More heat flooded you as his finger brushed over your peaked nipple.
“Beautiful. If I didn’t despise the idea of sharing you with another I would paint you like this. Your body is worthy of that reverence.”
“I think my mind is probably more splendid.” You confessed. You had no eyes for awareness of your appearance, and had subsequently never really relied on it. People had said you were lovely, but you could never quite believe it, assuming that they were taking pity on you for your blindness.
“Your mind is exceptional. If I cannot beat you at shogi soon I have half a mind to ask you to assist me with real life strategy,” he said with a chuckle, fingers still trailing a slow path down your body. “But it doesn’t make your body any less lovely, and you cannot deny such things since you’ve never seen yourself. Let me be your eyes and tell you that you are breathtaking.”
A shyness overcame you at those words, head angled downwards as if it would hide your blushing state from him. He raised your chin with a finger, his nose bumping yours before capturing your mouth in a kiss once more, bringing you close against his bare chest. You were so lost in the comfort of the kiss, that you found yourself completely caught off guard when something wet swiped against your stomach and breasts.
Flinching in surprise, you drew yourself back in an attempt to understand what was happening. Sukuna laughed, a hand moving into your hair comfortingly. “It's my tongue,” he spoke easily.
Frowning, you found that his answer didn’t make sense, because still the wet appendage explored your breasts, sending your heartrate flying as it flicked against your nipple with impressive accuracy. How could he be speaking but also doing that?
“There’s a mouth on my stomach. Perhaps you didn’t notice when you controlled my body.”
You were ashamed to admit you hadn’t noticed such a thing. Sukuna had been naked when you’d awoken in his body, and you’d been quick to dress him up in robes, feeling rude to intrude upon the body of another without consent. You’d very intentionally not paid too much attention to the workings of his body, not when the first thing you’d seen was the oddity he sported between his legs.
The memory that he had two of what most men only had one, suddenly had you feeling a little nervous in your position. You had no time to voice such nervousness before he was picking you up, allowing his second tongue to continue its onslaught while he carried you over to the bed, depositing you down upon the silk.
His weight moved on top of you, and he swallowed a gasp with his lips as his monstrous tongue shifted its attention from your breasts down to between your legs, dexterously finding a path between your things and lathering your pussy with attention while Sukuna consumed your mouth. Tears pricked in your eyes at the sensation, unaccustomed to a feeling like that.
In all your years as a courtesan, you’d never been eaten out. Men didn’t come to brothels to serve women, they came to have their own needs attended to, and you’d done that in whichever manner they desired. You were grateful to have never experienced that feeling before, because it was a blessing to have Sukuna be your first.
Pressure built in your stomach over a series of minutes, overwhelmed by the way he seemed to be everywhere. A tongue between your lips, another between your thighs, hands squeezing your breasts, tweaking your nipples, more hands gripping your hips, pulling you up onto his secondary tongue to allow it a better angle to overwhelm you.
For the first time, you started to understand how Sukuna must feel whenever he played you at shogi - stumbling blindly in the dark whilst overcome from all angles with no means of knowing what was going to come next. It was pleasure in its highest form, and you were quick to cum with a yelp of his name, tears dripping from the corners of your eyes.
Sukuna broke the kiss, breathing heavily against your ear. It was a sound you enjoyed, one you could listen to all day if he’d allow you. “I have imagined you beneath me like this every night this week,” he mused, “my imagination is hardly as pleasant as having the real thing. You taste much sweeter than my mind could conjure.”
Again, you were flushing red. “Y-you can taste me through…that?”
“Of course.” You were certain he was grinning, “And I’m glad that I can.” His secondary tongue was still moving slowly through your folds, lapping up the remnants of your first orgasm, teasingly flicking against your clit and making your shudder.
The two of you stayed like that for a while, breathing quietly together. You weren’t sure what Sukuna wanted to do next, but for a moment you were happy to savor the warmth of his heavy body, twitching while he lazily continued his attention to your body. How you longed to see him, eager to witness the expression he was wearing while he attended to you.
