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gojosperms · 2 days ago

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pairing: satoru gojo x f!reader x sukuna ryomen

synopsis: you were just a village girl, stealing glances at your childhood friend by the nile, when the priests came. they said ra had chosen you—that you would speak for the sun god. now, you’re bound in gold and blood, cut open in the name of divinity, and praying to a god who never answers. until one does, and he looks like yuji. he calls himself apophis.

content: ancient egypt au, oracle!reader, apophis!sukuna, ra!gojo, smut, childhood crush on yuji itadori, hints at satosugu, divine possession, religious rituals, ambiguous morality, false comfort, god x mortal dynamics, non-explicit but heavy implications of grooming/manipulation

notes: i am a pjo fan. not a big fan of egyptian mythology but writing this taught me a lot! it’s very long, enjoy!

your village sat quiet along the nile’s shoulder—mud-brick homes crumbling soft at the corners, palm-frond mats curling in the sun, smoke curling thin from clay ovens as the day leaned into late afternoon. the river lapped gently against the bank, thick with reeds and fish and a few empty palm-woven baskets half-submerged at the edge.

yuji was beside you, splashing water onto his neck, shirt stuck damp to his back. his hair, soft and pink like sun-bleached hibiscus, clung in wet curls to his forehead. he had that kind of face that was always open, warm eyes, soft lips, a little scar on his cheek from when he fell trying to impress you with a flip last summer.

he smelled like salt and sunlight and river mud, and even though he was more annoying than helpful, he was the only reason you hadn’t lost your mind already, elbow-deep in fish, swatting flies and muttering to yourself.

“you’re seriously useless,” you muttered without looking up. “you begged to come with me and haven’t touched a single fish.”

“i’m providing moral support,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow. “besides, i’m pretty sure i dropped the knife back by the docks earlier. i’m gonna go check before some kid steps on it.”

you rolled your eyes as he jogged up the bank, barefoot, humming under his breath. always like this—warm, helpful in theory, more trouble than he was worth in practice. and still, he was your favorite person. always had been. you couldn’t remember a single summer where he hadn’t made you laugh, where you hadn’t fought and made up three times in one afternoon.

and lately, maybe it was more. maybe it wasn’t. you hadn’t figured it out yet, but you liked having him nearby. especially today, when the heat had been unbearable, the fish were slippery and sour-smelling, and the flies wouldn’t leave you alone.

you went back to gutting fish. the basket was nearly full. the sun pressed heavy against your back, and for a second, everything felt still.

then you heard the wheels.

you looked up just in time to see dust curling into the air at the edge of the road. a chariot, gleaming gold, polished so bright it nearly blinded you. the wheels spun slow, deliberate, sun catching on every curve of its carved panels. the sides were etched with symbols you didn’t recognize, winged things, celestial spirals, a burning eye at the center like it was watching you.

two horses pulled it, sleek and massive, coats the color of sand after rain, their manes braided with gold thread that shimmered every time they moved. their hooves barely made a sound against the earth.

your stomach twisted.

who brings a chariot to the edge of a fishing village? to the riverbanks where kids ran barefoot and women scrubbed laundry against smooth stones?

it slowed, stopped, and the horses didn’t snort or shake their heads like normal animals. they just stood, still and silent, as if they’d been carved from marble.

and from it, only one woman stepped down.

she was old. tall, slow-moving, dressed in linen and gold, with a veil wrapped tight around her head and her face mostly shadowed. she said nothing as she approached. just walked through the sand like she was floating.

you froze, hand hovering above the fish basket. she didn’t look dangerous. just strange. like someone important who had gotten lost.

she knelt beside you, movements slow, deliberate, and the smell of her hit you first—frankincense, sweat, and something metallic.

you stared at her, and she looked out toward the river.

“do you think the sun ever gets tired?” she asked suddenly.

you blinked. “uh… what?”

“all that rising. all that heat. day after day. no rest.”

you hesitated. “i mean, i guess i never thought about it.”

“but you believe in the gods, don’t you?” she asked. “you know their names?”

you shifted where you sat. her tone was calm, but her eyes were locked on you.

“i mean… yeah. i guess. i don’t really think about it much. i know what i’m supposed to. you know. offerings. prayers. but i’m not like—super religious.”

you tried to laugh, unsure. something about her made your skin crawl, but you didn’t want to be rude. she could be someone’s grandmother. someone important. a temple woman. a wandering preacher. some weird cult thing. you didn’t know. you just wanted her to finish whatever she was going to say and leave.

she didn’t. instead, she looked at you for a long time, then said, “what is your name?”

you blinked again. “me?”

she nodded.

“uh…” you hesitated, unsure why the question felt so loaded. it was just your name, but something about the way she looked at you made your chest tighten. still, it’s not like you’d ever have to see her again.

“y/n,” you said, cautiously.

the moment your name left your mouth, something shifted, and her entire expression changed. she stood. turned to the road behind her and called, loud and clear, “she’s the one.”

you froze. “what?”

you scrambled backward as her hands reached for you. she grabbed your wrist like it belonged to her.

you recoiled instinctively, heartbeat thudding. “don’t touch me.”

she ignored you. her fingers brushed your skin and her grip tightened. you twisted away, stumbling into the reeds. two more women came out of the chariot. one held something beneath her robes, something angular, rigid, gleaming faintly in the sun.

“get your fucking hands off me.” you yanked your hand back and your pulse shot to your throat. her grip was like iron. she didn’t say anything, just looked down at you, face calm and distant, like she already knew how this ended.

“you are the one,” the first one said, low, certain. “the voice of the sun god. he has spoken.”

you blinked at her like she’d spoken a foreign language.

“what?” your voice came out breathy. disbelieving. “what are you even talking about? ra? are you—what does that have to do with me?”

the other two moved towards you, closer, steady, too calm for how fast your heart was racing.

your stomach dropped. you thought for a brief second—oh my god, these people are going to kill me.

you twisted, screamed.

“yuji!”

your voice cracked.

“yuji!”

you heard footsteps pounding down the path, and he appeared at the top of the bank, wild-eyed, breathless, and shirtless, his chest rising fast with every gasp of air. his skin was flushed and sun-warmed, the tan glow of it made deeper by the heat and sweat clinging to his collarbones. his muscles were lean, carved in a way that looked accidental, like he got them from running too much and working too hard. his shendyt—a faded linen kilt, tied loose at his hips, clung to him damp with river water, twisted from the sprint, the hem stained slightly with mud.

a panicked fire in his eyes. he looked like he’d been ready to fight even before he knew what for. “what the hell is going on?”

you used the distraction from yuji to yank yourself free, stumbling back from the woman’s grip and scrambling behind him, clutching the back of his shoulder like it was the only solid thing in the world.

“they grabbed me,” you sobbed. “i don’t know, they just started saying weird things—”

one of the other women stepped forward, face calm, expression unreadable. “has she bled yet?”

yuji blinked, arm already out in front of you, body angled to shield yours. “what?”

“has she begun the red season?” the woman asked. “passed through the gate of womanhood?”

you froze. the words landed in your chest like a rock. your face flushed hot, a wave of something like shame or horror crawling up the back of your neck. yuji did not need to know that. not like this.

he turned his head slightly, just enough to glance at you, but you didn’t meet his eyes.

then he looked back at them, and his gaze dropped—just for a second, to the glint of metal beneath the older woman’s robes.

his jaw clenched. “why the hell do you need to know that?” he said, voice low. cold. unfamiliar.

he shifted his stance, shoulder squared, foot braced in the sand. a shield now. something immovable.

the women didn’t answer, they only stepped closer, and yuji moved fully in front of you.

“y/n,” he said, his voice sharper this time. “run.”

you hesitated, just for a breath. and then you ran. your feet tore across the sand, breath catching, dress flying. behind you, the fish basket flipped, splashing its contents into the dirt.

you didn’t look back. you ran until your house appeared through the heat-haze, knees buckling as you hit the threshold.

your father looked up from the floor, startled.

“dad—” you gasped. “dad, there’s people—there’s women—i don’t know what’s happening, they grabbed me, and yuji told me to run—dad, i think they have weapons—”

your words tumbled too fast. you couldn’t catch your breath. your heart wouldn’t slow down.

he crossed the room in two steps and caught you in his arms.

“please,” you begged, clutching your father’s tunic, fists trembling in the fabric. “please don’t let them take me.”

his arms tightened around you. he didn’t speak, just held you, like he could hold the world back if he tried hard enough.

and then the light shifted.

the sun, already high, suddenly felt unbearable, gleaming brighter than ever through the slats in the window, cutting across the floor in hot, blinding streaks. it made the dust glow. it made your skin burn. it felt like a spotlight aimed straight at your body, like even the heavens were pointing you out.

you barely had time to breathe before the door crashed open, and hooves thundered outside. shouting erupted like fire. the heat rushed in first, followed by the heavy rhythm of boots on clay.

they stormed in without hesitation—guards, real guards this time. cloaked in gold and thick leather armor, their faces set, eyes forward. they carried scrolls stamped with wax, blades strapped across their backs, and emblems of the gods hanging from their belts like pendants of judgment.

your father tried to block the doorway. shouted something you couldn’t hear, and they shoved past him like he was nothing. they grabbed your arms and you screamed. thrashed, kicked.

“she is the girl,” one of them said. “the one the god has whispered of.”

your father’s voice broke behind you, and then they took you.

they dragged you down the narrow road, barefoot and sobbing. past the neighbors who stood frozen in doorways. past children clutching baskets. past the dock where yuji once tried to teach you to swim and nearly drowned instead.

and from that day on, the world knew your name.

but it was no longer yours.

you were carried to the capital in a litter draped with white linen and perfumed wood, the scent of crushed myrrh suffocating you the whole way. they called you pure. unblemished. a vessel of still water. they said ra had whispered your name into the ears of his priests—that he had seen you. chosen you. that your body was no longer yours. that it was his.

you remember crying your way through it.

the whole ride your eyes were puffy and red, vision blurred with tears that wouldn’t stop no matter how tightly you squeezed them shut. you kept sniffling, chest hitching with every breath, throat raw from sobbing their names.

yuji. your father.

the chariot rattled along the road like it didn’t hear your grief at all, and when the city gates swallowed you whole, the sun blazing down on stone walls too high to see over, it felt like the last part of your life had been scraped clean away.

you remember your arrival only in flashes.

hands scrubbing your limbs with milk and salt. girls in gold veils and hushed voices, pouring warm oil through your tangled hair. your fingers dipped in resin until they stiffened. your lips painted in crushed carmine, staining your mouth like you’d eaten something sacred.

they dressed you in white linen so sheer it felt like mist. layered you in necklaces too heavy for your collarbones. you were draped in gauze-fine linen the color of morning sun, eyes rimmed in kohl and turquoise. a collar of lapis hung heavy on your neck. ringed your arms in copper and gold. they called you chosen. divine. they said the god had waited centuries for an oracle like you.

but all you could think was how small your father had looked when they tore you from his arms. how fast yuji had run to save you.

how you hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye.

you remember pacing the temple for hours, its sandstone courtyards bright and humming, full of open doors and soft music, and yet you felt like an animal in a cage too pretty to complain about.

“when will the god speak to me?” you’d asked once, voice barely above a whisper, eyes darting to the guards posted outside your chamber. “what if he never does?”

your handmaiden had only smiled, tucking a loose braid behind your ear, fingers still slick with scented oil.

“he will,” she said gently, like it was fact. like it was promise.

but no one ever told you when, or how. or what it would cost.

…

your first vision happened on the sixth night, and it didn’t feel like prophecy—it felt like possession.

you’d been walking toward the temple, the heat baked into the stone beneath your bare feet, the towering statues of falcons and gods casting long, warped shadows over your path. the sky above was a dull, unblinking gold. incense curled from bronze dishes in the corners. your handmaiden was a few steps behind you, humming something low.

and then something shifted. cracked. split you open like a tomb.

your body went hot all at once, then cold, then numb. your fingers seized. your breath caught in your throat. your knees nearly buckled. your handmaiden called out, said something sharp to one of the guards, but it was already too late.

your eyes rolled back so far all you saw was black, thick, and endless. the inside of your skull stretching far too wide.

you smelled incense and myrrh. and then—

he was there.

ra.

he stood in the center of your mind like it was a throne room. everything around him shimmered, shifting with heat. the sky above was blinding gold, cracked like stained glass. beneath your feet, the ground pulsed with slow, molten light. it felt like standing on the crust of the sun.

and behind him, above him, watching you, were eyes, real, golden, and unblinking. they hovered in the air like stars that had forgotten to burn. some were huge, wide as gates, irises ringed in sunfire. others blinked into view and disappeared, slow and reptilian. they followed you wherever you moved, even if you didn’t move at all. even if you couldn’t.

“you noticed them,” he said, smiling.

his hair was white-gold and wind-blown, too soft to make sense of, like strands of moonlight layered over flame. his skin glowed the way polished stone does when it’s been held too long in the sun, bronze, radiant, alive. his robe shimmered with woven gold thread, sleeveless and split at the sides, falling off his shoulders like light couldn’t quite cling to him.

his mouth curved upward, amused. following your gaze to the eyes hanging in the gold-lit air.

“don’t worry about the eyes,” he said. “they help me… discern,” he said lightly, like it wasn’t meant to sound ominous.

then he smiled.

“truth tends to hide, you know.”

he took a single step forward and the floor cracked. “you’ll speak for me now,” he said, voice smooth and bright like sunlight off water. “lucky you.”

he tilted his head, grinning. “i don’t let just anyone talk on my behalf.”

his smile turned just a little wider. “and please,” he said. “call me satoru.”

he was beautiful in a way that hurt to process. hair white as salt, soft and glowing like silk dipped in moonlight. skin bronzed and radiant, every inch of it gleaming like he’d been carved from sunlight and polished with gold leaf. his lashes were thick and pale, his jaw sharp and regal, his smile lazy but knowing. and his eyes—

his eyes were impossible.

icy blue, bright like the sky over the desert at noon. but they weren’t soft. they were focused, like flames trapped in frozen glass, like lightning waiting to strike.

and just before everything went white—

he winked. casual. playful. like this was all just a little inside joke between you and god.

you gasped awake with a sharp jolt, body drenched in sweat, the smell of frankincense thick in your lungs. the chamber spun around you. the stone was cool beneath your back. your hands were trembling.

the others had already gathered. they wept, clapped and shouted, fell to their knees.

“the oracle has spoken!” they cried.

you were pulled upright, praised, paraded through the outer halls like something sacred. someone pressed a diadem into your hair of rubies, sunstone, plumes of red and white. they placed rings on your fingers, painted your lips again, called you chosen.

you didn’t remember what you’d said. you weren’t even sure you had spoken at all.

and then the silence settled, and life for them just went on.

you were the oracle now. not a girl. not a person. just another vessel carved out for a god to pour himself into. they called you chosen, divine, blessed.

but no one listened when you tried to talk about your dad, or yuji, or home. no one asked if you missed the sound of frogs chirping in the shallows at dusk. no one noticed the way your voice shook during prayers, or how your fingers twitched when the guards walked too close. no one cared that you woke up crying most nights, gasping like you’d surfaced from drowning.

that sometimes, after visions, you sat for hours in the far corner of the temple, staring at the way the candles flickered shadows onto the wall, hoping they’d dance into something familiar.

no one cared, except for your handmaiden, shoko.

she was older. sharp-eyed, quiet, always pulling you gently away when the priests grew too eager or when your legs buckled after a long vision. she smelled like cloves and always snuck you dates from the kitchens when she thought you needed something sweet. she never bowed to you like the others. never gasped when your eyes lit gold.

