the world knows your weight once more— though not nearly as intimately as your husband. inspired by hozier's "run".
tags: grief, mentions of death, mentions of child loss, sukuna missed his wife and is not afraid to show it
notes: surprise sukuna fic for the project today because i've been listening to the song that inspired it on a loop lately. enjoy!!
credit: sukuna fanart by @/phantomosis, divider by @/mieluno
Hozier project m.list
wc: 1,133
“Where is my daughter?”
The first words you’ve spoken in over one thousand years are those of a mother who already knows the answer to her question— who can see it as plain as day on the face of the man who stands before her now, little more than a corpse that walks.
You can feel your child’s absence in the spaces between your ribs and in the itching agony that festers in your gumline.
Your mouth yearns to say her name, but you will not let it.
It is not theirs to hear.
“I’m terribly sorry.”
The voice of the thing that watches you drips with the kind of faux sympathy that makes nausea coil in the pit of your stomach like a viper waiting to strike. Your fingers twitch and curl into fists.
“I’m afraid to say that your daughter passed quite a long time ago. I’m sure you recall?”
And certainly, some part of you does.
You can hear her cries on a loop in the space between your ears, her pleas for you, for her father who had sworn to always keep her safe as much a memory as they are a nightmare.
Still, a part of you cannot possibly believe she’s truly gone— that someone might be cruel enough to bring you back to a world that does not have her in it. Anger twitches beneath your brow, but you refuse to let it make itself known.
“I see.”
Your words are clipped, sharp, and certain— every bit the woman you once were back when you could still call yourself such a thing.
Sure, you had been gentle as well, in those few and far between times when the world had allowed it— but were you somehow expected to be even now, when every light you’d ever known— and even that which you had borne, had been snuffed out?
Had your previous suffering not been enough?
Still, even in spite of all these wonderings, your second question is that of a wife who has not yet learned her lesson.
“Where is my husband?”
. . .
Ryomen Sukuna is no fool, and he is not easily tricked— he has waited over one thousand years for freedom, and will stop at nothing to make it so.
Nothing will get in his way.
And yet, here he is, staring at a figure who cannot possibly be, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He knows cruelty— has created it with his own four hands more times than he can count, but this is nothing like he has ever known before.
Whoever had conceived of such a disgusting farce will have their flesh scalded from their bones and their life made forfeit.
He will make it so.
Still, even after he has announced this for all to hear, you do not dissipate and you do not cease.
He feels your presence like a cattle prod, and despises the part of himself that yearns to move closer and know once and for all whether or not you’re truly there.
But soon, he does not have to wonder.
Because you step forward, and the world seems to shift beneath his feet.
The abhorrent thing behind you seems surprised at this, but Sukuna notes that Uraume does not. They simply follow suit— two paces back, just as they always had. Once, it had been a far greater distance, but you had insisted upon them standing near enough so you could hear each other speak.
His chest tightens, and he wishes he did not have to feel anything at all.
He knows absence so well it has become his closest ally and greatest enemy in equal measure— it keeps so much at bay, and he has never been afraid of being alone.
Still, he remembers the weight of you and your shared child, and has found himself agonized throughout each and every moment of living without it.
Absence.
Ryomen Sukuna is more than familiar with the concept.
And this? This is not it.
He feels no shame in the steps he takes toward you now, expression fixed into a permanent scowl, anger pulling his lips into a snarl.
How could you? How could he?
He walks more than halfway to get to you, and knows he would do it again and again just to be with you faster.
One more moment. How many times had he pleaded for such a thing from gods who never once listened?
When he finally reaches you, Sukuna does not bother with some bored facade— he is a man who has endured far too long without you to act as if he has not yearned for the alternative.
His massive hands frame your cheeks with a gentleness he had only ever managed to manifest for you and the child you’d so graciously carried in your womb all those years ago.
He swears he still hears her laughter in the ceaseless twinkling of the stars.
And yet, as he takes you in and feels you close for the very first time in centuries, he finds that the relief is squandered by the sorrow and anger in your eyes.
“You are ill at ease.” He acknowledges, the calloused pads of his thumbs running absentmindedly across your soft cheeks all the while.
