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rahuratna · 7 months ago

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Synopsis: In a remote, curse-infested countryside, Atsuya learns that love is all that lies between hope and despair.

My first KusaHigu fic, written for the lovely @jjk-eugie . Happy birthday, Eugie! 🥰🥰

Contents: Post-apoocalytic AU, romance, angst, suspense, mystery.

Banner art: The Angels Came with Glad Tidings - Peter Ferguson

Dividers by: @enchanthings-a

The pathway twists, sinuous, beneath his feet. Breath fogging in the early morning air, he curses at the lack of light, at how every step threatens to turn his ankle at an odd angle. The stitch in his chest snags, abruptly painful, a thread caught on a nail, tugging. Not for the first time, he considers giving up cigarettes for good.

He can smell them.

They are still in hot pursuit, murderous zephyrs that ghost across the countryside, turning air into steel when their bodies solidify and slice across tender flesh. His cheek still stings from where he'd narrowly dodged their last attack.

Their bodies carry a clean, chemical scent, of burning ozone right after lightning cleaves the earth. They cannot be seen, not by an ordinary eye, but Atsuya can sense them.

His trusty blade has left more than a few of them lying rent in his tracks, their essence spilling, corrosive, over the faintly rustling grass. Even with all his experience as a sorcerer, he cannot withstand a flock of them, and if Atsuya has learned anything, it's how to pick his battles.

Cresting a rise, fingers digging into the earth, something eases in his chest as he spots the old farmhouse. The gabled roof, the high-ceilinged barn that stands to the side, the remains of old herb beds all along the length of the building and the shuttered windows, all wrapped in the dark veil of Hiromi's technique.

Safety.

That's what Hiromi's barrier offers, a shield against the constant barrage of cursed spirits that roam the atmosphere in these parts, sailing down in deadly, feather-light formation when their prey comes into view.

Eagerness lends strength to his tired limbs, catapulting him across the yard and though the safety of the barrier. The wind spirits batter fruitlessly against the shadowed window, solid for them, their spindly bodies unable to withstand the heaviness of the collision. Their shrieks of frustration echo across, tearing into the sanctuary of the yard.

Atsuya heaves a shuddering breath and almost reaches for the breast pocket where his cigarettes are kept. His hand stills, quivering. Exhaustion chases the adrenaline that has been coursing through his body. He is suddenly aware of how his chest heaves, the dampness of the shirt clinging to his back, the fluttering protest and burn within his muscles, the straps of the laden backpack chafing his shoulders, unbearably heavy.

He grasps his knees, taking deep, grounding breaths, the pounding in his ears slowly receding. Eventually, equilibrium returns.

The doorknob turns with a squeal under his fingers as he enters the farmhouse, taking in the lit fire in the hearth, the dust hovering in the air, the old couch that had been recently cleaned and set neatly to serve as a makeshift bed.

Hiromi is sitting upright, elbows resting on knees, the shadowed eyes more pronounced against the pallor of his skin. Atsuya clicked his tongue.

"I told you to get some rest."

"I did."

Rising with slow deliberation, Hiromi approaches him. Holding up their defenses has been sapping his strength. Even with his considerable reserves of cursed energy, it is glaringly evident that the barrier he has cast over their refuge cannot be held indefinitely.

Hiromi reaches out, the cool pad of his finger soothing against Atsuya's flesh, tracing the dried blood of the scratch across his cheek. A faint line appears between his dark brows.

"How many of them?"

"Couldn't tell. Too busy running away."

Leaning forward, Atsuya brushes his lips against Hiromi's, brief, tender, a promise of more after their pressing concerns have been dealt with.

"Found some good supplies about a mile off. Another homestead. Had these locked way in a basement."

He kneels before Hiromi, sliding the backpack off with a slight wince. From within the bag, he produces an array of sealed and canned food, some drinking water, lighters, a small portable stove, flashlights, batteries and a toolkit. He gestures to the last item.

"This'll help with fixing up the rover."

