Parings — Satoru Gojo x Gn!Reader
Summary — Satoru has never been one to known certain key signs, especially when it comes to mental health.
Warnings — Mentions of SH, acts of SH, angst with comfort, Not proofread!!
AN — So sorry this took forever to come out Anon! I do hope you’re doing better though, I understand what it is like and really hope this brought comfort to you and others. <3
Satoru’s fingers idly traced the veins in your legs. His eyes half shut as he focused on particularly nothing. He’d been silent for the past hour, granting you that pleasing silence you craved while working on the report from a following mission you both returned from.
He sat on the ground between your legs, face pressed against your knee opposite from the one his finger was tracing. While you sat on the edge of the bed, hard textbook being a flat surface for you to fill out paperwork on.
You weren’t necessarily paying attention to him. Mainly due to the heaping amount of paperwork that you were facing, so you didn’t notice when his finger dipped beneath your shorts.
Following one of the veins in your legs, it lead beneath your shorts. His finger followed up, your shorts raising in the process. Running his finger over a scab he thought nothing of it until he started to feel more of them. His movements hauled. He raised up from his spot and stared at the cuts that littered your thigh.
He blinked a few times. His mind not quite processing what he was exactly seeing. He was practically brain dead from the mission. But it didn’t stop his finger from changing course and tracing the cuts.
His nails made goose bumps awaken on your legs. The shiver reaching your spine and making your arms shake. Finally it drew you from the paper, making you peek above the textbook and look down to see what he was up to. The sight alone of your shorts being pushed up and cuts shown made you freeze. It was like a secret that had been broadcast without your permission. Your voice caught in your throat, not giving you the chance to explain. Your heart hammered against your chest, panic setting in.
You made eye contact with him. His glasses slid down to the tip of his nose while he looked up through his lashes.
It felt like your entire world just stopped. Like the space around you kept going while you were stuck in this moment forever. The only sound you could process was the sound of your heart pounding in your ears. It was deafening. The silent between you both was deafening. Not knowing if he was going to speak, not knowing his reaction was killing you.
He just glanced back down at your thighs. His curiosity peeked as he slid the shorts on your other leg up revealing the same cuts on that leg as well.
What was causing these cuts?
“..Are these from curses?” He finally asked breaking the silence.
His stupidity was the only thing that saved you.
“Yeah! Yes, it’s from curses” You answered almost too quickly
“Those are weird looking cuts though” he murmured while staring down at them.
“The curse had claw like features for hands. It was weird..”
Your heart was nearly trying to beat out of your chest. The pen in your hand shaking from how much you were trembling. And if you weren’t shaking before you surely were now. It was like the nervousness was shot into your nerves making you shiver uncontrollably.
Satoru glanced up and watched the way the pen shook in your trembling hands. His hands slid up your thighs to your hips as he stood up from his position on the floor.
“Gibme that” he pulled the textbook from your hands and dropped it somewhere down onto the ground. The papers fluttered around your flooring but he didn’t care. The pen fell from your hands and got lost somewhere in your comforter.
“Lay down with me, you need it, we need it”
His fingers pressed into your stomach making you lay back against the bed. Slipping a pillow beneath your head he followed after you.
He laid his sun glasses near the top of the mattress somewhere before pressing his face into your shoulder. His left leg hiked up and laid across yours as his arm followed and draped across your stomach, completely holding you down with his body weight now.
“Satoru, I have to finish that paperwork” you attempted a protest. Your heart finally calmed down once you realized he had absolutely no clue what was actually happening. But it also made a part of you feel guilty.
“You can finish it later” his voice came out muffled against you.
“No butts, nope, nadda, nothing”
Sighing, you knew you were defeated. Once he focused on something, Satoru wouldn’t let up until he got his way.
“You could barely hold a pen without it shaking like we were in an earthquake. So obviously you’re tired and need rest.”
Yeah sure, you were definitely tired. Being tired may have added to the factor but the fact that your biggest secret was almost revealed was the main cause.
“Just take a nap with me” his voice trailed off as he himself drifted off in the matter of seconds, which for Satoru Gojo, wasn’t typically normal.
“Maybe you’re right, a nap may help” it may help the guilt that you felt welling in your gut. Sleep was always the answer, you can’t dwell on the issue if you were asleep.
It took a while but soon you followed in his footsteps and drifted off to that dreamless land.
For the next few days Satoru couldn’t get his mind off what he saw. Something just wasn’t sitting right with him. You wouldn’t lie to him, surely you wouldn’t. Would you?
He rocked his soda on the rim. His hand holding his hand up as he sat at the wooden picnic tables with Suguru and Shoko. His mind was elsewhere as the two others talk.
They both called his name but he didn’t react. Some of his soda spilt out the side as he tipped it too far.
“Satoru Motherfucking Gojo!!” Suguru’s voice called him from his thoughts.
Suguru was drilling holes into him by just the way he was staring at him. “What is your problem dude?”
“I don’t have a problem” he protested while sitting up straighter.
“You do Gojo, you’ve been daydreaming this entire time.”
Shoko chimed in with a raised eyebrow. “So what’s going on with you?”
He exhaled sharply and dropped the can from his gasp. “Alright, well I saw something that just.. didn’t look quite right to me.”
They both leaned forward, interested. Whatever had Gojo being silent and lost in thought for so long must be important.