“I am in mourning.”
Your correction is a dull, throbbing thing— words that you never should have needed to say aloud again.
You had wallowed in grief for so very long before death had managed to take you from him— each day a mockery of what it could have been had he just kept his word.
Had he just kept his family safe.
It infuriates him to witness you suffer so all over again, as if you had not paid your dues the first time.
And yet, just as before, that same drive to make you smile remains, no matter how impossible such a task had turned out to be at the end of your last life together.
This time, he will not fail.
“Tell me what you want,” his voice is water running beneath a long-rotted bridge, “and I will make it so.”
And if the world had forgotten of the ferocity that had once made up the marrow between your bones, it would soon remember all too well.
Your eyes are rare shining jewels, so very precious that they had only ever existed within one other.
If only the world had been more deserving.
“Teach them shame.”
Your words are certain, and the smile on your husband’s face becomes more and more apparent with every syllable.
His gaze flickers up briefly to the being who stands proudly in a suit of flesh and lies, and returns to you almost immediately after, as if in desperate need of something more appealing.
pairings: Curse! Suguru Geto x Widow! Reader
synopsis: in the wake of tragedy, you find that love — however pure it may have been — can still leave a stain. inspired by Hozier's "My Love Will Never Die".
tags/warnings: angst, mentions of death, descriptions of violence, gore elements, grief/grieving, somewhat yandere suguru
notes: surprise!! i hope everyone loves this second installment of my beloved hozier project as much as i loved writing it ♡. divider by @/enchanthings. fanart by p_tjy on twt.
Hozier project m.list
wc: 720
Since your husband had died, a dark shadow had loomed over you.
It cornered and compressed, seeming to shrink your world smaller and smaller until it felt as if it was just you, your adopted daughters, and the darkness that hung ever-present in your periphery.
You’d never had to ask it what it was.
Because when it made itself known, it looked just like him.
Because somehow, even after countless promises to rest, it was him.
He spoke the same, smiled the same, touched you the same, smelled the same, and even laughed the same.
But still, a curse is a curse.
And sometimes, even when he made sure to appear to you just as he always had before,
You could see the curses he’d once consumed swirling endlessly in his pupils, inescapable to him even now, as if their memories persisted inside of him.
As if they had left a stain.
You often wondered if he might too.
But deep down, you were certain,
He already had.
A stain on you,
A stain on your daughters,
A stain on each and every corner of your once happy home.
And yet, there was something so incredibly comforting about his omnipresence, something you had missed so very dearly that you’d wondered through its endless aching if it just might kill you…
And yet now, nothing could.
Since Suguru’s unanticipated return to your side, you’d become untouchable to an extent that rivaled even Satoru Gojo.
Any threat, potential or otherwise, was eviscerated swiftly, the firm boundaries set between your family and any theoretical danger quickly becoming vast enough to swallow any ocean whole.
And tonight would be no exception.
“You have to go.”
Your words are whispered, a desperate plea made to the sneering faces that stand before you, leering down in a manner that makes their disgust palpable.
Just like all the others the elders have sent to make an attempt upon your life, their misguided contempt will be their downfall.
Because despite what they’ve been told, it isn’t you tearing the sorcerers who dare to encroach upon your home asunder.
It isn’t you ripping out the tongues of poor fools bold enough to take your name in vain.
It isn’t you who keeps them from ever seeing their homes again.
“Please.”
There’s an edge of desperation to your tone that betrays just how many times you’ve done this song and dance before.
Just how many fruitless attempts had been made to save the lives of the very people who had been sent to take your own.
But the steady and familiar hum of cursed energy so potent that it makes your gums itch tells you that it is already far too late for any real warning to be heeded.
Not that they ever would have listened regardless.
Misguided straight to their graves, the sorcerers sent to kill you have been made to believe that the blood of their comrades stains your hands just as much as it does the once pristine wallpaper of your home.
They never knew any better until it was already far too late.
The darkness that surrounds you all in the seconds that follow your plea is cold to them, but ever so saccharine to you.