“does it hurt?” she asked once, brushing the hair from your cheek.

you hadn’t answered, but she still stayed.

and when ra came for the first time—or satoru, as he’d told you to call him, when his white-haired form stepped radiant and smiling into your chamber, all gleaming gold and easy charm, calling you his beloved mouthpiece, reaching out to cradle your cheek with hands you’d never invited—

shoko was the only one who saw you flinch.

the priests bowed. the guards dropped their gazes. the other girls pressed their foreheads to the stone.

but shoko didn’t move or kneel, she just watched. watched the way your shoulders tensed. watched the way you forced a smile. watched the way his thumb brushed beneath your eye—how your whole body resisted the urge to lean away.

and when satoru turned toward her, white brow raised, your breath hitched. he stepped forward, easy and amused, stopping just short of where she stood.

the room went still. the air grew warm as his eyes flicked over her, measured, curious, and then he chuckled.

“ah,” he said softly.

“you’ve already got a lioness whispering in your ear.” he smiled. “no wonder you don’t flinch.”

shoko didn’t answer, nor blink. just inclined her head the slightest bit. not in deference, just acknowledgment.

your heart pounded. lioness?

you glanced at her wrist. at the thin bronze cuff she always wore just beneath her palm, etched with what you’d always thought were decorative flames. but now, looking closer, you saw it: the carving of a lion’s eye.

piercing. watchful. burning.

you remembered the nights she sat beside your bed, palm warm against your spine as your fevers broke. how you never heard her footsteps, but she was always there when you needed her most.

a chill ran through you.

she’s protected by sekhmet, you thought. not like you. not owned. not caged. but chosen.

…

ra never aged. not the way humans did.

his body stayed frozen in perfection, skin bronzed like sun-baked clay, white lashes dusting the edges of eyes too bright to look at for long. his hair, white as moonlight, always fell just right across his brow. his smiles came easy. his laugh was like water hitting hot stone, quick, sharp, disappearing too fast. he carried light in his palms. wore it on his shoulders. sometimes, when he passed, the very air shimmered in his wake, and he knew it.

he was the god of the sun—of creation, kingship, order, rebirth. his eye burned away chaos. his name lit the sky each morning. whole cities were built in his honor, obelisks and temples rising from the sand like gold teeth in the earth. every harvest, every law, every heartbeat was offered up to him.

he visited you often.

sometimes in dreams. sometimes in person. sometimes just as a voice in your head, a rush of heat behind your eyes.

he liked to sit near the window where the sunlight pooled the brightest. he liked when you smiled. he liked to tease.

“so serious,” he’d say, crouching down beside you, tucking a finger beneath your chin to tilt your gaze up. “you’ll wrinkle before you’re twenty if you keep frowning like that.”

you always blushed when he said things like that. always looked down, hiding the way your lips curled despite yourself.

you’d never had a boyfriend before. never been kissed. never had someone press their mouth to yours like you mattered.

yuji was the closest thing—just a friend you liked a little too much, whose shoulder you’d sometimes lean against when you were tired, whose laughter made your heart jump funny in your chest. but this was different. ra said things no one else ever had. brought gifts no one else ever could. golden bangles that sparkled like stars. oils that smelled like citrus and sun. once, he’d floated a ball of light in his palm just to hear you laugh.

and the first time he kissed you—it wasn’t hurried. his hand slid around your jaw, warm and firm. his mouth brushed yours like a blessing, soft and sure, as if he were pressing light into your skin. he kissed you like you were precious. like you were his. like the whole world had been waiting for this.

and the first time ra touched you like that, it was quiet.

the temple was heavy with dusk, warm with amber light and the scent of myrrh. outside, the river moved slow and silver. inside, it felt like the world was holding its breath. he looked at you like he always did—like you were something sacred. something his.

his hair was white as always, soft like moonlight, tousled like he hadn’t bothered to be perfect. but his burned blue, blinding, endless, holy.

he touched your face like it was breakable. thumb at your cheek, fingers along your jaw when he kissed you. it was warm, soft, too gentle for what he was, but his presence was still overwhelming. he was tall, broad, built like someone who had never once been powerless—and now, that power was all focused on you.

“you’re ready,” he said quietly, voice like honey warmed on the fire. “you trust me, don’t you?”

you nodded, breath caught behind your ribs.

his hand slid down, steady. across your stomach, then lower. his fingers parted you gently, testing how soft you were, how much you could take. your thighs trembled, shame crawling up your spine—because it was new, and you were nervous, and he was a god.

and when he finally pressed into you, your breath hitched.

it hurt. not sharp, but deep, aching, a stretch your body didn’t know how to handle. your eyes stung, and your hands clenched the linen beneath you.

“shhh,” he murmured, mouth at your ear. “i know. i know it hurts. just breathe, little sun. you’re doing so well.”

he didn’t move right away. just held you, his hips flush against yours, his hand stroking your side.

“you’re so tight,” he whispered. “so warm. it’s perfect. you’re perfect.”

you tried to relax. you tried to stop shaking. he kissed your shoulder. your neck. whispered that you were beautiful, that he’d wait as long as you needed.

and when he moved, it hurt again, but there was something else, too. heat blooming behind the pain. your body opening for him, inch by inch, breath by trembling breath. he praised every sound you made.

“just like that,” he said, voice low and full of worship. “gods, you’re perfect. my beautiful girl. look at how well you take me.”

his body glowed where it touched yours. like fire under skin. like divinity poured into flesh. he touched you like you were his light. he moved like he never wanted to leave your body again.

and when you finally gasped his name, nails digging into his shoulders, tears in your eyes, he kissed you again. soft, and endless, like sunrise.

“mine,” he whispered. “my oracle. my light. no one else gets to see you like this.”

and when he held you after, hands still warm, breath steady, you realized you’d never really belonged to yourself.

not since he first looked at you like that. not since he first called you his.

but you’d grown to love him.

not in the way a lover loves, not at first. but in the way captives love the hand that feeds them. the way girls love gods when gods are the only things that see them.

he was the one who visited when you cried. the one who spoke in your mind when no one else listened. the one who made your heart flutter and your voice stammer when he called you things like his little sunbeam, his favorite voice, the only mortal worth hearing.

and when you asked if you’d ever go home—if you’d ever see your father or yuji again, he just looked at you, head tilted, lashes glowing white against the dusk.

“what more could you possibly need than me?”

and it was terrifying how much you started to believe him.

he brought you gifts—jeweled anklets from across the sea, papyrus scrolls written in sacred script, dried figs packed in silver tins. once he even brought you a falcon, sleek and sharp-eyed, trained to sit on your arm. you named it zehuti, and it slept at the edge of your bed for months.

you began to thank him in ways you never meant to. you smiled more. laughed when he joked. leaned toward his warmth instead of away.

he made you feel full. chosen. cherished.

…

the sky was just beginning to bleed, and you sat beside the water garden, ankles tucked beneath your skirts, brushing lotus petals from the surface of the pool. the scent of milk and sunlight drifted through the temple’s outer court. frogs murmured softly in the reeds.

for once, it was quiet. no priests. no chanting. no guards watching from the colonnade. just stillness. and the fading hum of the day.

you didn’t hear them at first.

just the faint crunch of sandals against gravel, and when you looked up, three men stood a few steps away—two attendants flanking the high priest. the same one who’d crowned you with rubies on the sixth night. the same one who always called you child of the flame.

he bowed.

your brows knit. you didn’t rise.

“what’s going on?” you asked, brushing a damp petal from your wrist.

he smiled, faintly. “the sun god has made a request.”

you blinked. “what kind of request?”

he nodded to the men beside him. one stepped forward, holding a shallow bronze bowl. inside it sat folded linen, a vial of oil, and something that glinted.

“we must prepare your body,” the priest said.

your stomach tightened. “prepare it for what?”

his voice didn’t change. it was gentle. too gentle. “to strengthen the boundary. to protect the throne. to keep the great serpent asleep.”

you stared, and for a moment, your mind scrambled to make sense of it. maybe it was another ritual. another prayer. maybe—

“no,” you said slowly. “no, he wouldn’t need that. not from me.”

the priest’s gaze softened. he stepped closer. “you were chosen, oracle,” he said. “this is the role the sun god bestowed.”

“then let me speak to him.” you stood abruptly. your voice was too loud in the quiet. “he always speaks to me. let me ask him myself.”

you reached for the connection. tried to drop into that inner space, the pool in your mind where his voice used to surface—

nothing. not a flicker in your chest. not a whisper in your mind.

you tried again.

satoru?

still nothing.

…ra?

silence. the kind that wrapped around your ribs and squeezed.

“no,” you said, stepping back now, heart pounding. “this—this isn’t right. something’s wrong. i—he would never ask for this. he wouldn’t—”

you didn’t finish. the second attendant reached out, and took your wrist.

your body went cold. “don’t touch me,” you snapped, voice cracking. “what are you doing?”

“the oils will numb the skin,” one said. “you will be honored, praised—”

“stop!” you screamed, wrenching away. “you’re lying. he didn’t ask for this—he loves me, he wouldn’t—he wouldn’t!” your lips trembled.

“he would never hurt me. he would never—”

please, you whispered, silently, desperately. please just talk to me. say something. please.

and yet, the silence held, and ra did not come.

you struggled. your body fought on instinct, wild, ungraceful, furious. arms swinging, legs kicking, breath coming fast and shallow. you screamed until your throat burned, tears streaking down your face as two guards seized you by the arms. you twisted, thrashed, dragged your feet across the floor. they didn’t care. they bound your wrists in silk—fine, ceremonial, fragrant with rose oil, and hauled you like you weighed nothing at all.

your voice echoed through the temple like a broken thing, unheard, unreturned, and in the silence, all you could hear was your own ragged breath—and the sound of their sandals against the stone.

they brought you to the altar.

white limestone, sun-bleached and smooth. flower petals scattered in rings around it. bowls of sacred oil warmed at its base, thick with myrrh and lotus, their scent cloying in your nose.

they laid you down.

not gently, either. your body hit the altar hard, wrists tugged taut above your head. silk looped again and again. a priest leaned over you with solemn hands, dipping his fingers into the oil, pressing it to your chest, your shoulders, your temples.

a prayer was spoken, one you barely heard. your ears rang. your stomach turned. the gold-threaded cloth beneath your back soaked up the sweat clinging to your skin.

and then you saw the blade, small, obsidian, and curved like the moon.

you stopped breathing. you flinched before it even touched you. your eyes squeezed shut, your head turned away, a cry catching in your throat—

and then came the sting, sharp, sudden, shallow, but real. blood welled up instantly along your thigh, hot, and slow.

“satoru,” you sobbed. “ra, please, it hurts, please, i’ll do anything, just tell them to stop—”

your blood ran hot. thick. wet down your leg and warm against the sandstone. you thought they were going to kill you, you truly did.

you gasped, not just from pain, but from the shock of it. the reality that they were doing this. he had ordered this. but the pain was so sharp it turned bright, and your vision narrowed, then eventually the world blinked out.

“satoru,” you whispered. the word cracked in your throat, and he still didn’t come.

when you came back to yourself, you were lying on a golden mat. someone was pressing cloth into the wound. your skin stung with crushed herbs and salt. the smell of resin and bitter fig choked you. your body was shaking, and you couldn’t stop crying. your fingers clenched in the fabric of your robe, soaked red. your voice broke on every prayer.

“please,” you whispered again. “just… please come back. please talk to me.”

and still, he said nothing. not a flicker of light. not a breath in your mind. not even warmth.

only cold. only pain. only the echo of your own sobbing in a chamber too golden to hold grief.

you drifted in and out of sleep. shoko came in quiet intervals to check your bandages, brushing a cool cloth over your forehead, replacing the linens beneath your thigh. others whispered prayers you couldn’t hear. their words washed over you like warm water, but never reached your skin.

by nightfall, the chamber of offerings was silent again. you sat alone, legs tucked beneath you, linen robe soaked with dried blood. the scent of copper clung to the air, and the floor beneath you felt too large, too hard, too still. your arms ached from fighting. your thigh throbbed beneath the salves. the flesh around your wrists pulsed, tight, swollen, raw where silk had once bound you.

the world felt tilted. wrong. your body knew it before your mind did. you shivered beneath the gauzy robe. your breath hitched. and then—

light.

soft at first. like dawn peeking through the temple’s slotted ceiling. a golden hum. a warmth that touched the inside of your eyelids before your skin. it pulsed gently. then brightened.

“my little sunbeam.”

your eyes fluttered open.

he was already kneeling beside you, crouched low, the folds of his radiant robes spilling across the stone like sunlight made fabric. the glow of him was almost too much to look at, white lashes catching the gleam, hair lit from within like alabaster glass. he smelled like warmth and myrrh and memory.

ra.

his hands were soft when they found your face. too soft. they cupped your cheeks like something cherished. his thumb brushed away a tear you hadn’t realized was there. his eyes, icy blue, searing bright, searched yours with a careful stillness.

“why are you crying?” he asked, quiet. too quiet.

you didn’t answer. you only let yourself lean forward, into the hands that hadn’t come for you. into the comfort of the one who had let them take you.

he held you, and you hated how warm it felt.

“you’re so brave,” he murmured. “i’m so proud of you.”

you choked on a sob.

his voice was like honey poured over open wounds. it stuck to the raw parts of you. thick. sweet. suffocating.

“why didn’t you come?” you asked, voice shaking. “i screamed for you.”

he sighed gently. tilted your chin up, his touch unbearably light.

“i heard you,” he said, soft as sunbeams. “but you had to be strong.”

you stared at him. the shine of his hair. the lines of his face. perfect. timeless. unknowable.

“i don’t want to do this anymore,” you whispered. “it hurts, ra— satoru. it hurts so much.”

his expression shifted, briefly. something flickered behind his eyes. but it was gone in a blink, replaced with that same impossible smile.

“i know,” he said. “but you were chosen, my love. and chosen ones must carry the weight.”

he smooths your hair back from your face, presses his forehead gently to yours. “this pain… it’s the price of peace. your blood holds back the serpent. every drop keeps the sun rising. your people breathing. your father and yuji safe.”

his thumb moved over your cheek again.

“you’re not just anyone. you are my voice. my light. your blood, your pain—it fuels the sun. without you, it dims. don’t you see? the world needs you.”

you shake your head. your lips tremble.

“i didn’t ask for this,” you say, almost childishly. “i never—i never asked to be chosen.”

his arms wrap around you.

“and yet you were,” he murmurs. “you were always mine. and i’ve loved you, haven’t i?”

and you nod. because you have no other choice. because it’s true, you did love him. because you still do, somewhere. even now. even broken.

“you’ll get used to the pain,” he says, kissing the top of your head. “it’s a small thing… to help me save the world.”

and you try. you try so hard to be good.

you bite down on leather when they cut into your shoulder. you squeeze your eyes shut when the blade slips against your stomach. you let them drain you slowly, gently, like you’re something sacred being carved from the inside out.

but it never stops hurting, and satoru stops visiting so often.

he still smiles when he does. still calls you radiant. still places a glowing hand on your brow. but his gaze slides toward the horizon more often now. he speaks of apophis more than he speaks of you. his light feels thinner. colder.

and when you whisper for him now? he doesn’t always answer.