His gaze wanders upward, hesitantly, taking in the other man's gaunt aspect.

"Just a day more. That's all I need."

Kneeling in turn, Hiromi's smile is soft, familiar, if a tad wan. He ignores the food and water, even though he has not eaten since yesterday, and reaches for the buttons of Atsuya's shirt. Slipping the dirt-streaked fabric from the broad shoulders, his deep-set gaze takes in the reddened welts where the straps of the backpack have cut into flesh. Atsuya attempts to shrug the shirt back on, but Hiromi isn't having any of it.

"Let me take care of this."

Atsuya's voice is low, charged with something akin to self-loathing.

"No. You're already doing enough."

"I'll eat after I've seen to these injuries."

It doesn't take much to shift Hiromi's request to a smoothly delivered threat. Atsuya grumbles slightly, but concedes. When it comes to turns of the tongue, he can never outdo the former defense attorney.

The first aid kit they'd come across a few days before, in a ruined clinic, is brought out. Hiromi's touch is soft as he brushes the wounds with disinfectant, applying an antiseptic cream before settling gauze across the tops of Atsuya's shoulders.

Even after all of this time, the feel of his fingers on Atuya's skin causes a hitch of shallow breath, a constriction of the ribcage, that sweet, sweet twist of agonised desire, now tainted with a different kind of pain.

Hiromi should be waking up in a soft bed, in the comfort of the shielded city, in impregnable safety. The sun should be painting gold brushstrokes, rich and patterned, all along his cheeks as it comes through the blinds. There should be steaming coffee waiting for him on the countertop, a pristine paper left for his deft fingers to flip open, smoothing out along the crisp pages.

The image is vivid enough for Atsuya's eyes to reflect something of his pain, his guilt. Hiromi had followed him out here after all. He would never leave his side, and Atsuya was fully aware of that when he took this task into his incapable hands. His awareness is brought back to the dingy interior of the farmhouse as Hiromi completes his treatment.

"That should do it."

"Good. Now will you please eat something?"

Hiromi regards him in silence for a minute before nodding and examining the food. There is a sealed bag of rice, canned mackerel and tuna, curry cubes and spam, enough to make a filling, if basic meal.

"I cleaned a few pots and plates earlier. I'll get this heated up."

He frowned as Atsuya rose to his feet, buttoning up his shirt.

"Where are you going?"

"Perimeter check."

Reaching down, Atsuya's calloused fingers card through Hiromi's disshevelled hair, brushing it back from his eyes. He traces down, across the hollow of his cheek, his chin, his throat.

"I'll be back in a bit."

It had been two years since the great Curse Awakening, a sudden shift in the evolution of curses worldwide. Special Grade curses had been a rare phenomenon, in the days of normalcy that came before. Even then, sorcerers were stretched to their limit, their ranks thinned a little further every time a catastrophic event occurred on their side of the spiritual veil.

Now, it was worse, on an order of magnitude they'd never thought possible.

The strange resonance that had passed through the world with the coming of the King of Curses had accelerated the development of existing low grade spirits. Their power had increased hundredfold, but not their intelligence, or awareness. It was as if humankind was suddenly on the receiving end of a mindless and all-consuming rage, one that would not rest until sorcerers and those they protected were annihilated completely.

As he made his rounds of the yard outside the dilapidated farmhouse, Atsuya recalled a time when he could have repelled one of the stinging zephyr spirits with a flick of his finger. Now they flocked high up, hidden among clouds, ravenous and razor-toothed as piranhas.

Hiromi's barrier would hold out for some time yet, but he was more concerned about the attention it would bring upon them. They'd been holed up here for three days already, and on each expedition Atsuya had taken outside the safety of their enclosure, there'd been more and more spirits waiting for him.

He hadn't mentioned this to Hiromi, but he knew that his lover suspected all the same. Hiromi had always been able to read the nuance of his every expression. Sometimes all he had to do was ask a question, and Atsuya's body language would answer for him.

All that was left was for Atsuya to come to terms with where this damnable mission had led them -

Wait. There.