It smells the same way that he did - of petrichor and sandalwood and all things right with the world.
It wraps around their throats and tightens like a vice all at once - but all you can feel is that familiar weight against your back, strong arms holding you close as if to shield you from everything they’d ever done, and everything they ever would.
Eyes full of terror and confusion bulge out of their sockets, blood pooling thickly on dry and cracked lips - a common side effect of a crushed windpipe.
Their deaths are slower and more quiet than the usual shredding and crushing of prey that typically precedes the arrival of unwelcome faces - and it is both easier and so much harder to watch all at once.
Apologies spill frantically from your lips only to fall upon deaf ears, your tear-slicked cheeks becoming the final view of multiple dying men.
You whisper to Suguru that you wish he would have let them see the sun,
And he promises you that he had done exactly that.
pairings: Poly!SaShiSu x f!Reader
synopsis: even in spite of it all, you crawl home to her.
inspired by Hozier's "Work Song"
tags: angst, (some) fluff, mentions of death, grief/grieving, hurt/comfort
notes: here it is! tysm for everyone who waited so very patiently for this fic, i love you all to bits!! dividers by @uzmacchiato and @kodaswrld. fanart by @neuchimonai on twitter & bluesky.
Hozier project m.list
wc: 2,054
It's a chilly evening for the summertime in Tokyo, and you can feel the cold nipping at the flesh of your exposed arms as you slide the key into the lock of your front door.
Eagerly, you press your weight into the wood after hearing the satisfying click of the deadbolt receding, sighing a breath of relief as the warmth of home floods your being.
Smiling softly to yourself, you move to slip off your shoes, glancing up at the photo that decorates the otherwise plain wall beside the coat rack. It depicts a much younger you alongside much younger versions of your partners, playing a game of chicken on a beach somewhere.
In it, you're sitting atop Shoko's shoulders, hands clasped with Satoru's in an effort to unseat him, while beneath you, Suguru and Shoko are playfully glaring at one another, hands poised in a threat to grab.
It's a fond memory of a happy moment, one taken just a few months after you'd all given up on the whole "just really close friends who happen to kiss sometimes" thing and finally started officially dating.
Your expression softens a bit as you recall that it was Haibara who took that photo of you all - and you swear that you can almost hear his laughter behind the camera even all these years later.
You miss him.
You miss a lot about those days.
Still, you shake off that thought before it can fester into something unmanageable, lining your shoes up beside the only other pair before walking deeper into the home.
The hallway greets you with more snapshots, each frame a breadcrumb trail of who you used to be - who you all were together.
Satoru, Suguru, and Shoko all asleep on your bedroom floor after a long night of cramming for a test the following day.
Shoko trying to teach Satoru reversed curse technique while he shamelessly attempted to cop a feel.
You donning a cone shaped hat labelled 'birthday girl!' while Suguru and Shoko kissed each of your cheeks - Satoru grinning wide and offering the camera a peace sign as he snaps the closest thing to an early 2000s selfie that your old film camera had allowed at the time.
All four of you at some arcade somewhere, your ring finger adorned with a comically large fake ring that Satoru had "proposed" to you with as you and Shoko watched him and Suguru try to beat one another at some ridiculous fighting game.
But, of course, eventually things started to change. The photos began to grow more recent, and as they did, Suguru's absence from them became glaringly apparent.
Still, there were moments of happiness to be found - even in spite of the ache that always seemed to follow their memory.
Like the photo of you, Shoko, and Satoru at the former's med school graduation, each of you with an arm wrapped proudly around her waist as she held up her diploma.
Her hair was longer there than it was in any of the previous pictures. She'd decided to grow it out after Suguru's departure, and you'd never needed to ask her why.
Or in the next image, which depicted you and Satoru brushing your teeth in the bathroom mirror, mouths foamy with toothpaste and eyelids heavy with sleep.
You were pretty sure that your boyfriend had taken that to accompany one of his many good morning texts to your shared girlfriend, who was always up before both you and Satoru (at least on the days where the latter got to sleep at all).
Shoko always said that it was one of her favorites, a reminder of the pair of idiots who made her look forward to coming home each evening.