…

the voice begins as a hush.

not during sleep, not in dreams, but during the bloodletting.

you’re lying flat, breath shallow, thighs bound, arms trembling as another shallow cut opens along your side, when suddenly, it’s there.

a voice, coiling warm against the inside of your skull. smooth, deep, slow, like honey sliding along a blade. it curved around your thoughts, soft and deliberate, brushing the most vulnerable parts of your mind like it already knew them.

“you don’t have to let them do this,” the voice hissed. “you are not a well to be drained.”

your eyes flew open.

the ceiling above you swam in and out of focus, candles flickering high in their sconces, shadows curling like snakes across the sandstone. your wrists throbbed. your thigh ached. you could still feel the blade, even though the blood had dried.

but that voice—it wasn’t ra’s.

ra’s voice was golden, deafening, and euphoric. it rushed through your head like sunlight. this was different.

cooler, older, and quieter. obviously not human.

and you knew you should tell someone.

so you waited until that night, when the others had gone. when the guards changed. when shoko returned to your chamber with fresh linen and oil for your skin. you were sitting on the edge of the basin, water at your ankles, when you whispered her name.

she glanced at you once. “you’re bleeding again?”

“no,” you said. “i… i heard something.”

her hands slowed.

you hesitated. “it wasn’t ra.”

her face gave nothing away, but she stopped altogether, towel half-folded in her hands.

you told her about the voice. about the warmth. about the words whispered just before you lost consciousness. and the way it had curled inside you. not threatening. not painful. just… there.

she didn’t interrupt. only after a long silence did she finally speak. “there was another oracle before you,” she said, quiet. “a boy. he was younger than you, when he was chosen.”

“what happened to him?”

shoko’s eyes dropped to the basin. “his name was suguru. he served for seven years. he was… bright. clever. soft-spoken.” her voice turned faintly bitter. “like all good tragedies.”

you swallowed.

“he started dreaming of the serpent,” she said. “the same way you have.”

your mouth went dry.

“he thought he could control it. thought he could use it. thought he could take ra’s power and reshape it—reshape everything. but the thing about gods,” she said flatly, “is they don’t share.”

you stared at her.

“ra killed him,” she said. “on the altar. burned his name from the scrolls. they say the serpent grows stronger every time he claims a vessel meant for the sun.” her voice sharpened.

“so you do not speak of this again.”

you opened your mouth. “but if ra—”

“don’t be stupid,” she cut in. “you’re not protected like i am.”

you blinked. “protected?”

shoko raised her arm, tugged back her sleeve to the show the cuff you’d forgotten about, lion’s eye shining in the dimly lit room.

“i was born under sekhmet’s watch,” she said. “he can’t touch me without her knowing. but you?” she reached out and touched your cheek, gentle.

“you’re only his to use.”

she stood.

“so unless you want to end up like suguru,” she said, voice clipped, “do not mention the serpent again. not to anyone.”

and then she left you there, alone, ankles in water. hands trembling. head full of a voice you weren’t allowed to speak of.

…

every time they came to cut you, the voice returned.

it stirred in the silence before the blade touched your skin, warm and coiled at the base of your spine. it slipped beneath your thoughts like water through stone, slow and soothing.

sometimes it laughed. a low, curling sound, like silk sliding across wet clay.

other times, it stayed quiet—just lingered, brushing behind your ears, humming with a patience that scared you more than anything else.

and then the dreams began.

you didn’t notice it at first. they felt like static. heat. too many flickering candles.

but the third one, you remembered.

you were standing barefoot in an endless hall, black stone walls stretching up forever, carved with twisting shapes you couldn’t decipher. torches lined the sides but cast no warmth. the shadows didn’t move.

a boy stood at the end of the corridor, soft pink hair. honey-bronze skin. the curve of his jaw familiar.

“yuji?” you breathed, instinctive.

he looked up, and you stopped.

his eyes weren’t yuji’s. they held none of his softness—none of that open, earnest light that made you trust him even when you shouldn’t. no, these eyes were red. deep red. like crushed carnelian, like the sun caught in blood. they were sharp, slanted, knowing. they looked through you the way a knife studied skin before it split it open.

he had all of yuji’s beauty, but in a cruel, cut-glass way, like someone had taken something pure and carved it into something dangerous.

his body was bare from the waist up, skin bronzed and gleaming like polished amber. black markings coiled along his torso, tattoos like serpents and hieroglyphs, ancient spells inked in symbols you couldn’t read. a collar of gold wrapped his throat, shaped like a rearing cobra with ruby eyes. thick bands of obsidian and lapis circled his biceps, carved with scenes of chaos and fire, divine plagues, serpents devouring suns, figures kneeling before a great coiled beast.

and despite all that, the way he looked at you still mirrored yuji’s in one way:

like he already knew the softest parts of you.

but unlike yuji, it wasn’t kindness that stirred in his gaze—it was hunger.

something slithered behind you in the dark, and you turned just in time to hear it whisper—

apophis.

you looked back at the boy. “you— you’re—”

“yes,” he said easily. “but i think you already knew that.”

you backed away. “what do you want from me?”

his head tilted. “nothing.”

your breath hitched. “then why—”

“but i can help you,” he said, stepping closer. “that pain you carry… the part of you that trembles every time they bind your wrists. the ache in your bones. the fear you swallow for your god.”

you said nothing.

he smiled again. “i can take it. all of it. every last drop. you only have to ask.”

his voice was silk wrapped around a blade. slow, sweet, promising.

but he still looked like yuji, the boy who’d probably laid down his life to protect you.

that same curve to his jaw. that same messy, windswept hair, only pinker now, wild and tousled like he’d run through a sandstorm. the tilt of his head, the slight part to his lips, the familiar shape of his nose. it was him, and it wasn’t. he was carved crueler. he was heavier with meaning.

and when you stared at his torso, your gaze dropping to the gilded serpent bands coiled around his arms, the glinting stones and the black-inked sigils burned into his chest—you couldn’t look back up.

your body trembled, unable to meet those red, god-marked eyes.

he leaned in, close enough to feel the heat of his skin, close enough to smell the faint curl of smoke and myrrh on his breath. his voice curled low against your ear.

“it’s okay,” he murmured, almost gentle. “you can look at me.”

and then you woke up.

your mouth was dry. your chest was tight. there was a weight in the air, a thick, invisible coil that made the hairs rise on your arms. you couldn’t move at first, breath lodged in your throat. the room was wrong. too still. too dark. only one candle remained, its flame flickering low. the rest were blown out completely, wax still soft from the heat.

you sat up slowly. the sheets clung to your skin, damp with sweat. the wind outside had stilled. the air was silent.

and then you saw it.

curled beside the woven perch near your window—your falcon, zehuti.

still, and limp, throat mangled, neck bent. something had coiled around him. crushed him. his wings were sprawled awkwardly, his beak tilted open, eyes clouded. a thin trail of blood darkened the floor beneath his feathers, and coiled at his neck, was the unmistakable mark of something long and scaled.

you covered your mouth. a sob caught in your chest.

and behind you came quiet footsteps. shoko. she saw it and moved fast. pulled the drape closed. wrapped him in linen. wiped the blood before anyone else could see.

she didn’t say a word, but the look in her eyes said everything.

and when ra came the next day, all sunlight and honeyed lies, smiling, radiant, fingers warm beneath your chin—his smile faltered for the briefest moment.

“what happened to zehuti?” he asked, gaze flicking to the corner where the perch stood empty.

you swallowed, heart hammering at the memory of what shoko had told you about suguru geto and his fate.

“old age,” you said, voice trembling. “i think. i just found him lying there.”

satoru’s bright blue eyes lingered on you for a moment longer, as if testing your answer. then he nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and offered a gentle, practiced smile.

“i’m sorry,” he murmured, voice soft as sunlight. “zehuti was a fine bird.”

you thought he was going to turn and leave. his robes had already begun to sway with the motion, his fingers lifting from your doorframe, his steps carrying that same glow they always did—but then, he hesitated.

just for a breath.

his head tilted, and his brows pulled together ever so slightly. a flicker of suspicion passed through those blinding blue eyes.

“but ah,” he said softly, almost idly, “has anything changed?”

your mouth dried. your fingers curled into the fabric of your robe.

he was still smiling, casual, disarming, but you felt it in your gut. the question wasn’t casual. it wasn’t soft. it wasn’t innocent.

you bowed your head quickly. “no.”

and then, like warmth curling into your ear, “good girl,” the voice whispered. “you’re learning.”

…

you try to shut the voice out, you really do.

but you’re so tired.

your legs barely carry you from chamber to chamber now. your hands tremble when you pour the sacred water, your knees buckle during prayer. light stings your eyes like knives. you hear the priests whisper more openly now—about the color in your cheeks, or the lack of it. the way your steps falter. the way your breath sounds too thin for someone so young.

you haven’t seen shoko in days.

you wake to bleeding—your thighs, your palms, your arms, and you don’t know if it was a vision or a sacrifice. you don’t know what part of you is your own anymore. you lose time like it’s sand through a sieve. one minute you’re walking the outer corridor of the temple, and the next you’re kneeling at the basin, blood dried on your robe, hands shaking.

and satoru—he’s watching you.

he’s all smiles, still. all brightness and blue sky. but you feel it in the way he speaks to you now, lighter, but sharper. too knowing. like he sees something leaking from the corners of your spirit and is waiting for you to admit it. sometimes his eyes linger too long. sometimes he says nothing at all.

and you remember what he told you when you first met—about the eyes. how they help him discern truth.

you’ve been trying to hide yours ever since.

but one night, you can’t help it. you just can’t shut him out.

…

that night, the moon hung low and orange behind the clouds, veiled like an omen. the chamber was quiet. too quiet. the kind of silence that didn’t comfort—it smothered. no guards murmuring in the halls. no footsteps. not even the wind against the stone walls.

you sat alone on the woven mat that barely softened the cold beneath you. your knees were tucked to your chest, robe clinging to the dried blood on your thighs. your wrists still ached beneath the thin linen wrappings. everything hurt. but nothing more than your chest.

your heart was racing. too fast. thudding like it was trying to get out.

all you could see when you closed your eyes was satoru.

not the light of his smile, but the weight behind it. not the way he tilted your chin like he adored you, but the pressure in his fingers, the command in the gesture, like you were a puppet on gold-thread strings. you kept seeing his hands, yes. but not how they cupped your cheeks or caught the sunlight when he played with it for your amusement. no, now you were thinking about what they could do. what they were made to do. what power burned in his palms when he wasn’t playing at gentleness.

he hadn’t raised his voice at you. he hadn’t looked at you with hate. but the thought still throbbed behind your eyes—what if he did? what would it look like if that smile dropped? if the kindness curdled?

he was the sun. if he turned on you, there would be no shelter.

you pictured it—the fury behind his eyes, the rage he hadn’t shown. imagined your body burning to ash under his gaze. the temple collapsing. the sand turning to glass. it wasn’t a memory. it wasn’t a threat. but you couldn’t stop thinking about it.

and maybe that was the scariest part.

he hadn’t done it, but you believed he could.

you drew in a breath, quiet and sharp, pressing your forehead to your knees.

“are you listening?” you whispered into the dark, unsure if you were whispering for ra or apophis—maybe not even for a god at all. maybe just for someone. anyone. someone to answer. someone to care.

“can you hear me?”

your lips parted again. your voice trembled.

“please.”

your fingers curled in the linen beneath you, knuckles pale. the shadows didn’t move. the candles didn’t flicker. the stars outside stayed still and cold. you shut your eyes.

“i’m scared,” you admitted. barely a breath.

and then a rustle, like silk over stone. like something shifting closer. then—

“of course i can hear you.” the voice slid into your mind, low and rich and warm as molasses. not ra’s light, but something older, heavier, something that wrapped around your thoughts like water around a throat. “i’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

“apophis,” you said. the name tasted strange in your mouth.

you didn’t know what would happen. you’d never said his name before, never quite called to him either. he always came on his own—slithering through dreams and whispers, curling inside your head like incense smoke.

the air shifted. thickened. your skin tingled like the hairs on your arms were lifting, like something enormous had just turned its gaze toward you from the shadows.

“yes?” came the voice, not spoken, not heard, but felt. it coiled through your ribs like heat. it slithered up the back of your spine. it smiled when it said your name, like it really had been waiting for you.

“is ra going to kill me?” your voice shook. “am i going to end up like suguru?”

silence. then—

laughter. not kind, but not cruel, either. something darker. amused. indulgent. like watching a storm from the safety of a throne.

“suguru,” the voice breathed. “was a brilliant mind, with a soft heart, and a foolish end.”

the shadows in the room thickened around you. you felt your mat tilt slightly under your body, like the world had gone uneven.

“he was a miscalculation,” the voice continued. “a lesson.”

you swallowed, fingers digging into your legs. your body was trembling now, but you couldn’t stop listening. you didn’t want to.

“you,” it said, slower now. lower. “you are the real thing.”

you closed your eyes tighter. pressed your palm against your chest, right over your heart. it was still beating. still trying.

“why me?” you whispered. “i didn’t ask for this. i didn’t even believe in any of this—why me?”

“because you are a fracture in the sun,” apophis said, voice curling sweet and venomous. “a crack in his golden mask. you were meant to fall through.”

you didn’t know what that meant, and you didn’t want to ask, and the voice hummed again, pleased. like it had burrowed deeper into your ribs and found something soft.

“you called for me,” it said. “even with his light still clinging to your skin.”

and you had. you had.

you don’t know when your allegiance blurred. when fear gave way to hunger. when the god who whispered to you in the dark started feeling more real than the one who bathed you in light.

you only knew that he came when you needed him, and that ra hadn’t.

…

it had been three days of silence. not just from ra, but from apophis, too.

the air itself felt different. too still. too thick. the temple halls echoed louder. your steps dragged heavier. the light didn’t warm you anymore. it only stung.

and then there was the eclipse. they cut you deeper than they ever had—so deep, you were sure they’d nicked something vital. you’d laid on the altar, gasping, blood soaking the linens beneath you, certain you would die right there.

but you didn’t. not yet.

you were curled on your cot now, alone in the dark. the stone was cold beneath your spine. the linen stuck to your thighs, stiff with dried blood. your fingers trembled as you pulled the blanket tighter, but it didn’t help. nothing helped.

and then came his voice. sharper than before, closer. no longer content to whisper from the edge of your mind. it curled into you like smoke, like silk, like something sliding between the folds of your brain.

“they’re going to kill you.”

you froze. your breath hitched. your eyes fluttered open.

“tomorrow.”

your pulse kicked hard beneath your skin.

“they’ve seen the signs,” it continued, soft and slow. “the blood in your urine. the bruises that don’t fade. your body is failing, y/n.”

you tried to speak, tried to argue, but your voice cracked on the inhale. “they wouldn’t—”

“they will.” the voice was cold now. final. “you’ve served your purpose. you are no longer a vessel. they’ll call it mercy.”

you curled tighter on the cot, pressing your knees to your chest. your hip throbbed, deep purple, fever-warm. your hands shook as you clutched your stomach. every breath felt like a needle in your ribs. your vision swam with black spots.