All you had to go off was the erratic beating of his heart where his chest was pressed against you.
“Let me have you,” he murmured against your ear. “Let me make you mine.”
“I’m already yours.”
“Is that so? Then let me make it official.”
He shifted atop you, withdrawing his secondary tongue. In the absence of that heat between your thighs, you grew suddenly aware of a heavy pressure against your leg. Your mind jumped to the image of his cocks that you’d filed away in the back of your mind, gut twisting at the thought of either one of them pressing into you.
Sukuna chuckled from above you, a hand coming to stroke your hair. “You’ve seen them, haven’t you?”
You nodded.
“I can tell, you’ve got that scared little look on your face. It’s fascinating, when you play shogi you’re unreadable, but outside of that? You’re practically an open book with your emotions always written across your face.”
Pouting, you let humiliation wash over you. Nobody had ever told you that before. It was hard to guard one's emotions when you had no measure of how the faces of others looked. That was something you’d have to work on. At least you had the good sense to give nothing away when you played shogi.
Another laugh echoed from his lips. “Even now I can see your panic. It’s very endearing.”
Any protest or response you had for him faded away into the recesses of your brain as he shuffled on top of you. He maneuvered you carefully into a new position, raising your legs and placing them up atop his broad shoulders. You were grateful for your flexibility in that moment, because the size difference between the two of you made that no easy task.
Sukuna was watching you from above while he positioned one of his cocks between your legs, running it steadily through your wet folds in a way that had you shivering with desire, still not fully recovered from the actions of his tongue. You were quick to discover that his focus was on his lower cock, as the upper one bumped pleasurably against your clit.
“You know,” he mused, stilling his movements. “I’m surprised you struck no deal with me. It is what I had imagined you would do.”
“What?”
“I’d assumed I would ask for more and you would refuse me. I’d thought your respect was tied to shogi, that you would refuse anything from me unless I was capable of beating you.” Your mind moved to Sugawara as you connected the dots. Sukuna believed you’d made that deal before, as if that tiresome Official hadn’t dictated those rules of his own choosing.
Shogi was a game you adored, mainly because it was an activity you could excel at even without sight, unlike many other courtesan pastimes such as painting, which would forever be an impossibility for you. But it was by no means something you made all your decisions on, nor were you particularly interested in the skill of others.
If someone could defeat you, you would congratulate them for their win and move on, it would ultimately mean little.
To you, it was little more than a game. To various men, it seemed to be something held in much higher regard - a true mark of intelligence rather than a game for which one could learn and remember strategies to allow them a win.
It mattered little to you whether Sukuna could defeat you or not. Your affection for him wasn’t tied to it in any manner.
“To make such a demand would be wasting my own time. Why would I turn down a man I desire over something so trivial? Besides, my bet with Sugawara was made to ensure I never had to lay with him, that is not the fate I want for us.”
“So you believe I am incapable of winning?” He asked, with greater disappointment than you’d been expecting.
“I do,” you said with a giggle, “just as I am incapable of emerging victorious in a battle. We all have our strengths.”
A yelp fell from you as he pushed the tip of his cock into you, catching you unawares. “Yeah?” He asked, pressing deeper into you, his fingers tangling tightly into your hair. “Rather sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
You couldn’t help but laugh again - even in the midst of the dull pain of him driving into you, there was something so endearingly pathetic about his words.
“I am. But you’re free to challenge me whenever you like.”
He was silent as he bottomed out inside of you, his face falling to your neck and leaving a trail of kisses and bites along your skin while he allowed you some time to adjust. You were grateful for his consideration of your wellbeing, fingers digging into his skin, your gut aching as he leaned forwards over you, pushing your legs higher on his shoulders.