Still, the next one was probably the one you adored most.
In it, Satoru slept peacefully, his head resting atop your girlfriend's lap. The woman in question held the camera (aka her phone) far above the two of them, a playful and clearly exaggerated frown on her face that seemed to say 'really?'.
There was a book on her chest, propped open to the page she had paused her reading on (most likely having realized that the person she'd been reading to was actually fast asleep).
If you looked close enough, you could just make out the cover - one of many pregnancy and parenting guides that had begun quietly piling up around your apartment back then.
And yet, none of the photos on the walls showed a child. Not a single one.
And eventually, Satoru disappeared too.
In spite of it all though, the beautiful moments persist, unaware of absence or grief.
Like the day that Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara all graduated, you and Shoko stood proud and smiling at their sides.
Or the day that you proposed to her, down on one knee with that ridiculous ring that Satoru had given you all those years ago.
Or the day that the two of you got married - a private little ceremony with very few guests save for the students you loved so dearly and the ashes of those who should have been there with you held in lockets pressed close to your hearts.
But there should have been more.
You wished beyond anything else in the world that there could have been more.
Pets, and babies, and achievements, and black hair, and blue eyes, and love beyond measure.
But still, you at least found that last thing waiting for you in the kitchen.
Shoko stood there, bathed in the gentle candlelight emitted by what had once been Suguru's favorite scent of candle and the soft glow of the bulb above, expression one of adorable concentration as she read over a recipe from the box of organized index cards that sat atop your kitchen counter.
You take a step forward, eager to feel the steady and certain weight of her held in your arms, but falter when you see a door you don't recognize on the wall just opposite of the place she stands.
It looks incredibly out of place, the bright white light that creeps out from under it a stark contrast to the honeyed warmth that the bulb above you gives off.
And even stranger still, your wife doesn't pay it any mind at all.
Nor does she seem to even realize that you're there.
You watch her for a few moments, throat tightening for reasons you don't quite understand before finally, you tear your gaze away and bring it back to the strange door.
It's a plain stark white, sticking out like a sore thumb, and the hardware is a clinical and cold looking steel, a jarring difference from the bronze knobs and hinges that exist within your home.
You don't think you want to step through, some voice in the back of your head insisting that you shouldn't, but in the end you find yourself turning the handle before you've even realized that you moved at all.
And when the door opens, the light is nearly blinding in comparison to the dark warmth of your apartment.
Bright, white, clean in a way that suggests the absence of dirt as a whole, as if this place has never known dust, decay, or any of the other messy things that life guarantees.
Something in you registers this space as some sort of airport, an area made for transitions, but that hardly matters when you notice the two figures sitting on a bench nearby.
They smile at you as if they'd never left, like it had all been some sort of awful nightmare and this was the part where you finally got to wake up.
But you were starting to remember now.
So this time, you knew better.
They make a space for you between them as you approach, gazes full of subtle sorrow and obvious longing.
"Back so soon?"
Suguru teases lightly, fingers gentle as he brushes something wet from your cheek.
His thumb comes away stained red, but neither of you acknowledge it.
Satoru speaks up before you can formulate a response.
“You should really be more careful,” he says, mirroring Suguru’s teasing. “This is your third mission-related accident this year.”
He pauses for a moment, blue eyes seeking out yours before he continues,
“If you miss us, just say that. No need for all the dramatics.”
And, despite the leaden feeling in your chest, you laugh, eyes rolling and smile trembling as your head falls upon his shoulder, fingers linking with Suguru's in the same moment.
"I miss you guys."
The words are barely above a whisper as they're spoken, but you've long since learned that they don't have to be.
This is far from your first time here, and you doubt that it will be your last.
Still, it never really got any easier.
A calm quiet fills the space, the warmth on either side of you a welcome feeling after having gone so long without it.
However, it isn't long before someone speaks up once more.
"You can always stay."
Suguru reminds you, tone laced with sympathy as his hand squeezes yours,
"You can only put this off for so long."
Still, you can tell from his voice alone that he already knows what you'll say next.
Your eyes are full of grief and certainty as they meet his own once more.