As he rounded the corner of the barn, something caught his eye. Atsuya raised the beam of his torch, approaching cautiously. The stink of foreign cursed energy was stronger here, not the signature of a spirit, thankfully, but certainly the trace of one.

The back wall of the barn sat just outside Hiromi's barrier, the interior bisected by the dark dome. Wandering around to a better vantage point, Atsuya's grip on the hilt of his sword became more pronounced. There was no doubt about it. What he was sensing emanated from that back wall.

Careful not to step outside the barrier, he craned his neck, eyes narrowing as they took in the sight of the barn. The slatted wood was marked with slashes and dents of varying lengths, where the zephyr spirits had beat themselves into oblivion in an attempt to follow him through.

What struck Atsuya immediately, though, was the fact that the markings were by no means random. They'd been applied in a rough circle, with points within facing inward as if forming the spokes of an incomplete wheel.

The zephyrs hadn't been without agency after all. Primitive as it was, they'd left behind a message, one that told of a failed hunt. The grooves in the aged wood pulsed with cursed energy that resonated in his fingertips, all over his scalp.

Sheathing his partially drawn sword, Atsuya made his way back to the farmhouse, lips drawn into a grim line.

"Change of plan. I fix the rover tonight. We eat, get some rest, and leave first thing tomorrow."

Hiromi looked up sharply from where he'd been tipping the hot rice into bowls.

"What's wrong? What's happened?"

"You're telling me you want to stay here a day longer?"

"Atsuya."

The warning in Hiromi's voice is clearer now. He places his palms flat on the table, that unerring gaze never shifting from his partner's face. Atsuya sighed, scrubbing a hand vigorously over his face, rising to tousle his hair.

"Fine. There's ... some kind of trace those curses left behind. The ones that followed me back here. It seems deliberate. It's making me ... "

"Uneasy."

Hiromi completed his sentence, voice lowering to a whisper. He stood at the table, deep in thought for a moment before his brow cleared and he handed over a bowl to Atsuya.

"Eat while it's hot. We'll go with your idea and leave tomorrow morning."

He tilted his head skeptically as Atsuya took the bowl with a grateful sound and tucked in.

"Can the rover really be fixed in time?"

Still standing, Atsuya nodded, shoveling rice and spam into his mouth.

"With those tools I found, yeah. No problem."

"And do you think you'll be able to fix the rover with an upset stomach because of how you've been guzzling your food?"

Atsuya paused, eyebrow raised. He took in Hiromi's stoic expression, the quiver at the corner of his mouth, before snorting in amusement.

"You finding ways to take charge of me, even out here?"

"Everyone and their great aunt knows how much you like it when I do."

Hiromi's reply is airy, sardonic, but Atsuya sees the slight stoop in his posture, the effort in his movements, the way he lowers himself with care into the wooden chair opposite, eyes briefly closing. It firms his resolve even further.

"Right. We leave at first light."

The rover eventually yielded to Atsuya's probing, the engine sputtering into glorious life, a fair miracle considering the amount of time it had been lying dormant. Hiromi loaded their scant supplies into the rear, including the remains of the food they had salvaged.

"Ready?"

Atsuya nodded.

"Drop the barrier the moment we get out."

Guiding the vehicle out through the widened passage of the open double doors of the shed, Atsuya stalled briefly, waiting for Hiromi to clamber into the passenger seat, hauling the last of the supplies into the back.

Just as the rover trundled out into the stillness of the morning, Hiromi doubled over, clutching his head. In spite of his obvious pain, he reached an insistent hand out to Atsuya, encasing his thigh in an iron grasp.

"Don't ... don't slow down ... something's ... the barrier ... can't hold -"

Without waiting for further elaboration, Atsuya slammed a foot on the accelerator, barreling out into the yard, hands working on the steering rapidly to avoid the embankment that bordered the property. The ground beneath the wheels reverberated, a sickening lurch causing the vehicle to jump slightly.