“Have you ever seen cuts that were like.. horizontal but clustered together? Well not like clustered together but close together?”
For a second everyone was quiet. Suguru and Shoko glanced between each other then back at Satoru.
“..were they like, on the thinner side?” Suguru’s tone dropped as he asked, almost like this was a question he dreaded to ask.
Satoru confirmed after taking a small moment to think back to the sight.
“What do you mean who?..” He could feel the air shift, his own nerves starting to come alive.
He hesitated even answering. It felt like this was a conversation and he didn’t want to put your name out there. To draw more attention to the issue.
“Self harm Satoru! Its self harm cuts”
His voice died in his throat as he sat there. All he could do was stare at them both. They both explained it but he already knew now. And he felt like his world was falling apart. How could he have been so damn stupid to not realize what was truly happening there?
“I need to go, now” He was already up and swinging himself out of the bench.
Suguru and Shoko watched as he sprinted.
Not fast enough. The air shifted around him and he was gone within thin air.
The air shifted around in your bedroom before he dropped in, turning and scanning the entire room before his eyes landed on the closed bathroom door.
“Babes, you in there?” He was twisting the door knob while knocking with his other hand.
Not giving you the chance to even answer he was pushing the door open.
His heart completely dropped.
There you were, sitting on the floor. Knife in hand, blade creasing into the skin of your thighs. You stared back at him. Too stunned to even realize what was happening. He was just here all of a sudden.
“Satoru I can explain-” there was nothing to explain. He knew what was going on but he just froze.
Now it was his turn for his heart to be hammering against his chest, like it was trying to break free from his body. His ears rang as he stared, the knob in his hand cracking slightly as he clinched his hand.
He didn’t even realize he was moving but his legs acted on their own. He was crouched down in front of you, hand gripping the knife and taking it from your hand before throwing it behind him and letting it slide off somewhere. His fingers tangled into your hair and he pulled you against him. Your face pressing right against where his heart is, you could hear how fast it was beating.
“Baby” his voice came out weak, almost broken”
His shirt dampened from your tears. He could feel you crying and that broke him further. His tough boy act dropped, his shoulders shaking lightly as he too, shedded a few tears.
“I know.. I know that the knife feels like it’s your only friend” His voice was cracking as he spoke. His trail of thoughts were moving faster than he could keep up with.
“It’s not. It’s not your only friend. I’m here too, I’ll be anything as long as I’m here. Friend, boyfriend, a fucking stranger if I have to” his laugh came out empty. “But please, please don’t cut, no more. Not anymore. I’m sorry, fucking damnit I’m sorry. I should have caught on quicker. I’m an idiot, a damn idiot for not being there and I’m so fucking sorry.”
He was placing numerous kisses to the top of your head as he spoke.
“I will always be here.. okay baby? Always. No matter what. No matter the day or time. You call and I’ll be here faster than you can blink. Please.. just please promise me you will stop…”
He was struggling to even speak. His emotions were winding him up and just making it hard for him to even think straight.
Your crying broke into full sobs at just hearing his voice crack. Your hands gripped at his shirt.
“It’s okay.. hey hey.. it’s okay, I’m here.” He reassured you quietly.
But it was too much, too soon. You didn’t mean for this to happen. But now it was and you were having to face it.
“Take your time.. I’m not leaving, I promise. Cry it all out. I’m here” He murmured into your hair.
You weren’t able to talk. The spit falling from your mouth was enough to show you weren’t stable enough to talk. He didn’t need you to talk, he just needed you to know he was there. Through thick and thin he would be there, no matter what.
So there you both sat, on the bathroom floor together crying and letting your emotions out. The best stress reliever there is..
Satoru stood in front of you patiently. His eyes staring down at your legs as you raised your shorts up enough to show him the healing cuts. They were healing well actually.
Ever since that day he’d been watching you closely. Making sure you were alright but not overstepping his line.
His grin widened as he strolled over to the calendar on the wall. In black sharpie he drew a line through the day dates.
“A week clean!” He pointed at the 7 black lines through each day.
He practically jumped at you, bring you down onto the bed and tickling at your sides just to hear you laugh.
You pushed at his chest trying to get away from his grip. He settled down and just laid there with you.
He pressed a kiss to your forehead. “I’m so proud of you” his tone was low, showing the sincere side of him.
“I don’t think you truly understand how proud I am. My heart is just bursting with joy! We should celebrate! This is important, this is amazing!”
He dragged you up and out of bed like a rag doll. Ushering you to get some shoes on, he was dragging you out the door. And as the door shut, so did the pain in your chest. Cause being with him made life better, brighter, even when life shows you the darkness, once you find that spark it makes everything better.
An — For people who struggle with Sh, I hope this helps in some way. I know life is difficult, it’s a bitch. I’ve struggled, and I’ve harmed myself too. But I do promise it gets better. Right now it may not seem that way, everything may feel like it’s out of your control or you feel like everything is against you. It’s not, I promise. It’s like obstacles in a video game. Once you learn to beat it, it gets easier. So I truly do hope for the people out there who are struggling you find that happiness you seek. And get help from people. Friends, family, or even strangers online. You’re loved and cared for, I don’t have to know you to know that I love and care about you. Be strong okay? I’m rooting for you <3