"I can't leave her."
Three pairs of eyes look back toward the open doorway all at once, gazing into the life that anchors you.
Shoko is still stood there in the kitchen, back to the counter as she checks the time on her phone, fingers tapping the back of the device in that way they always do when she starts to get anxious.
You wince a bit as you watch her answer a phone call soon after, something dangerously close to panic marring her beautiful features before she suddenly rushes off in the direction of the front door.
"We need each other."
Your words are whispered, lips pulling into a thin line as they're spoken.
"I could never go before she does. Not as long as I can help it."
You feel Satoru press a kiss to your temple, tone uncharacteristically serious as he speaks.
"And if you can't?"
The obvious guilt in his voice makes your heart clench.
He never meant to leave you both behind.
That choice was never his to make.
You feel yourself shake your head in response, slowly raising it from his shoulder as you prepare yourself for yet another painful goodbye.
"I won't let that happen. I can't give myself the option of letting go - not when she's waiting."
You can feel the two men exchange a glance above your head, but they make no attempt to talk you out of your decision. They'd given up on such a feat a long time ago.
Two pairs of soft lips find each of your cheeks, but you don't have it in you to look at either of your partners as you finally move to stand, gaze focused solely on the nearby doorway.
You worry that if you glance back, you'll give in.
There's never anything easy about leaving two thirds of your heart behind, even when you know it's the right thing to do.
They could wait a little longer, and so could you.
As long as it took.
As long as she needed.
There is no closure as you step through the door, no words of comfort shared before your sharp return to reality.
That peace was reserved solely for the end.
You wake up to white walls and a stiff mattress beneath your back.
And still, even despite the less than comfortable accommodations, Shoko's clinic is always a welcome sight.
"You came back."
The voice that comes from your right is familiar and followed shortly by a hand that comes to entwine itself with your own.
You don't have to look to see who it is, but you do anyway, because no matter what, it could never possibly be enough.
Shoko sits at your bedside, deep brown eyes meeting yours, allowing you to see the unspoken devotion that shows plainly within them.
You squeeze her hand then, knowing you made the right choice.
Someday, you would all be together again, and things would be as they should.
Info: Below you'll find the titles of the Hozier Album inspired fics I'm working on! Any posted pieces will contain a hyperlink. If you have any questions feel free to drop them in my inbox! ♡
Tag list: open
Side note: All planned fics mentioned below will be x reader!!
Track List:
Take Me To Church (feat. poly!SatoSugu) - Oh, Amen
Angel Of Small Death & The Codeine Scene (feat. Shoko Ieiri) - But I Swear It Is Sweet
Jackie And Wilson (feat. Satoru Gojo) - We’ll Name Our Children
Someone New (feat. poly!SaShiSu) - Fall in Love Just a Little
To Be Alone (feat. Satoru Gojo) - Kill the Lights and Kiss My Eyes
From Eden (feat. Suguru Geto) - Innocence Died Screaming (Honey, Ask Me, I Should Know)
In A Week (feat. poly!SatoSugu) - I’d Be Home With You (I’d Be Home With You)
Sedated (feat. Suguru Geto) - Adding Shadows to the Walls
Work Song (feat. poly!SaShiSu) - I’ll Crawl Home to Her
Like Real People Do (feat. Satoru Gojo) - We Could Just Kiss Like Real People Do
It Will Come Back (feat. Kento Nanami) - Honey, Don’t Feed Me
Foreigner's God (feat. Ryomen Sukuna) - Breaking if I Tried Conveying
Cherry Wine (feat. "Suguru Geto") - I Have This (Some of the Time)
In The Woods Somewhere (feat. Satoru Gojo) - I Saw New Eyes Were Watching Me
Run (feat. Ryomen Sukuna) - Rare Is This Love
Arsonist's Lullabye (feat. poly!SatoSugu) - I Thought It Ended
My Love Will Never Die (feat. Suguru Geto) - Bursting Loud From Inside
Notice: While everything is more or less planned out, things like titles, characters, etc. are still subject to change.
Resources: dividers by @haecunt and @bernardsbendystraws