“but i care,” the voice said again. lower now. warmer. “and i see you.”

tears slipped down your cheeks before you knew you were crying. they slid down your temples, pooling in your hairline.

“what do i do?” you whispered. it came out hoarse. fragile.

and he answered.

“give me what they take.” his tone was low, velvety, almost tender, like a secret passed between lovers in the dark. there was no urgency. no command. just quiet temptation. “offer it willingly. to me.”

you blinked once, and then you were moving. your body moved before your mind caught up. you pushed yourself upright. the world tilted. your legs gave a little beneath you, but your palms caught the floor.

you crawled.

the chamber was lit by one flickering oil lamp. the silver basin gleamed on the altar’s edge. the obsidian blade beside it seemed to pulse with shadow.

your fingers wrapped around the hilt. it was cool, heavier than you remembered, but you’d also been the one being cut and not the one doing the cutting. your robe slid from your wrist as you knelt.

“don’t be afraid,” the voice hummed, coiling warm and slow around your spine. “i’ll show you how.”

your breath caught as you lifted the blade and pressed it to your skin.

the first cut was shallow. slow. a line of warmth bloomed instantly, sliding down your forearm like a ribbon.

the voice purred.

“yes. just like that.”

you bit the inside of your cheek and did it again. and again.

three perfect lines. blood gathering in soft pools between your knees. your body swayed gently with the pain, head bowed, vision blurry with exhaustion and something else—something dense, something deep.

the chamber breathed. the lamp flame steadied. the air grew warmer. heavier. you felt it: the shift.

not divine, not celestial. this wasn’t holy. this was ancient. forgotten. hungry.

it coiled up your spine. licked at the edges of your mind. the scent of copper and resin swirled in the air. the shadows stretched too far, too long.

you weren’t alone anymore.

a figure unfolded from the darkness, towering, coiled, humming with pressure.

not monstrous, but beautiful.

apophis.

you’d only ever seen him in dreams—never like this. never in person. never standing before you, real as breath and fire.

your mind screamed yuji. pink hair. soft eyes. the curve of his mouth, the shape of his jaw. but your body knew better. this wasn’t yuji. his hair shimmered loose, pink and gleaming even in shadow. his eyes burned red, slit and glowing, framed by thick lashes and set in a face too ancient to be young. too cruel to be kind. carved from stone and myth, sharp with something unnamable. beautiful the way a blade is beautiful. his mouth was wide, smirking, cut like a wound made to kiss.

his body moved like something serpentine, loose, fluid, deadly. shirtless, tattooed in gold and onyx. his hands gleam with rings, nails clawed, stained with something black and dry.

he stepped into the space beside you, barefoot, slow, and the temperature dropped.

your breath hitched as he crouched down in front of you. he didn’t speak at first, just looked at you.

at your thighs. at your wrists. at the blood pooling at your knees. at your hands still holding the blade. his gaze dragged up to your face, unreadable, then he reached out. fingers beneath your chin.

he tilted your face toward his.

“what have they done to you?” he murmured. his voice was soft, slow, slicing. it slithered through your chest and wrapped around your ribs, slow and certain.

“so much beauty,” he said. “ruined. cracked open like an offering bowl.”

your mouth trembled. “are you going to hurt me?” you whispered.

he smiled. not wide. not threatening. just soft, almost tender.

“no,” he said, brushing your cheek with his thumb. “not unless you beg me to.”

then he touched you, not roughly, not like a man claiming or owning or taking. just gentle touches. his fingers slid to your side, to the welt blooming purple and red beneath your ribs. warm fingers pressed to scars and bruises littering your body, and suddenly, the pain there would disappear. the ache in your thighs vanished. your and arms went light, weightless.

your wounds closed beneath his palms. your skin knit clean.

your body stilled, and when when you looked up at him—this impossible god, this beast, this thing of terror and promise, this thing the world called chaos—for the first time in weeks, maybe months, you feel whole.

his thumb lingered just beneath your collarbone, tracing the curve where blood had dried and cracked. his red eyes flicked upward, meeting yours—not sharp this time, but patient. waiting.

“you’re still shaking,” he murmured.

you tried to speak. couldn’t. your throat was tight. your chest too full.

his hand moved higher, settled lightly at your throat. not pressing. just resting. “you don’t have to thank me,” he said, voice lower now, almost amused. “he breaks things, and i fix them. it’s a cycle.”

“why?” your voice was hoarse. you hadn’t used it in hours. “why do you keep helping me?”

he smiled. not wide. not cruel. a different kind of smile that you couldn’t quite discern.

“because you asked,” he said simply. “because when you were alone, and afraid, and crying on the cold floor of your god’s temple, you called for me instead of him.”

your eyes burned again. “i didn’t mean to.”

“but you did.”

his hand slipped from your throat, down to your wrist. he turned it over, ran a finger along the place where the blood had been, now smooth. “they would’ve left you to rot.”

“he wouldn’t—” you stopped. bit your lip.

he didn’t press. just watched you. let you say it yourself.

“…he wouldn’t have let me die,” you whispered, more to convince yourself than him.

“you really believe that?” his voice was so soft it hurt.

your lip quivered. your eyes dropped, and a silence stretched between you.

he reached for your chin again. tilted it up, slower this time. gentler.

“look at me.”

you did. slowly. breath caught in your chest. his face was too close now. eyes searching. mouth parted just slightly. he smelled like smoke and night and the faintest trace of honey.

“i could hurt you if i wanted to,” he murmured. “you know that.”

you nodded.

“but i won’t.”

your breath hitched as his hand slid up to your cheek. brushed a tear away with the back of his knuckle. “i know how to destroy,” he said. “but with you… i’d rather do something else.”

you blinked.

“can i?” he whispered, eyes dropping to your lips.

he didn’t lean in yet. didn’t press. just waited.

and maybe that’s why you kissed him, soft and slow and trembling. because for one impossible second, it felt like you were talking to yuji.

like you hadn’t been dragged from your home, like there weren’t bruises blooming along your hips and ancient symbols carved into your skin. like your name hadn’t been stolen and rewritten in a language only gods could read.

it was just him. just you. just this.

your eyes fluttered shut, lips brushing his with the same reverence you used to fold into prayers. hesitant. aching. your fingers curled lightly at his shoulders.

his mouth was warm, there, present. answering you with a slowness that startled you.

and for a moment, you let yourself pretend.

pretend that maybe yuji had died trying to protect you, and this—this creature of dark and chaos, this impossible god with eyes like fire and hands like silk, had been sent in his place. sent to ease your pain. to honor the hurt that no one else saw. maybe a piece of yuji lived inside him. maybe that’s why he looked the way he did. why his voice never scared you.

his hand slid to the back of your neck, holding you there as he kissed you deeper. still slow. still gentle. like he understood something about you no one else had bothered to learn.

his forehead rested against yours, his breath warm against your lips. his thumb still cradled your jaw, gentle in a way that made your chest ache. you thought he might say something soft. something about you.

because his expression looked like awe.

because his red eyes burned like embers, staring at you like you were the only thing that ever mattered.

but that wasn’t what the fire was for.

“you don’t even know what you’ve given me,” he whispered, voice low, nearly trembling with restrained joy.

and when he touched you—hand rising to your throat, you tilted your head back. your body didn’t pull away.

“yu—” you stopped yourself before it left your lips.

but you knew he heard it. knew who you were thinking of. you were thinking of your best friend. of safety, of home, of sunlight skipping across the river. of the boy who laughed with fish guts on his hands and hid your letters beneath woven mats. the boy you might never see again.

and now here was this creature. this god. this echo of everything you’d lost, pressed against you with heat and stillness and a patience that was starting to feel unbearable.

you didn’t want love. you didn’t want light. you wanted release.

so you kissed him again, not soft, not shy, and your mouth pressed to his like you were trying to climb inside him, like you were asking him to ruin you from the inside out. his grip on your throat tightened just enough to drag a breathy moan out of you, soft and raw against his lips.

he made a sound low in his chest, dark, hungry, and before you could breathe again, he lifted you, effortless. he carried you to the low cot tucked in the corner of the chamber, and when your back hit the thin mattress, the shadows moved.

they rose from the stone like smoke made solid. cool and smooth. they slithered up the sides of the bed, curling around your wrists were snakes made of shadow, of him. they didn’t bind you harshly, just pinned you there like you were being presented. like this was ceremony.

“i’ve been waiting for you,” he said, voice low, glowing eyes soft like eclipse rings in the dark. “for centuries.”

your breath stuttered as he leaned down, pressed a kiss to your chest, just above your heart. he didn’t tear your robes off. he unwrapped you, like a gift, like something he really had waited centuries to touch.

your breath caught again when he kissed lower—your stomach, your hip, the curve of your thigh. his fingers brushed the raw mark you carved into your arm hours earlier, and when he pushed your legs apart, you didn’t resist.

his fingers moved with purpose. slow, deliberate circles. just enough to tease. to open. to make your spine arch and your voice catch. the snakes coiled tighter around your wrists as the pleasure in your stomach twisted sharper, tighter, hotter.

and when he slid inside you, your whole body seized.

he fit in a way nothing ever had. too deep. too much. too intimate.

your back arched. your wrists pulled. a whimper cracked from your throat, eyes fluttering closed. you were shaking, everywhere, but you still didn’t say no.

his hand smoothed over your stomach, grounding you. “you can take it,” he murmured.

and you tried. gods, you tried. but your breath was already stuttering, your body trembling beneath him. your lips parted, searching for something—anything, that would make this moment make sense.

“i wanna—” your voice caught on a whine as his hips rolled deeper, slower, more deliberate than before.

he filled you, thick, deep, a stretch that stole your breath and curled your toes and made your wrists pull helplessly at the snakes. it was like he was pushing darkness into you with every thrust. like he was rewriting you from the inside out.

ra had made you feel wanted, like a jewel on a pedestal, a thing to keep precious and controlled.

but apophis? apophis moved like he wanted to ruin you, and then rebuild you in his image. not just to claim, but to change.

you were gasping now, eyes fluttering, body arching off the cot like it might split open under the weight of it all. “i wanna forget,” you breathed.

you didn’t say what. you didn’t have to.

he knew. he knew it was satoru. he knew it was your name, your temple, your stolen life. he knew it was the girl you used to be—golden, obedient, aching for something no one could give her. he knew you wanted to forget that this wasn’t yuji. that this wasn’t a soft boy with a gentle laugh and sun-warm hands.

this was chaos. this was the serpent god who curled around your dreams and whispered that he could give you everything.

and still, you let him in.

because every inch felt like surrender. every thrust felt like a severing of light, like he was reaching places ra had never touched—not even in dreams. not even with all his glowing words and honeyed kisses.

apophis didn’t just want your body. he wanted your soul. to fill it, to flood it, to leave you so full of him that the sun no longer called to you.

and gods—you were already slipping.

his thrusts stayed slow, controlled, and cruel in how good they felt. he moved like he was rewriting you. like he could fuck every ounce of gold out of your skin, every holy word off your tongue.

you tried to be quiet. but you were spread out. bound, shaking. you didn’t notice you were crying until you felt the tears slip down your temples into your hair. your voice choked on every gasp, your body twitching beneath the weight of him, beneath the shadows holding you still.

you begged with how your hips lifted, how your thighs trembled. how your mouth fell open with no sound. and when he finally lost control, when his pace broke and his voice dropped ragged into your ear—you weren’t a priestess anymore. you weren’t even a girl.

you were his.

just like you’d been ra’s: a vessel, a voice, a body for the gods to move through. a tool dressed in gold or shadow, depending on who stood at the altar.

the illusion of choice had always been a kindness, and now it was gone.

you knew it the moment the candles went out. when the light outside the chamber flickered once… then died. when your body clenched, cried, and finally shattered beneath him.

because this, too, was a sacrifice.

not the kind they wrote on temple walls. not the kind sung over in hymns.

this was older, quieter. like the tales the scribes whispered but never inked—the ones about how sometimes, a thing too beautiful to be real would descend from the sky, soft-eyed and glowing, and call itself a god. a messenger. a savior.

and humans would kneel, and humans would offer themselves, and when they rose, they were never the same.

you wondered if that’s what you’d done. if, chasing release, chasing yuji, chasing the ache to feel normal again, you’d let something ancient slip inside your soul.

not because you wanted darkness, but because you were tired of bleeding in the light.

he kissed your shoulder. your throat. your lips again—softer now. slower. like he hadn’t just unmake you, body and breath and belief.

“mine,” he whispered. “mine, mine, mine.”

and when you came undone, mind blank, body burning, breath breaking, he followed.

a groan like thunder cracked through the chamber, the air vibrated, the snakes around your wrists loosened—but not fully. they didn’t vanish. they didn’t slither away. they just rested there, cool and curled like bracelets around your skin.

and in the silence that followed, apophis laid over you. his breath was cool at your throat. his forehead pressed to yours.

“he’ll never take you from me,” he said, voice like dusk folding over the river.

you nodded, too dazed to argue. but somewhere, in the hollow of your ribs, you tried to ignore how the snakes still held you. not like ties, but like cuffs.

…

you wake in the cot the next morning.

the room smells like cedar and blood. your robes have been changed. your body is whole. your wrists are wrapped in silk, now—not bandages, nor the snakes that bound you last night, but a gift. something ceremonial. something claiming.

you remember his voice. his hands. the darkness curling around you like water. apophis.

but now its morning, and for the first time in your life—there is no sunlight. not a glow. not a flicker. not a dawn. just… silence.

and then came the screaming.

the temple is chaos. acolytes running. guards shouting. offerings burning with no answer.

you stumble into the courtyard barefoot, wind whipping your robe around your legs.

and then—you hear him, and ra’s voice cracks like lightning overhead.

“what have you done?”

he doesn’t arrive in gold—not this time. he rips the sky apart. a burst of light explodes overhead, shattering the clouds, turning day into something that feels like judgment. the earth trembles beneath your feet. your hands rise instinctively, shielding your eyes.

and then he descends.

satoru, to you. ra, to most. the ancient, all-powerful deity of the sun, to his followers.

but not the one you knew—not the one who kissed your forehead and brought you peaches, not the god who laughed when you pouted or teased when you worried. no.

this is ra, in all his fury.

his robes blaze like wildfire. his hair whips on a wind that doesn’t exist. his eyes—icy blue, glow with something ancient and livid. power radiates off him in pulses, warping the space around his form. when his feet touch the ground, the stone beneath him fractures.

he steps forward.

“you were mine,” he says. his voice is thunder. “you were my chosen one—my mouth, my voice—”

he stops just short of you, and stares. sees the blood. sees the bruises. sees the mark of something older etched behind your eyes.