There was no question that he was the largest man you’d ever had inside you, practically tearing you apart with his intrusion, but after a few minutes of stillness you found yourself able to relax, the panic exhibited by your body slowly dissipating as you accommodated his size.
“I will challenge you whenever I like,” he whispered against your ear. “After this, the cloud of lust you’ve placed in my mind will be thinner, and I will beat you with ease.”
“Oh, I’m sure-”
Your snarky response was promptly cut off as he withdrew himself from you, only to swiftly fill you up once more, pulling a desperate cry of his name from your lips. There was no second adjustment period given, instead you found yourself clinging on for dear life as he filled you over and over again with swift and deep thrusts that had your eyes rolling back.
One of his hands moved to your stomach, pressing down against the bulge where his cock would press up inside you. It was clear he was fascinated by it, finding great enjoyment in you being claimed by him. You were certain he was no virgin, but it seemed that you were the first woman who meant something to him, the first one who was worth something beyond carnal pleasure.
Legs quivering beneath the weight of his thrusts, you appreciated the way two of his hands came to rest on your thighs, keeping you steady with each brutal snap of his hips. You were crying and whining, your hands blindly reaching for him but finding him just out of range in this position. Seemingly to appease you, he leant further forward, really testing the flexibility of your legs as he practically folded you in half.
Lips pressed against your forehead affectionately, and you enjoyed every single second of his attention, mind floating off on a cloud as your gut tightened with each careful stroke, your walls flexing around his cock. Your whole body felt like it was on fire, a feeling only heightened by the erratic contact of his higher cock rubbing up against your clit.
“You feel so good, fuck. I can’t last like this,” he grumbled, never losing pace. It stroked your ego to know of his desire, to understand just how much he’d been holding back since your first meeting. It was everything you imagined the joining of two soulmates would be - desperately euphoric and overflowing with pleasure.
Sex had never felt so good, it had never really felt good at all, and yet you could spend eternity with Sukuna buried inside of you, your bodies and souls joined just as they were always meant to be.
He was yours and you were his. It was just as fate had decreed.
There was nothing stopping the scream that ripped through you as you finally teetered over the edge, your body convulsing in pleasure and clamping down on Sukuna’s thick cock, eager to milk him for all he was worth. You were sobbing his name and writhing against the silk sheets, your hands gripping them desperately in an attempt to anchor yourself to something in the throes of pleasure.
Sukuna couldn’t hold on long after that either, spilling into you with a warmth that only heightened your pleasure. His other cock found its release at the same time, cum dripping down onto your stomach in a manner that you’d usually find disgusting, if it weren’t your soulmate who was doing it to you. He groaned your name quietly, and let your legs fall from his shoulders.
Without the barrier of your thighs, he settled himself down on top of you, pressing kisses all over your face, his cock still twitching inside your exhausted pussy. You let him lather you with affection, still trying to come to terms with this side of Sukuna. It had been what you’d wanted, what you believed he was capable of, but you hadn’t dreamed it would truly happen.
The most you believed you’d get from him was a lifetime of shogi matches, in which the two of you would remain close but never cross the line you’d been so desperate to leap across.
“Has the fog of lust lifted?” You teased. “Do you believe now you can defeat me?”
Sukuna let out a low, rumbling chuckle. “Perhaps we will have to do that a few more times for it to fully ease.”
“Oh is that so?” You giggled, reaching out for his hair. He gripped your wrist and moved it into position, allowing you to play with the soft locks you’d been so eager to touch since the first time you’d seen them upon his head.
You wished you could gaze upon that lovely shade of pink once more, but it was enough to know he was there before you, yours to touch as you pleased.
“Mmm, I think it would help,” he purred.
“I’m sure that can be arranged.”
You’d give him whatever he wanted. You were his and he was yours for as long as he’d have you.
a/n: I had so much fun writing this one! thinking about doing one soulmate au for each of the jjk men because I find them so enjoyable to play with <3
anyway, for any crazy in love fans, the next chapter will be out towards the end of this week!