With a ragged gasp, Hiromi released the barrier, slumping back in his seat. Glancing behind them, Atsuya broke into a sweat as he watched the entire farmhouse shudder, the walls buckling under some great, internal pressure.

His gaze snapped forward, focusing on the winding, narrow roads that intersected and wound through the countryside, the tyres screeching as he navigated sharp turns. At the crest of the next rise, an explosive roar rent the air, and Hiromi clutched at the dashboard and swore as Atsuya swerved to avoid a large section of what seemed to be roof tiling that shattered in the middle of the road.

Coming to a temporary halt, Atsuya peered, half fearful, back towards the farmhouse. Beside him, Hiromi was bent over, breathing ragged from the effort it had taken to keep up his barrier against the tremendous force that had battered against it.

"What the - "

Atsuya's voice rasped through his dry throat, eyes widening as he took in the sight of the building that had sheltered them over the past few days.

Thrusting upward, through the rubble, was something that looked like a gigantic carnivorous plant, fleshy fangs the length of his arm open in serrated, scarlet edges in the oval of its maw. The remnants of the farmhouse, concrete, brick, mortar and metal piping, littered the area around, having narrowly missed the vehicle.

An image flashed upon Atsuya's mind, a wheel with incompete spokes imbued in cursed energy, carved into the wall of the barn.

A mark, a target.

His mind raced. The cursed spirits were evolving even further, forming connections between each other of a nature he could not -

Fingers digging into his cheeks brought him back, to the musty interior of the old rover. Having somewhat recovered, Hiromi was grasping his face, calling his name. Dark hair clung to the pallid, sweaty forehead, the composure so distinctive to that beloved face all but shattered. Atsuya gulped.

"Hiro - "

But it was useless to speak, especially now when the magnitude of his actions came rushing down like an icy torrent, chilling him to the bone.

If they had remained even a minute longer, if they had decided to bring along the blankets they'd found in the cupboard, if they'd taken a little more time scarfing down the last of the rice that morning -

Atsuya was a sorcerer, through and through. He'd learned long ago to accept the inevitability of his own bloody end, the fact that sorcerers did not die peacefully, in their beds. He'd seen friends and colleagues pass violently, painfully, before his eyes, and confronted the yawning emptiness they left in their wake.

Hiromi, however ... Hiromi crept into those secret, vital parts of himself that he'd never shared before. He turned Atsuya's heart from a stony, flat continent to a world of vibrancy and never-ending verdancy, a rainforest that rivaled even the monstrous plant that had torn apart their temporary shelter.

He would not let them have him.

He would not let harm come to the man whose very existence drove him to take the risks he did, all so that they could someday live as they -

Tender and violent, teeth clashing against his, fingers digging deeper into his face to bring him back. Such was Hiromi's kiss. Atsuya took a deep, shuddering breath, tearing himself away, accepting the sweetness of that searing rebuke.

Now was not the time to lose himself. Now was not the time to despair. And Hiromi would always, always remind him. Nodding silently, resting their foreheads together for a brief moment, Atsuya turned, carefully navigating around the rubble that now littered the road.

He would fulfill his mission. He would do all that one with his limited power could, in this terrible new world. With Hiromi at his side, with those steady hands, the sweep of his dark hair, the stubble that dotted his cheeks, the wear and tear on his old sweater and gloves, the beauty of his profile against a grimy window, he could never give up. He could never stop, not until the earth claimed both their bodies, side by side.

Fingers woven together as they sped away from the curse-infested fields, Atsuya glanced from time to time at Hiromi where he slept, exhausted, in the passenger seat. Beyond the dozing form of his lover, scarlet and gold threaded across the horizon, the dawn chasing them across fallow fields.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk fanfic #jujutsu kaisen fanfic #kusakabe atsuya #jjk kusakabe #higuruma hiromi #jjk hiromi #jjk higuruma #jujutsu kaisen higuruma #kusahigu #kusakabe x higuruma #post apocalyptic #jjk au #romance #angst #suspense #mystery #happy birthday eugie!

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