“and you gave yourself to my enemy? to him?”

your lips part, but no sound comes out. your knees buckle, fear coiling deep in your belly and rising, choking, unfamiliar. it isn’t sharp. it’s slow, creeping, like heat in a sealed chamber.

you’d seen this once before. in flashes. visions you thought were dreams—satoru’s smile splitting into something less kind, his light turning harsh, blinding. hands that once touched your face like you were precious curling instead into fists.

you thought they were warnings. you hoped they were lies. now, you wonder if they were prophecy.

because this isn’t the god who kissed your temple after the first vision left you sobbing. this isn’t the man who conjured sunlight between his palms and lit it across your skin like warmth.

this isn’t a god scorned. this is a god betrayed. and you wonder, in the static silence that follows, if this is your punishment for asking too many questions. for doubting. for choosing a voice that sounded like comfort instead of fire.

and then, behind you—

the shadows shift.

and apophis doesn’t walk. he doesn’t arrive the way ra does, either. instead, he unfurls from the darkness surrounding, he’s laughter in the bones of your spine, the prickle of a sixth sense, the ripple of wrong that feels more familiar than holy now.

he steps into place beside you, tall and fluid, shirtless and glinting in the moonlight, tattoos etched in onyx and gold.

satoru’s expression twists.

“seriously?” he snaps, voice bitter, the sky behind him still split in light. “you showed up as her dead best friend?”

and it hits you all at once, like some kind of cruel prank you’d been the butt of this whole time but never privy too. yuji was gone. and apophis—he’d worn his face like a cloak, because he knew you’d trust it. because he knew you’d follow it.

you were never a chosen one. you were never special. you were bait. a vessel. a crack in the light made just wide enough for darkness to crawl through.

apophis chuckles—low, indulgent. cruel in how calm it sounds.

“you’re just upset you didn’t think of it first. he steps forward slightly, gaze flicking to you, lingering, then back to ra.

“you always put too much trust in your mortal oracles,” he says, voice smooth and dark. “pretending they were more than tools. playing god and lover at the same time, like either role would ever suit you.”

his mouth curves, something like mockery blooming slow.

“and satoru, really?” a snort. “you even gave yourself a human name. the greatest and the oldest god, but always the most foolish, apparently.” his tongue clicks, like a disappointed parent.

“maybe next time,” he drawled, stepping closer, grin curling wider across his face, “take better care of your lovers, sun god.” he let the silence stretch, just for a moment. just long enough to twist the knife.

then, with a little hum, almost fond— “i mean, you did learn your lesson with suguru, didn’t you?”

something shifts in satoru’s expression. he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak at first, but the air around him tightens. sharpens. and behind his bright blue, searing eyes, something cracks—deeper, older, a wound never sealed.

“don’t talk about suguru.” the words are low, bitten off, and the light bleeding from his skin is no longer warm, but instead a raging fire blinding, blue, and alive with fury. the wind around him rises though nothing moves. sand lifts from the stone in waves. your breath catches.

this is ra. this is the god from the old stories, the one they said could flatten kingdoms with a blink, drown armies in sunlight. the one whose name made rivers change course and whose fury boiled the nile. the one who held apophis at bay for centuries with sheer power.

and now you see it. he could burn the world if he wanted to. burn you. and you believe he just might.

apophis smiles.

“why not?” he says, voice softer now, but still laced with mockery. “it’s the same thing every time, isn’t it? ra finds an oracle—some sweet little thing with a bleeding heart, and suddenly the oldest god in existence thinks he can play househusband with a teenager. like sunshine and figs and soft hands are gonna fix anything.”

he exhales a laugh, low and amused. “and then, oh no—here i come. the big bad serpent, right on schedule, ruining the dream.” he shrugs. “been like this for centuries.”

his gaze lands on you again.

“mortals are easy like that. so eager to be chosen. so easy to influence.”

you tremble beneath his gaze, the truth sinking in like cold water. you were never chosen—not in the way you thought. not for your worth. not for your faith. you were claimed, used. a vessel shaped by their power, not your own.

satoru’s fists clenched at his sides, light blooming in his palms like something divine and barely contained. your breath caught as you stood between them, caught in the rift of what they were, what you had become, and what the world would soon be. your hands trembled at your sides, useless, shaking.

apophis only looked at you, his expression calm, a little smug, but not entirely unkind. his voice was low when he finally spoke again, softer than before, smooth as polished obsidian.

“she was never yours,” he said, turning his gaze to ra. “you just got to her first.”

ra lunged, and light cracked the sky in half.

but apophis caught it in one hand, twisted it like it was nothing, and snapped it clean. his tattoos flared across his body like firelit scars. his form shifted and pulsed, serpent scales flickering along his skin like armor, his mouth curling as he stared down the sun god.

“you’d kill her too, wouldn’t you?” he murmured lazily. “you always knew she’d break. you just prayed it would be for you.”

ra roared, and the desert floor turned to molten glass. temples crumbled. the air stank of smoke and gods and the end of all things. apophis only laughed.

and you—you stood there. a girl emptied of purpose. a body with no god left to follow. a mouth that once carried prophecy, now shaped only silence. there was blood on your hands—your blood, their blood, the blood of a world slipping into ruin, and you didn’t know who you were anymore.

the battle that followed shook the desert down to its bones. light and shadow collided until neither resembled what it once was. ra’s fire fell from the sky like dying stars, brilliant and blinding, but apophis swallowed each burst whole, reshaping them into tendrils of darkness and teeth and rage. the temple collapsed behind you in slabs of stone and smoke. priests screamed. handmaidens wept. the river boiled. the sky cracked.

and still, you didn’t run.

you stood in the center of it all, watching as the god who had once kissed your forehead and tucked figs into your hands flickered and dimmed before your eyes. ra stumbled to one knee. his light faltered. his radiance, once eternal, faded into something thin, something small.

he looked at you, one last time, only sorrow in his gaze.

“why?” he asked, barely more than a breath.

and maybe, if you’d answered, if your voice hadn’t caught in your throat, if your heart hadn’t clenched so tightly in your chest—you would have said i was afraid. or i was tired. or maybe nothing at all.

but you didn’t get the chance. because that’s when apophis struck.

his shadow rose like a storm, towering, coiled, divine, and came down with all the weight of centuries behind it. it hit the earth with a soundless crack, and just like that—

the sun went out for good. not dimmed, not hidden, but gone completely.

light vanished from the sky, and heat drained from the air. the wind stilled. the rivers slowed. the temple collapsed behind you in a cloud of dust and grief. and when the silence settled, it stayed.

no flame could spark. no prayer could rise. no god could answer. and that was the end of it—or so they said.

because afterward, your story fractured. what little was left of it was passed from mouth to mouth, scroll to scroll. a hundred different versions told by people who had never seen you, who would never know the sound of your voice or the cut of your pain.

some called you a traitor. some called you the last oracle. others just called you the girl who let the dark in.

they said the serpent wore your blood like a crown. that your final breath was an offering, not a death. that you smiled when the sun died—whether out of love, madness, or relief, no one could agree, but what many said was that the world staggered in darkness for weeks, months, maybe longer. some said crops withered overnight. others claimed they saw fire fall from the heavens. no two stories agreed.

but this part remained the same:

the sun died, and the serpent won.

at least, for a time. because gods don’t die like mortals do. they fracture. they flicker. they fade—but only for a while. and when the world forgot how bright it once was, when its people no longer whispered ra’s name with hope but with desperation—he returned. as he always does.

and so did apophis, as he always does.

this was never about love. never about you. you were a vessel, a thread pulled tight across centuries, strung between gods older than war itself. your blood bought them a moment. a single turn of the cycle.

but it keeps turning.

temples were rebuilt. dynasties rose. crops grew again, eventually. but some say the sky was never quite as blue. the warmth never lasted. every eclipse sent people into fits of panic. every generation told the same tale again—

of ra, the sun god who gave too much of himself to mortal love.

of apophis, the serpent who devoured light not out of hunger, but out of vengeance.

ra rises. apophis swallows him. and somewhere in between, mortals worship, betray, die, and are forgotten.

they’ll forget you too.

not today. not tomorrow. but eventually. because you were human, and they are not.

but when the eclipse returns, and the stars vanish from the sky again, and the wind tastes like ash—they’ll remember the shape of this story.

the sun god, the serpent, and the girl who chose one over the other and learned too late that gods don’t love the way humans do. they only need. they only want.

they only endure.

#fic recs #jujutsu fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu smut #jujutsu kaisen angst #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk fluff #jjk smut #jjk angst #jjk anime #jujutsu kaisen

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gojosperms · 4 days ago

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a thousand ships | satoru gojo

pairing: satoru gojo x reader

summary: gojo steals another man's wife and will move heaven and earth to ensure that he gets to keep her.

greek myth au. retelling of the story between paris and helen of troy.

word count: 1.2k

content: 18+ mdni, little bit of smut, star-crossed lovers, angst, war, character death, sad ending (sorry!)

authors note: just a little something I had sitting in my drafts that I figured I'd share while I work on chapter 4 of to distant lands

Gojo had always been a man who was used to getting what he wanted.

That’s how he ended up in this situation in the first place.

Because what he had wanted was you. The lovely princess of Sparta, married to that despicable oaf of a King, Naobito.

He’d known from the first moment that he’d laid eyes on you that you were going to be his, for your beauty was truly other-worldly. It was as though the gods themselves had crafted you carefully with their own hands.

You had a smile as dazzling as diamonds, a laugh that could compete with a siren’s song and, as it would turn out, a face that could launch a thousand ships.

He should’ve stayed far away from you - he had been well-warned of that by his father before he’d been sent for his visit in Sparta. Naobito was known to be possessive of his wife, after all, you had been fought over by many Kings, with the entirety of Greece desperate to have your hand in marriage.

But Gojo liked a challenge. And when you’d smiled at him so seductively from across the banquet hall, he knew that Naobito wasn’t going to stand in the way of what he wanted.

He snuck into your room late at night, climbing in through the balcony. You hadn’t been surprised to see him, you’d be sending him signals all night, daring him to make his way to your side.

You’d taken him into your bed, let him fuck you into the plush pillows and silk sheets, his lips pressed against yours, swallowing your moans to ensure that no one would suspect anything was awry. You’d looked up at him with sparkling eyes as he made you cum on his cock, praising him, telling him how much better he made you feel than your horrible husband.

The little affair between the two of you continued for the rest of his visit. By day, the two of you would pretend not to know each other, Gojo only ever addressing your husband, only ever chancing the odd sultry glance your way when he was sure no one was looking. By night he would find himself in your chambers, making you feel pleasure that no one had ever granted before, whispering sweet nothings in your ear, holding you in his arms until you fell asleep - just like lovers would.

And as his time in Naobito’s home came to an end, he stole away with you in the night. Pulling you onto his ship and setting sail back to Troy. Naobito couldn’t appreciate you, couldn’t understand the value of what he had like Gojo could. He didn’t care if it made him a thief, you needed to be his.

Troy was far from the shores of Naobito’s Kingdom, you and him could rest easy here, behind the towering stone walls, completely safe in Gojo’s father’s castle. Even if his father was furious with his son’s actions, fearful that your presence would bring Troy to its knees in the end.

Gojo could’ve never anticipated the worth that you held with the Greeks, how fiercely offended they would be by his transgression. By your transgression. It was a woman’s sole purpose to be loyal to her husband, and you had betrayed him by taking Gojo’s hand. You were Naobito’s property of the most priceless variety, and you would be returned to him.

So Troy prepared for war as the Greeks landed on Trojan shores, a whole fleet of one thousand ships raised just for you. How could anyone ever wonder why Gojo would have the audacity to claim you as his? Your beauty was a thing of legend, desired by all men, and he would give you up only over his own dead body.

The people of Troy loved their Prince, and by extension they loved you. Rallying themselves in war day after day, heading out beyond the walls to clash with the Greeks. Those that couldn’t fight made sure that they protected you by staying strong during the siege, not complaining even when the food and water supplies got short and the stench of death and plague across the city grew unbearable.

But with each passing day the situation grew more dire, with losses on each side growing exponentially. You’d cling to Gojo, beg and bargain with him to send you back, claiming that you weren’t worth all of this death and suffering. Your kind heart made him more resolute than ever that you would remain by his side until the bitter end, you weren’t built to be punished, you were made to be worshipped. He would never hand you back over to Naobito willingly.

Each night he made gentle love to you, brushing away your tears and planting soft kisses on your face. He’d drag everyone through hell if it meant that he could keep you here beneath him every evening, holding you to his chest as you slept, as though the Greeks would come to steal you away in the night.

The war raged on for years, and he became certain that he’d be able to keep you in Troy permanently. The Greeks were cracking. Plague had struck their camps, and there were several reports of infighting amongst their leaders. The tide truly turned when Gojo struck down their strongest warrior - a well aimed arrow to the man’s heel successfully putting an end to the onslaught of death and destruction that he had rained down upon the Trojan army.

The Greeks had nothing left in their arsenal.

And just like Gojo had expected, they fled with their tails between their legs - their fleets setting sail and leaving Troy’s harbors clear once more. The only trace of their existence was the wooden horse that they had left at the city gates. A peace offering, they had said, for a war well fought.

His men had wheeled it into the city and there had been endless drinking and revelling - finally an end to the never-ending siege. They were free of the Greeks, and you were still firmly in his possession. He’d taken you that night, fucking you passionately against the wall of his chambers, adrenaline pumping through his veins at the knowledge that you were his. The gods had chosen him.

But Gojo had never accounted for the craftiness of the Greeks. For as the city slept, as you slept so peacefully in his arms, a battalion of men snuck out of the wooden horse, setting the city alight, killing and pillaging as they went.

Gojo was ready for them as they reached the castle, barricading you safely in your room, ordering you not to come out. No matter what, he would not let them have you.

But there were too many for him to handle. The war had left everyone exhausted, and the night of drinking had made them sloppy compared to the well-prepared Greeks. The forces cut their way through the castle and put an end to every Trojan they saw. Despite all his strength, Gojo didn’t stand a chance.

He watched from the floor, blood pooling beneath his body as they dragged you from your room, pushing you firmly into the arms of your disgruntled husband, who didn’t seem at all happy to finally have his trophy back.

You weren’t really worth several years of war to Naobito. For him it was a matter of principle, of ownership.

But to Gojo it was a matter of love. Even if you had been his undoing, you had been worth every single moment.

At least you were his for a little while.

a/n: hope you enjoyed! if you're a fan of greek myth fics I have a pretty long sukuna one here.

#fic recs #gojo x reader #gojo satoru #jjk gojo #jjk fanfic #satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo #gojo smut #gojo x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you

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gojosperms · 6 days ago

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SUMMARY A coastal town where the sea never forgets, and the tide sings for what was once sacrificed. WORD COUNT 16,814 PAIRING Rafayel x F!Reader | 18 + Only AO3 trigger warnings; there is depiction of body horror, descriptive fear, and a gothic horror feel.

For weeks before her departure, the sea begins bleeding into everything she dreams. Sometimes it laps gently at her ankles while she walks alone through foggy marshes; other times it claws skyward in enormous, hungry waves that never crest. She finds herself speaking languages she doesn’t know, mouthing syllables that taste like blood and pearl dust.

Through it all, one voice persists—low, lilting, and threaded with a coaxing amusement that unsettles more than comforts.

Even in dreams unmoored from water—dust-choked highways, elevators plummeting through mirrored shafts, hotel rooms painted with endless doors—he remains. A breath at her ear, a murmur from behind glass, never rising above a whisper but impossible to ignore.

‘Little driftwood,’ he says, like it’s her name, his affection buried in something older than sentiment. Each time she jolts awake, her throat aches as though she’s been speaking in her sleep.

Nights lose their shape. She either sinks into hours of black, dreamless weight or floats just beneath waking, caught in a suspended kind of awareness where every creak in the floor sounds like a wave breaking. Her bed begins to smell faintly of algae, her pillowcases tinted gray near the seams. Sometimes she finds crusts of salt at the corners of her eyes, tongue sharp with brine, though she hasn’t left her apartment in days.

