Satoru Gojo comes home quieter than usual, and you’re the only person he lets himself unravel (poignant)
Satoru doesn't knock when he gets home tonight. He doesn't announce himself. Doesn't fling the door open with some joyful greeting.
He just appears. Quietly.
You're sitting on the couch, blankets over your legs when you hear the faint rush of air. The kind of noise that follows him, even when he tries to be subtle.
“Not coming through the window like Superman today?” You say, pausing the show you were watching.
You look up.
He stands in the doorway, hair damp with sweat and rain. His blindfold hangs from his neck, and his pretty blue eyes are vivid but tired in a way that makes your heart ache.
His hands hang loosely at his side. Too loosely. Like he can't quite remember how to hold anything yet.
You sit up straighter.
He just stands there under the soft glow from the lamps you prefer to keep on rather than the big lights. Tall, dripping rainwater onto the wooden floors, framed by the dark corridor behind him like a ghost who finally found the strength to cross the threshold.
Accept he isn't a ghost.
He's flesh and bone and burden and brilliance.
“Satoru?” Your voice is soft, but it feels loud in the silence of the room.
His eyes flicker to the sound of your voice. Not glowing, not playful. Only hollow at the edges. The kind of hollow that comes from seeing something he doesn't want to remember.
“I didn't want to wake you,” he murmurs finally.
“I wasn't asleep.” You shift the blanket aside. “Come here.”
He swallows. “Are you sure?”
You frown a little. “Satoru. Come here.”
It's the gentleness of the command that he listens to without thinking.
He walks over silently, drops to his knees in front of you and rests his head on your lap. Slowly, like he's afraid he'll fall apart if he moves too fast. Your hands immediately go to his hair and he sighs.
You slide your fingers through the strands. “Rough night?”
He nods. No bravado. No jokes. No bright smiles.
Just Satoru.
Just a man who carries the world alone and returns home to you to remember how to breathe.
You lift a hand to his cheek and he leans into it. Like the touch alone might save him. Your thumb strokes the faint dampness below his lashes.
“Talk to me,” you whisper.
He opens his eyes, and God-
He is devastating.
Those blue eyes shine like cracked glass, too bright in the places that hurt, too hollow in the places that don't.
Your thumb brushes under his eyes again, and the tiny tremor that goes through him makes your breath catch.
“Satoru,” you whisper, “tell me what's going on inside your head.”
He swallows hard, his Adam's apple bobbing against your knee.
“I feel,” he begins slowly, voice fraying at the edges, “like… I'm vibrating inside. Like my soul's been stretched thin.” He inhales shakily, his fingers curling on your shirt and squeezing as if he's trying his best to soothe himself. “There's too much light in me. Too much pressure. Like I'm glowing in places I don't want to glow.”
Your fingers stills against his cheek and he immediately presses his palm over yours, afraid you'd pull away even a millimeter.
“It doesn't stop,” he continues. “The noise. The responsibility. I feel like I'm seconds away from falling apart.”
Your heart twists painfully.
You slide down to the floor with him, easing him forward until he's resting his forehead on your own. He lets you guide him, like he weighs nothing, like you're the only gravity he trusts.
“Satoru,” you whisper, cupping the side of his cheek. “You don't have to hold yourself together right now.”
His breath ghosts against your lips.
“That's the thing,” his voice cracks slightly, “I don't know how to.”
You stroke your thumb along his sharp cheekbone. Damp skin, trembling breath, the faintest shiver of exhaustion. He looks ethereal in the dim light, too beautiful for how broken he feels.
“You don't have to know,” you say quietly. “Just let yourself be here with me.”
His hands rise, hesitantly, like he's afraid to cradle your face with the very same hands that carry so much unseen weight.
“You make it quiet,” he whispers, his voice raw. “I walk through the door and I see you and everything just… it slows down. And I feel the things I don't feel when I'm outside.”
“Like what?”
He pulls back a bit to see your features in its entirety, eyes shining like something precious and damaged.
“I feel soft. And warm and small. And the ache of wanting something just for myself.”
You swallow. “Satoru…”
He doesn't let you speak, just presses a slow kiss against your lips.
“You feel like the only real thing I have left,” he murmurs against your lips. “The only real thing untouched by everything I carry.”
He leans back in again. His kisses are gentle at first. Hesitantly and trembling, like he's afraid you'll slip between his fingers if he presses too hard.
His forehead drops to yours again, his breath warm and uneven.
“And I want-” His hands leaves your face to your waist, fingers pressing into your sides with desperation. “I want to be held. And touched without feeling like I need to earn it.”
You ease closer until the tip of your nose brushes against his jaw. His breathing stills, impulsively shifting his hips towards you before stills himself.
You feel the tension melt from his body as you wrap his arms around his shoulder, pulling him fully into your embrace. His head drops back into the curve of your neck, breathing you in as he holds you back.
“That's all I want too,” you whisper into his hair. “You. Just as you are.”
He exhales like something deep inside of him unravels. His lips find the soft skin at the base of your throat in a kiss. Warm and slow and almost shy, which doesn't match the strongest sorcerer alive at all. But you love it. You love him.
He pulls back just enough for his mouth to brush your ear.
“Let me stay like this,” he whispers, voice low and rough.
“Let me be only yours. Just for tonight.”
Your fingers grip his shirt, pulling him closer until you can feel the shape of his breath back against your collarbone again.
“You don’t have to ask,” you breathe. “I want you here. All of you.”
The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren't any other kind, and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.