The final dream comes heavy, too vivid to ignore. She’s underwater without drowning, suspended before a figure who shouldn’t be able to exist—long dark hair moving like strands of ink, tangled with coral-colored chains that pulse faintly with light. His body remains indistinct, almost too bright to look at directly, but his eyes hold a clarity that breaks something inside her.

They are not human, not even close, and they’re looking only at her.

She wakes before dawn, mouth dry, heart beating to a pattern she doesn’t understand. She watches it pulse at the hollow of her throat, checks her watch, and then pulls out her travel packet to confirm what she already knows. The rhythm matches the local tide table precisely. Outside, traffic moves like nothing’s changed, but she senses it—something has already reached out. Something wants her close.

Bayrun reveals itself in pieces, hunched low beneath a constant shroud of fog, the kind that hangs like soaked linen between rooftops. Nothing about the place moves quickly; window shutters sway loose on hinges, paint peels in slow curls from doorframes, and salt-warped signs hang crooked on rusted brackets. Streets narrow into alleys without warning, paved in uneven stones that glisten perpetually damp. A single diner squats beside a weather-beaten chapel, both places looking closed no matter the hour.

Locals are seen more often than heard. Faces pass behind smeared windows or vanish around corners just before she can make eye contact. No one waves. Even children, when glimpsed, speak in hushed voices and glance over their shoulders as if someone, or something, is always listening. It’s a town built for secrecy, or maybe one long practiced in it.

Her driver, Evan, doesn’t talk much once they pass the town’s faded welcome sign—just nods at landmarks she wouldn’t otherwise recognize. He smells faintly of kelp and engine grease, his nails stained from working the docks. When he speaks, it’s without looking at her, as though saying the words aloud too clearly might give them power.

“That house you’re staying in?” he mutters. “Wind always sounds like whispering in there…”

Later, after an uneasy stretch of road where the forest presses close on both sides, he adds, “Tide’s been off lately. Pulls wrong. Be careful near the shore after dusk.” The way he says “pulls” makes her stomach tighten, like it’s a living thing and not a part of nature’s design.

As they crest the ridge that overlooks the coastline, technology begins to fail in quiet stages. Bars of cell signals vanish, one by one. The truck’s radio dissolves into a whine of static, persistent even after he turns the volume down. Her phone vibrates once in her pocket, not from a message but a glitch—its compass spinning in tight circles before freezing north toward the sea.

Down below, the house slumps against the curve of a dying bluff. It stands alone, closer to the waterline than reason allows, separated from town by a thread of cracked asphalt and a mangled stretch of dune grass. The pier beside it stretches half-collapsed into the waves, ribs of it jutting from the water like something skeletal and dead. Weathered timbers lean sideways, windows clouded over by salt and time.

Evan stops the car and says nothing. After a long pause, he lifts her bags from the trunk, sets them down without meeting her eyes, and drives off.

Gravel crunches under her boots as she steps away from where Evan left her. His taillights vanish into the fog without a word of farewell. Salt air thickens with each step she takes toward the slouching house. Its outline sharpens the closer she gets—tilted walls, swollen shingles, the suggestion of once-white trim now blistered to gray.

A cracked walkway leads to a porch that groans beneath her weight. Boards shift underfoot, warped with moisture and age, nails sunken deep into soft wood. No sound comes from within, but the front door yields with a reluctant creak when she touches it. Hinges drag, and for a moment it feels like something resists from the other side.

Inside smells of mold first, then something sharper beneath—sweet and metallic, like copper steeped in seawater. The air clings, heavy, already settling in her hair and in her clothes. Dust motes drift in the watery light filtering through salt-blurred windows. Furniture sits where it was likely abandoned, shaped by years of quiet neglect.

She moves through the first room slowly. Floorboards cry out under her weight, but once she pauses, they keep creaking on their own, like the house is stretching after a long sleep. A fireplace stands bricked over, cold and forgotten, its mantle thick with grit. Shadows gather in the corners too quickly and retreat too slowly.

Upstairs, her bedroom faces the sea. The window doesn’t latch properly. She tests it twice and finds it opens without effort even when the night outside is still. Damp has sunk into the walls here, every surface feeling just shy of wet. Her skin prickles when she steps near the window frame, as though crossing into a threshold she hadn’t known was marked.

In the hallway, a narrow mirror hangs crooked beside the bannister. At first glance it seems unremarkable, but something’s wrong with the glass—her reflection shivers slightly at the edges. At dusk, it shifts more dramatically. Her neck elongates, her pupils darken. Her hair seems to sway even though the air stands dead still.

Over each window, tucked into the woodwork, rests a carved symbol. Circular and crude, gouged deep into the frames, just above where the sun could reach if it tried. She touches one absentmindedly. Her breath catches before she can stop it, a pressure blooming in her chest that fades only when she steps away.

Water doesn’t behave right in the house. Faucets release a hiss before any stream appears, and the liquid runs brown for the first few seconds, then clears to something clear but not clean. She leans close to the bathroom sink, ear near the basin. From somewhere deep in the plumbing comes a sound—low and melodic, almost human, almost sung.

Boxes sit half-emptied along the walls, their contents scattered across dusty furniture in attempts to make the house feel less hollow. Curtains are drawn open to let in the gray light, though it does little to chase away the damp that clings to everything. Her suitcase lies open near the foot of the bed, clothes unpacked into warped drawers that close unevenly. The place feels quieter now, as if it’s watching.

She steps out onto the porch with her phone, searching for signal where the air feels thinner, cooler. Two bars flicker into existence, wavering, then steady. Fog drapes low across the bluff, swallowing the pier in segments. Seagulls circle without calling.

When the call connects, there’s a pause, a delay—then Tara’s voice filters through, too bright, slightly distorted.

“Holy shit, you made it! What’s it like?”

She leans against the railing, watching the horizon. “Wet. Foggy. You’d hate it.”

Tara laughs. “Sounds like your kind of place.” A pause follows. “How’s the house?”

There’s no easy answer for that. She glances back through the doorway, where shadows nest along the crown molding. “Old. Noisy. The window in my room opens by itself.”

“That’s... comforting.”

She doesn’t mention the symbols yet. Or the mirror. Or the way the pipes hum as if listening. “It’s fine. I’ll settle in.” Her voice doesn't sound convincing, even to herself.

“You okay?” Tara’s voice shifts, softens. “You sound weird. Not like… bad weird. Just…”

“Just tired,” she says quickly. “Jet lag. New place. You know.”

Static rustles at the edge of the call. For a moment it sounds like someone else is breathing into the line, just beyond the signal. Tara doesn’t seem to hear it.

“Text me tomorrow,” her friend says. “Don’t go full recluse on me. Promise?”

“I promise.” She doesn’t hang up right away. Keeps the phone against her ear long after the line goes dead, waiting to hear if anything else wants to speak.

–

The fog lifts slightly the next morning, enough to see the town more clearly from the bluff. Paths of salt-scarred pavement wind through grasses flattened by constant sea wind. She pulls her coat tighter before stepping off the porch, the house behind her creaking once, almost like a groan of protest. Gravel shifts beneath her boots as she makes her way down the hill.

Bayrun doesn’t look bigger up close. If anything, it seems to shrink around itself—narrow alleys squeezed between leaning buildings, signage faded to near-invisibility. No traffic passes her on the road, just the slow wheeze of wind through power lines. A handful of locals linger near storefronts that don’t appear open but aren’t closed either. Faces lift to glance at her, then quickly look away.

She stops at a small general store near the church. A bell overhead rings flatly when she steps inside. Shelves sag with canned goods and brittle plastic packaging, everything covered in a fine, sticky dust. Behind the counter, a woman with sharp eyes and a sallow expression watches without speaking.

“Morning,” she offers.

The woman nods but says nothing in return.

“I’m staying up near the old pier. Came in for a few things—tea, maybe batteries?” Her voice sounds too loud in the cramped space.

“Tea’s down that aisle,” the woman says finally. “Batteries too, if any’re left.” Her accent is coastal but drawn out, as though words drag through water before reaching her lips.

Aisles are tight and uneven. Some items look untouched for years, others recently shifted, like someone had just passed through. She finds tea, not her brand, but something floral in a tin with rust at the seams. Batteries lie loose in a cardboard box, none matching. She takes what looks usable and returns to the counter.

The woman doesn’t ask for ID or introduce herself. As she rings up the purchase, her gaze lingers. “Storm season’s early this year. You should be careful out there near the cliffs.”

“I heard the tides are strange.”

“Strange doesn’t cover it,” the woman mutters. “Things go missing when they shouldn’t. Found a whole fishing skiff washed up with the engine still running. No one aboard.”

She hesitates, the tin of tea cold in her hand. “Does that happen often?”

“Not before. Now…” The woman presses her lips together, the rest left unsaid.

She takes her things and leaves. Outside, fog curls tighter again, choking out sunlight. Someone stands across the street for a moment, barely more than a shadow, then slips out of sight behind a building. She doesn’t follow.

Instead, she walks slowly back toward the bluff. Bayrun’s quiet is not the silence of abandonment—it’s the silence of breath held, something waiting beneath the rhythm of waves.

She returns to town twice more in the days that follow, always under a fog that never burns off entirely, no matter how high the sun climbs. It takes her only a few hours to learn the shape of Bayrun—four intersecting streets, each one narrowing as it nears the water. Most buildings are wood-faced and drooping, their paint cracked like old skin, their signs hung at odd angles as if the town itself is trying to shrug them off. No traffic lights, no chain stores, just shuttered windowpanes and the persistent sound of gulls circling without ever landing.

People here do not act afraid of her, but neither do they meet her fully. They offer smiles that reach the corners of their mouths but never touch their eyes. Every conversation is brief, every gesture efficient. When she speaks, they listen; when she asks, their gazes slide away like oil on water. It’s not rude. It’s caution.

She starts asking gentle questions—small ones at first. About tide shifts, sonar disruptions, strange sonar echoes in her equipment logs. A lobsterman named Clay nods once, then shrugs, cleaning his knife with the hem of his shirt. “Equipment don’t work here long,” he says. “Shorts out. Freezes. Gets… confused.”

At a bait shop, another man leans against a freezer of chum and squints at her printouts. “Things live under the shelf that shouldn’t,” he mutters. “Don’t go trawling deeper than you need to.”

She presses further, asks if they’ve noticed a pattern to the tides—something to explain the anomalies in her data. An older man standing nearby scoffs without turning around. “It’s best not to ask the sea to explain herself,” he says. “She doesn’t like it.”

No one laughs, not even as a courtesy. No one seems to think any of it is a metaphor.

At the grocer, the air inside feels colder than outside, despite the lack of refrigeration. She picks up lemons, their skin thin and spotted, and reaches for tea she doesn’t intend to buy. The woman at the register watches her too long, hands resting still on the countertop. Pale skin, wrists threaded with old burn scars or salt rashes—it’s hard to tell.

As she approaches to pay, the woman tilts her head slightly, looking through her more than at her.

“One of his,” the woman mutters, voice just above breath. “Poor thing.”

She blinks. “I’m sorry?”

The woman doesn’t repeat herself. Eyes lower to the register. Mouth tightens. Change is counted precisely, handed over with averted gaze. Nothing further said.

She leaves without pushing. On her way out, a boy playing with a length of kelp near the curb pauses to watch her. His lips are blue though it isn’t cold, his fingernails dark around the cuticles. He says nothing, only taps once on the side of his head, like listening underwater. Then he turns away.

The tide recedes further than usual on the third morning, drawing a jagged line of foam-slick rocks down the shoreline. She walks the beach with a notebook tucked under her arm, but doesn't open it. Her eyes are caught by the clusters of children gathering at the water's edge—quiet, barefoot, faces smudged with sand and sea spray. They speak in low tones, not laughter, not play.

They squat near the tidepools, dragging sticks and broken shells across the damp sand. What they draw stops her cold. Human figures, or close to it—hair flowing in long tendrils down their backs, arms ending in wide-spread fingers webbed like amphibians. The eyes are always oversized, black, round like voids. Shackles encircle the wrists and ankles in each drawing, always. No adult calls them back or stops them.

She watches a girl sketch an elongated figure whose mouth opens in a jagged spiral. The child steps back to admire it, then begins another beside it, as though the process isn’t a game but a duty. When she approaches, the children scatter—not in fear, more like instinct. One girl looks back once, her expression unreadable. The stick falls from her hand and remains behind.

Back at the house, wind pushes against the siding in slow, rhythmic pulses. The pier groans, its ruined slats clattering against one another as the tide begins to climb again. She steps onto the porch, arms full of supplies from town, and pauses. Something glistens darkly at her feet.

A fish, gutted neatly down the belly, lies on the threshold. Not just left there—it’s been pierced clean through with a length of pale driftwood. The stick has been sharpened crudely on one end, driven through the fish’s body and into the porch itself, pinning it like an offering. Scales shimmer dully in the low light. Blood has soaked into the grain of the boards.

No note, no sign of who left it. The air feels colder here, though the wind has died. She looks up sharply, but no one is in sight. Not on the beach. Not among the dunes. Only gulls turning slowly overhead, silent. A line of seaweed has been arranged across the far edge of the porch in a twisting spiral—too deliberate to be accidental.

The equipment begins to fail in slow, inexplicable stages. First, her hydrophone records nothing but long stretches of silence punctuated by sharp bursts of static—irregular, almost pulsed. Then her temperature sensors report readings that fluctuate wildly within the same minute. She reruns the diagnostics, replaces cables, double-checks power sources. Everything appears normal until it isn't.

One night, while reviewing her audio logs, she hears it layered beneath the static: not distortion, not feedback, but a voice. Male. Familiar in a way that makes her hands shake before she even understands why. It doesn’t say her name—never does—but it speaks with a tone that feels intimate, woven through with a knowing that burns at the edge of her memory.

You found me. You forgot why.

The voice comes again in different recordings, never where she expects it. Sometimes it’s hidden behind crashing surf in a file she doesn’t remember making. Other times it rides the background hiss of her malfunctioning monitor, quiet until she leans in, then rising as though responding to her proximity. Her name is absent, yet she feels called.

The sea never forgets her offerings.

Words coil through her mind when she tries to sleep, slithering between thoughts like ribbons of kelp in dark water. She doesn’t dream anymore—not the way she used to. Now she lies awake in half-sleep, listening to whispers echo off the corners of her skull. They don’t speak with urgency, only certainty.

He never says who he is, but it's like she knows anyway, yet the details escape her. The voice doesn’t beg. It doesn’t lure. It waits. Certain she’ll come. Certain she already has.

–

Time begins to shift, subtly at first. She notices it while reviewing her logs—files mislabeled, audio timecodes she doesn’t remember recording, entire segments clipped as though someone had already edited them. Her watch runs a few minutes fast, then slow, then fast again. She blames fatigue. The salt air. The isolation. Excuses come easy until they stop making sense.

Ten minutes disappear one morning between boiling water for tea and pouring it. The kettle screams on the stove, half-empty, though she doesn’t recall lifting it. Her notebook sits open to a page she hadn’t written yet, scrawled with half-legible symbols in a hand that could be hers, but rushed, crooked, salt-stained.

Thirty minutes are lost another day while walking the shoreline. She steps from one dune to the next, and the light shifts too far for the time she thinks has passed. Her legs ache as though she’s walked farther. Seaweed clings to her ankles. Her recorder blinks red when she pulls it from her bag, already capturing something low and wet and rhythmic she doesn’t remember hearing.

The worst is the night she wakes on the floor. Cold wood against her cheek. Her head throbs like she’s fallen, though there’s no bruise. Around her, silence hums too loud. She lifts herself slowly, only to find damp patches on the floorboards trailing away from the foot of her bed—footprints, bare, too long between steps to be hers. Water seeps into the edges of the rug like it had been dripping from a body.

She follows the prints to the hallway, but they vanish at the top of the stairs. No open windows. No puddles in the entry. Just the house, breathing. Watching. Waiting.

She finds the journal by accident, hunting for matches in a rust-flecked drawer behind the stove. Her fingers brush paper, not cardboard—a soft crackle, the unmistakable weight of old binding wrapped in damp linen. Mold blooms along the spine, and the first few pages have fused together from time and moisture. Her hands hesitate only briefly before opening it.

Ink has faded in places, smudged by salt or touch, but the handwriting is tight and looped, unmistakably feminine. The dates span nearly eighty years ago. The entries begin plainly: garden notes, complaints about damp rot in the walls, descriptions of morning fog. No name is given, just pronouns, references to family long dead. The voice is patient at first, observant, solitary. Then it changes.

Midway through, the entries sharpen. Language grows clipped, phrasing more intimate and agitated. Margins fill with sketches—spirals, waves, what might be eyes. She flips ahead, breath catching as she sees whole pages of repeated lines, written hastily, obsessively:

He dreams through me.

I saw him in the pool, bound and waiting.

I heard my mother call to him before she drowned.

The ink darkens here, pressed harder into the paper, as though written in a frenzy. Some words appear over and over, buried between sentences—below, mouth, teeth, song. One page is heavily creased and nearly torn in the middle, a scrawl barely legible through the overlap:

He is the tide when it’s wrong.

His hunger made it beautiful.

Toward the back, her thumb pauses on a page that feels different—half the sheet nearly torn from the binding, the ink slanted with urgency. The words The Bound One appear near the top, followed by a frantic attempt to cross them out with diagonal slashes. Underneath is a map, hand-drawn in rough pencil. She recognizes the coastline—Bayrun’s crooked harbor, the pier, the bluffs. One area near the cliffs has been circled twice, hard enough to tear through.

Beneath the map, a word is repeated over and over, sometimes alone, sometimes embedded in half-formed sentences: Bride.

Bride. Bride. Bride of the deep. Bride to the voice. Bride, again, again.

She stares at it until the words start to waver. Something shuffles in the walls behind her. Not rats. Not wind. A sound like someone exhaling slowly against the back of her neck. When she turns, the kitchen is still. The drawer hangs open like a mouth.

She didn't sleep that night. The journal lies open across her lap, its damp pages breathing in the candlelight. Wind presses gently against the windowpanes, steady and rhythmic like someone whispering just outside. Her eyes return to the map again and again, tracing the coastline, following the etched lines toward the circled inlet beyond the cliffs—an area not shown on any modern chart she’d studied for her research.

At dawn, the light turns white and watery. Mist crowds the bluff as if reluctant to lift. She dresses with mechanical slowness, wraps the journal in an oilcloth, and tucks it beneath her coat. Boots sink into the soft soil as she makes her way inland, then north toward the cliffs. The usual sound of gulls is absent. Even the sea seems to hush in anticipation.

No trails lead to where the map directs her. Grass gives way to stone, jagged and uneven, slick from the ocean’s breath. Her compass turns once, then stops. She puts it away. Past a bend in the cliffs, she sees the narrow path—hardly more than a fracture in the earth, descending toward a hidden pool carved into the coastline. Water rests inside, unnaturally still, as though waiting for permission to move.

The shape of it matches the drawing exactly. Ringed by black rock, barnacle-crusted and sharp, the pool pulses with a current she can’t see but feels. Her breath shortens. This place isn't on any map she’s ever studied. No townsperson has mentioned it. She kneels at the edge, touching one gloved finger to the surface. The water is warm.

Something moves beneath. Not a fish, not a current—something larger, coiled, deeper. The pressure that rises in her skull is immediate. Not pain. Not yet. A presence. Wordless at first, then forming slowly into shape.

You’re close now.

She stands abruptly, retreating several steps, heart hammering in time with a distant rhythm she doesn’t understand. The pool ripples. No wind touches it. Seafoam gathers around the rocks in symmetrical curves, spiraling inward.

On the cliff above, a shape watches—tall, too tall for any person, unmoving. She blinks, and it’s gone.

Back at the house, the journal feels heavier in her hands. Her fingertips sting where they touched the water. She peels off her glove and finds the faint outline of a spiral curling in her palm, raised slightly as if burned into the skin.

Later, when she tries to call Tara again, the line rings once before dying. Her phone won’t restart. In the silence that follows, her equipment begins recording on its own. Not static this time. Not white noise.

A low voice, just above a whisper:

You are already becoming.

Bride.

Sleep no longer feels like sleep. She lays down sometime after midnight, closes her eyes, and the next thing she knows, sea air is filling her lungs again. Damp grit clings to her soles, her nightclothes stained with salt and black sand. She always wakes just before sunrise, standing motionless at the edge of the tidepools, toes nearly brushing the water. The pool’s surface lies glass-still, unnaturally reflective, its depths dark even in morning light.

Her body bears the evidence—hair tangled with seaweed, skin cool and damp, calves streaked with streaks of bruising that match the shape of sea rock. There are scrapes she doesn’t remember earning. Once she finds barnacles caught beneath her fingernails. Her sheets are never in place when she wakes, her pillows on the floor, sand in the corners of the room where none should reach.

The path she takes varies, though her final destination does not. Sometimes she wakes facing the pool, sometimes with her back to it, as if she’s just finished whispering to the water. She tries locking her bedroom door, even moving furniture against it, but each time she wakes outside again, further down the slope, closer to the tide. Whatever takes her down there moves her without force. Her legs obey. Her will floats somewhere far behind.

She asks a fisherman about the pools once, a man who’s spoken to her before. He tightens his mouth and pretends not to hear. When she presses, he mutters, “People don’t go down there anymore. It’s not ours.” His eyes fix on her palm where the spiral still lingers, now faintly bruised with deepening color. He turns away quickly.

She questions others, with less subtlety. Two women outside the chapel ignore her completely, even as she speaks directly to them. A man sweeping outside the post office pauses, leans on his broom, and says, “You don’t belong in that part of the shore.” When she asks why, his answer is simple: “We remember.”

No one mentions what they remember. No one meets her eyes when she returns to town.

That night, she binds her ankles with a scarf and sets her phone to record. The footage cuts off at 3:17 a.m.—just before dawn. When she reviews it later, the final frame shows her standing beside the bed, eyes open, mouth moving silently. Her hands hang at her sides, fingers slightly curled, as though holding something invisible. Her expression is serene.

The next morning, she wakes as usual on the rocks. Her scarf lies knotted neatly beside her, bone-dry. A small fish skeleton rests near her feet, its bones arranged in a spiral. She knows without a doubt that she placed it.

The dream returns with a weight that feels heavier than sleep should allow. She is underwater, but not drowning—never drowning. Rafayel is there, his body luminous beneath the surface, hair spreading around him like dark smoke. He reaches for her gently, his fingers cool but steady as they cradle her face. Their foreheads touch, and though the water distorts all sound, she hears his voice clearly, not in her ears but inside her skull.

You remember now, he breathes, even though her lips haven’t moved.

You always come back to me.

Chains cross his chest, slick with algae and barnacle scabs, pulsing slightly where they meet the hollows of his collarbones. They don’t restrain so much as mark him, ceremonial, sacred, a reminder. His eyes are wide and black, not empty but full—of pressure, of old want, of the weight of the deep. His breath does not stir the water, yet she feels it ghost across her cheek.

She wakes with her hands clenched in the sheets, mouth dry with the taste of brine. Dampness presses into her skin—not sweat, not entirely. Seaweed lies tangled around her thighs, half-twisted into the sheets, slick with saltwater. It smells fresh, as if pulled moments ago from the low tide rocks, still alive enough to curl faintly at the edges.

Heart thudding, she stumbles to the bathroom, flips on the mirror light, and stares hard into her reflection.

It holds for a moment. Just long enough for her to feel foolish.

A split-second—her body remains still, but not alone. Rafayel stands behind her, towering, his presence undeniable even in the narrow glass. Hands rest on her shoulders, long fingers splayed, thumbs just below her collarbones. His expression is not cruel, not mocking. He smiles, soft and possessive, like someone who has waited a very long time and can finally see the shoreline again.

She spins around. Nothing. The mirror steadies, showing only her. She reaches up, slowly, touches the place where his hands had rested. It burns faintly beneath her skin, not pain—more like memory.

Night falls in heavy layers, the house thick with shadows that feel neither still nor benign. Every window reflects too much darkness, the glass catching shapes she can’t quite see—tall, pale lines at the edge of her vision, vanishing when she turns her head. She moves through the house slowly, barefoot, the floorboards cool and restless beneath her steps. Wind presses against the frame in soft pulses, not gusts but breathing, measured and coaxing.

Her name drifts into the hallway, spoken low and drawn out—once, then again. No question in it, just the sound of it tasting itself in the air. She pauses near the stairs, her hand braced on the warped banister, listening. The voice is hers. Every syllable mimics her exact pitch, her inflection, yet she knows it isn’t truly her speaking.

When she responds—just a whisper, no louder than a thought—the voice deepens. It pours through her bones like warmed saltwater, slippery and thick.

Say it, it murmurs, now fully him, no longer pretending.

Say my name.

Her throat constricts. The air feels charged, breathless. No resistance rises. The name has lived beneath her tongue for days, curling, blooming, pressing upward.

“Rafayel,” she breathes.

The house reacts.

Glass rattles in every windowpane. Walls groan. The tide outside crashes with impossible force, sending spray high enough to slap the porch. Pipes below the floor thrum low, like a throat clearing. Somewhere upstairs, the warped mirror shivers in its frame.

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t question. A smile rises slowly across her lips, unbidden. It doesn’t feel like hers entirely, but it fits her mouth perfectly.

Rafayel’s voice wraps around her from within, a purr of satisfaction curled in the back of her skull:

Good girl.

Something in her, something that was always waiting, exhales in answer.

The research begins like ritual. She wakes early, hours before the fog thins, moving through the warped hallway with quiet precision—boots laced, coat zipped, notebook tucked under her arm, recorder blinking red as it rides in her pocket. The air in the house never warms, never dries, but her breath is steady now, practiced. She sets out toward the shore with a kind of reverence, as though the cliffside path is hallowed ground.

Beneath her, the trench waits.

The data refuses to behave.

Depth sensors throw inconsistent returns—one cast reads two hundred meters, the next almost double, then less than half. It's as if the seabed reshapes itself when unobserved. She begins tracking it manually, making careful notations in waterproof ink. Sometimes she sits on the rocks for hours, just watching the pool, waiting for that moment the surface changes—when light bends too sharply, or the reflection disappears entirely for a breath. The equipment fails most when the pool is still.

The hydrophone pulses irregular static again. When she replays it later, there's a low harmonic in the background, a resonance too structured to be noise. It sounds less like distortion and more like something sung slowly into a cave, half-mouthed syllables on the cusp of meaning. She plays it backward, filters it, slows it down. The tone sharpens at 3:13 a.m. every night without fail.

The deep-sea thermometer probe dips past what she thought was the bed—then drops farther. A vertical column of heat pulses up through the trench like a breath. She plots it on a graph, sees the peak form a slow rhythm. Heartbeat, maybe. But of what? The ocean doesn’t breathe like this. The readings suggest something alive. Something huge. And moving.

Vials stack beside her bed, samples drawn meticulously, labeled by hand:

Bayrun Coastal Shelf – 04:02 – Dense fog, no wind – 17.6°C – Salinity Normal (Odor: Algae/Blood)Trench Rim, Low Tide – 03:47 – High humidity – 19.4°C – Salinity Elevated – Microbio. activity: ExtremeTidal Pool Center – 02:59 – No wind, mirror surface – 21.8°C – Heavy mineral content – Fluorescence under UV

The last one glows faintly at night. Not just under the lamp, but in the dark—soft blue like bioluminescence, though nothing in the water should emit it. She stores it wrapped in black cloth in the bottom drawer, but it stains the lining of the container with the shape of the tidepool spiral. No matter how tightly she seals the vial, a faint brine smell leaks out.

Her laptop syncs sporadically. Files duplicate without prompt. Timecodes revert to symbols she doesn’t type—looped curves, rough crescents, crude glyphs scratched over her own text. At first she thought it was a system glitch. Now she’s not sure the machine is hers anymore.

She uses analog instruments more often now—barometers, pH strips, a weathered compass that she doesn’t trust but carries anyway. Digital depth readers spike and go blank. The sonar device once returned a full page of blank screen… then a burst of frames so fast they burned out the LED.

She flipped through the printed screenshots later, one by one. In them, something rises. Shadowed, long, sinuous. Not a whale. Not a trench shelf. Something swimming—not past, but up. Her own coordinates are visible in the corner.

Rafayel speaks through the white noise again that night.

You’re measuring the shape of my reach.

She closes her eyes, not in denial—she believes him now, wholly—but because it’s easier to hear when she stops looking. Her ears ring with pressure. Her skin itches beneath her clothes. In the mirror, her pupils widen again. Her blood doesn’t feel cold anymore. The house creaks once—long and low—and the spiral in her palm burns like a whisper trying to get out.

When she logs the next morning’s entry, the pen moves slightly faster than she does. She thinks she wrote “Tide pull 04:31 – stronger than expected,” but the paper reads: Bride tide, 04:31 – responding. Her handwriting, but not her words.

The samples from the trench develop slick film across their surface, though no bacteria cultures explain it. When she leaves one uncapped on the desk for an hour, a ring of black residue stains the wood, spreading outward in delicate whorls like veins. She wipes it clean with bleach. It reappears two days later. Only this time it’s wider. And spiraled.

One night, just before sleep takes her, she places a contact mic against the vial itself and listens.

Thump.

She leaves the recorder running and pulls her knees to her chest on the bed, staring at the shadows creeping up the windowframe. Something low rattles in the pipes again—lower than human, not words, just want.

Another sample from the shelf gives her mild chemical burns along her wrist, like salt rubbed raw into the skin. Yet she doesn’t feel pain. The mark darkens to the same bluish bruise-tone as the spiral on her palm. Her flesh accepts it. Welcomes it. When she wraps it in gauze, she thinks she hears it sigh.

By the end of the second week, she no longer checks tide tables. She feels the shifts—tension winding through her ribs, a throb in the soles of her feet. Her dreams swim closer to the waking world. The data doesn’t frighten her anymore. The anomaly isn’t in the ocean.

It’s in her.

And it’s growing.

—

She only meant to shift the supplies—tea tins, spare batteries, backup reels of wire—but the shelf is unstable, and the warped wood beneath her boots gives at the wrong angle. The whole thing tilts with a shudder, toppling forward in a clatter of metal and broken glass. One jar rolls to a halt against the floorboard with a soft clink, then disappears.

It doesn’t bounce.

She kneels, fingers sweeping through dust and splinters, and finds the edge—slight but deliberate. A section of the floor depressed just enough to flex when weight shifted. Not warped. No damage. A hatch.

Her nails catch the groove, and with a slow tug, the board lifts. It comes up easier than it should. Someone carved this, not by accident but with purpose.

Beneath: a cavity in the joists, dark and dry. She expects mold, dead insects, maybe a nest. Instead, there’s cloth—old linen, sea-stained and brittle with time, bundled tight around a set of objects resting close together.

Three books.

She draws them out one by one, hands trembling not with fear but anticipation. The air around the hidden space is cooler, heavy with the scent of brine and something older—faint iron, damp leather, the brittle perfume of ink and secrets long sealed.

The first is the most mundane. A local almanac, bound in navy-blue cloth now warped and sun-faded. The title is barely legible in flaking gold: Bayrun Weather and Maritime Almanac – 1863. Its pages are thin and delicate, handwritten in looping script, filled with tide charts, eclipse diagrams, lunar phases, but annotated heavily in the margins with notes not found in any scientific ledger. She flips to a marked section and finds:

Fog rolled in too thick to see the shorelight. Birds are absent. Children woke crying—said they saw a man under the waves. Spoke no word, only watched. Sounded the bell twice, but it rang soft as if underwater. Marked the tide as unnatural. Moon still full.

Three sheep were lost. One was found gutted at the waterline. No prints. Clocks off by thirty-eight minutes across the harbor. Marked page again in case he returns. If so, note the shift in salt level and proximity of bride-dreams.

She reads it twice. The phrase bride-dreams sets her jaw tense. The rest sounds like… well. Her life, lately.

The second book is leather-bound, the cover engraved with a faded emblem she can’t identify—something between a sun and a spiral, ringed with toothlike flares. Inside, the handwriting varies. The first entry dates to 1714; the last ends abruptly in 1849. It's a compendium, not a journal—a passed ledger. The voices change from one woman to another, but the experiences rhyme like inherited nightmares.

I felt him before I saw him. My belly went cold. The sea didn't move but my skirt clung wet to my thighs. He walked the beach with no prints left behind. I stayed indoors three nights and still heard the song—inside the stove, in my sister's voice, even in the silence between waves.

When my child drowned, I dreamt of him cradling her in his lap. His arms are not flesh. They are current and hold. She smiled with her mouth closed. I woke up bleeding from the nose and the sea still in my throat.

My mother taught me not to speak his name. My grandmother did the same. It is not a name. It is a net. It binds both ways.

Each woman signs only with initials or not at all. Some pages are blank except for charcoal sketches—spirals carved into tideflats, a woman with gills beneath her breasts, children walking backward into the surf with their mouths sewn shut. Several entries mention the bound one, and once, a phrase repeated five times along the inner margin: He loves his brides, but he does not keep them.

The third book doesn’t have a title. No printing press touched it. It’s thick, hand-bound with thread pulled so tight through the spine that the leather buckles at the edges. Pages of vellum, some dyed with seawater or ink made from things she can't identify. Every line written in the same hand, the same strange, curving script—ornate, fluid, like runes softened by waves.

It’s not any known language. She knows this with the clarity of obsession. No alphabet matches it. No online translator gets close. But her eyes linger too long on one page and something happens. A shiver runs behind her teeth. Her fingers twitch, like she almost moved them to mimic the shape of the letters without deciding to.

She turns the page.

Her lips move.

No sound comes out, but her throat strains, and her tongue folds around syllables that have weight.

Memory or instinct? She doesn't know.

Some pages have diagrams—concentric shapes that make her skull ache when she stares too long. Not maps, not quite. Some show anatomical renderings, but not of human beings. One set of sketches details a long-limbed figure with gill slits beneath its jaw, eye sockets flooded with black, and barbs trailing from the back of the skull like fin-spines. The image disturbs her less than it should. Her first thought is: he’s older in this one.

On the final page, someone—perhaps the writer, perhaps not—pressed a crude print of a hand. Webbing between the fingers. Faint bruising at the wrist. Below it, three symbols: the spiral, a crescent-shaped hook, and the unfamiliar glyph that now sometimes appears on her laptop.

She sets the books aside and opens her recorder. Her voice shakes:

“Recovered three texts from the subfloor cavity beneath the north wall storage shelf. All materials water-damaged, pre-1900 origin, significant non-English script. Note repetition of spiral motif, reference to entity matching behavioral profile observed in trench recordings. Will attempt transcription of unknown script in controlled setting.”

The recorder flickers, static whispering between her breaths.

Then: a low, pleased sound, almost a sigh.

You’re reading me again.

She doesn’t flinch. Not anymore. She closes the third book gently and presses her fingers against its cover.

The leather is warm.

–

The dreams return like a tide slipping back in—unrelenting, certain, and no longer solitary. Rafayel still waits at their center, luminous and still as a pillar sunk into the sea’s blackest trench, his voice curling around her mind in the now-familiar cadence of ownership, of promise, of endless, tidal need.

But now there are others.

The voices of women begin to coil through her sleep like threads of song—high, strange, keening harmonies that feel older than the words they almost form. They move around her in the water, sometimes glimpsed only in flashes: a hand brushing her ankle, hair long as seaweed winding around her waist, eyes too dark, too deep to reflect anything but hunger. They speak in layered voices that echo without air, each syllable pricking along the edges of her ribs.

We were meant to be. But not enough. Not whole. Not her.

He called and we came. But the seals held. He needs one.

We are not bitter. We are not cast off. We serve now. We sing.

In dreams, they circle her, caressing—not possessive, not jealous, but reverent, even tender. They do not touch her like sisters or strangers. They touch her like offerings, parting her hair, brushing salt from her brow, laying bare her chest like a priestess being prepared for sacrifice—not to harm. To reveal. Their hands are cool, and never stray where they’re not allowed. It is not for them to claim.

Because he is always there.

Even when she cannot see him, she knows the difference in pressure. Her dreams deepen when he arrives, the water thickening like silk against her skin, every nerve lighting with his proximity. Rafayel does not announce himself with thunder or command. He enters her dream the way the sea enters a wound—slow, complete, inevitable and when he speaks, the other voices hush.

My bride. My blood-anchor. Mine.

Sometimes she sees him, rising from the deep—a shape of radiant shadow, chains across his chest humming faintly with light, strands of hair drifting like ink in a still tide. His eyes catch her like hooks, no cruelty in them—only a hunger so profound it bends reality around it.

He never asks.

He never forces.

But when he touches her—his hand against the small of her back, the pads of his fingers trailing along her thighs, his breath ghosting across her lips though no air moves—her body opens for him like water cleaved by oars.

His mouth never needs to meet hers, not in the dream, not yet. But she wakes each time gasping, tasting salt, her breath ragged and her inner thighs slick with need. Sometimes it’s sweat. Sometimes it isn’t. The sheets are damp in ways that defy comfort. Her tongue is coated in brine, her breath shallow, and always—always—she aches between her legs like she’s just been touched for hours by hands that knew her too well.

In one dream, she feels him behind her. Not pinning—holding. His fingers wrap around her hips like they were made for it, anchoring her in the water while his mouth moves along the nape of her neck. She can’t speak. Her voice doesn’t matter. Her body does. Her skin hums against him, her spine arches without thought, and his voice whispers through her skull, viscous and slow:

Let them sing. You’re mine. Only mine.

The others do not interfere. They chant now, low and ritualistic, floating in circles around the moment of her pleasure. Not jealous—joyous. Like midwives. Like attendants.

The seals break as she softens. As she opens. As she drowns in him.

They say this like scripture, over and over, as she feels his body grind into hers—not with violence, never—but inevitability. Pressure and heat and depth and the sense that she’s being filled not with cock but with presence. His need crashes into her like waves over reef, slow at first, then relentless, rolling until she shakes with it. No pain. Just stretch. Just belonging.

Her breath escapes in the dream—not moans but choked cries, hot and wet and helpless.

“Ahn—haa, Rafayel, fuck—” she gasps, even as seawater slips down her throat, and she comes in her sleep so hard her fingers curl into her pillow, her body bowing under phantom weight, thighs trembling violently.

She wakes soaked.

Every night now. She wakes tangled in damp sheets, her inner thighs sticky with arousal so potent it leaks down the insides of her knees. She doesn’t touch herself during the day anymore. She doesn’t need to. Every time she closes her eyes, he takes her again, fills her again, presses her against the ocean floor or cradles her in the trench’s arms and moves inside her like gravity itself.

He gives her pleasure so slow it shatters. So intense it rewrites.

The other women—if they can still be called that—appear during daylight, too now. At the corners of her eyes. In reflections. Their shapes never hold for long, only hints: long hair swaying in glass, a gleam of scales not on skin but woven into clothing, necklaces of tooth and driftwood. Their smiles are knowing, not cruel.

She reads more of the bound journal. The script comes easier now. She doesn’t translate. She understands.

The failed brides—they were not punished. They were repurposed.

They are the chorus. The keepers. The ones who cradle the seals between their teeth and keep them until the true one arrives.

And when they see her in the mirror, they nod—not with envy.

With relief.

She’s the one. The mouth of the deep. The ache in the tide.

He wants the ache of flesh and warmth, the pulse of blood he can taste in her wrist, the tremble of her thighs when he breathes against the back of her neck and her hips lift without asking. He wants her voice when she cries out and claws the sheets, drenched and delirious with how badly she needs to feel him again.

She starts sleeping naked, because clothes always end up soaked and just like every night, the song begins again.

One seal breaks. Two. Three. You call to him when you moan. We hear. He hears. So close. So close. Bride.

And in the deepest part of sleep, Rafayel whispers against her throat, words like fingers threading her open:

No more seals. Soon. I will rise for you.

And in her dream, she shudders, gasping—

“Please.”

–

The wind tore through Bayrun that afternoon with a ferocity not seen in weeks, but it wasn’t the kind of storm that made people batten hatches or rush home. It was the quieter kind, the mean kind, the kind that seeped into bones and whispered along windowpanes, insinuating itself into every frame, every gap in the wood. She pulled her coat tighter as she stepped through the iron-framed door of the town archives, the bell overhead ringing with a dull, waterlogged clunk as if weighed down by the salt air. The building itself was hunched like everything else in Bayrun—short, squat, dark as wet stone. The wood floors groaned as she walked, swollen from decades of damp. It smelled of old sea charts and mildew, of drying glue and rotting thread, of things forgotten on purpose and stacked too neatly to be casual.

The clerk—Reese, a man who looked like he’d once had a thicker neck and a thinner gut—rose behind the desk in the front alcove, his shirt yellowed where it had been white and his fingers callused around the spine of a naval log. He looked up the way people do when they know who’s coming before the door opens, eyes glassy with something between recognition and dread.

“Looking for something specific?” he asked, not quite hostile, not quite polite.

She offered a nonchalant smile, the kind she’d practiced for years. “Old maps. Tidal records. Anything that hasn’t been digitized.”

He hesitated for just long enough to matter, then nodded toward the back shelves with a twitch of his chin. “Past the shelving cabinet, left side. We’ve got boxes of unsorted material. Be careful. Some of it’s falling apart.”

She thanked him and moved down the aisle, her boots making soft sounds against the warped floorboards. She could feel his gaze stay on her longer than necessary—watching the way she moved, not with curiosity, but suspicion. As though she might reach into the shelves and pull out something she wasn’t supposed to know existed. And he’d be right.

The back alcove was colder, though the storm hadn’t crept in. It was the cold of things left untouched too long. The walls were lined with metal drawers whose handles had rusted, and thick folders stacked like sediment—nautical charts, faded ship logs, fragile ledgers wrapped in twine. She began slowly, leafing through the labeled folders, running her fingers down titles etched in ink long faded to a gray ghost of their former selves. But as the quiet thickened around her, her movements grew more deliberate. One folder yielded an old port registry, its cover cracked open along the spine. A map tucked between its pages caught her eye—dated 1836, Bayrun’s coastline sketched in heavy charcoal. The outline looked familiar, but a note in the margin sent a jolt through her chest.

“Spiral seen again. Low tide. Screaming from below.”

She folded it neatly and slid it into her satchel, fingers twitching slightly. No hesitation.

Another folder, mislabeled as export tax records, held a slim ledger with pages so thin she could see her fingers beneath them. Half the entries had been crossed out or sliced away entirely. Some had survived—one, dated in curling ink and no year she could make out, read plainly:

“Third seal intact. No signs of strain. Her dreams remain shallow. Replace charm at the bluff marker before the next moon cycle.”

Beneath that, scrawled messily in a smaller hand, as if by someone in a rush or on the edge of breaking:

“We don’t remember placing it. But it’s always there.”

Her hand trembled as she closed the book and slipped it into the deepest fold of her coat. The air behind her felt warmer suddenly, too close. She turned and found Reese standing no more than a pace away, his eyes narrowed as if he were seeing something beyond her shoulders.

“Find what you needed?” he asked, voice low, but too even to be casual.

She smiled again, slow and professional. “Still browsing.”

His gaze dropped to the bulge of her satchel, lingered, then slid away without comment. “Try not to remove anything,” he said flatly. “A lot of those haven’t been copied yet.”

“I’ll be careful.”

He didn’t follow her as she walked toward the front, but she felt his eyes on her back all the way out the door. The bell above didn’t ring when she pushed it open, as though something had placed a hand against it, muffling the sound.

The storm had thickened. Rain came not in drops but in fine mist so dense it hovered like breath. The town looked drained of color—gray stones, pale fog, the distant shimmer of water pressed against the horizon like a bruise. She kept her hood up and walked quickly, boots sinking slightly into the sodden gravel as she made her way toward the market row. The wind had fallen away into that heavy, electric quiet that came before something much worse. Her thoughts swam, heavy with maps, ledgers, notes that confirmed far more than she was ready to admit.

She almost didn’t see the woman until they collided at the edge of the street.

Anwyn stood there as though she’d been waiting. Her gray dress was soaked to the knees and clung to her thin frame, hair wild and loose, strands plastered against her cheeks. Her eyes, however, were dry—bright, yellow-ringed irises in a face lined by salt and time. Up close, she smelled of nettles and cold stones and something darker, something old.

For a moment, they simply stared at each other, both wet, both silent, both knowing.

“You’re still walking upright,” Anwyn said at last, her voice soft but edged, like a knife wrapped in lace. “That won’t last much longer.”

The girl blinked, breath catching in her throat, the weight of the ledger pressing against her ribs. “Excuse me?”

Anwyn didn’t smile, didn’t laugh. She looked at her wrist—the one where the spiral still faintly bruised the skin—and then raised her gaze, locking onto her eyes with terrible gentleness.

“They’ve started, haven’t they?” she said. “The dreams.”

The words struck like a stone dropped in a well. The world around them faded. The rain kept falling, but it fell without sound. No people walked the street. The air pressed inward.

“You feel him even when you’re awake. That pressure. The heat in your chest. The tremble in your knees.” Her eyes narrowed, not cruelly. “You feel the ache. The way your thighs twitch when you hear his name. You wake soaked. Shaking. That’s not coincidence.”

She swallowed, mouth dry despite the rain. “What do you know about him?”

“Everything. Not enough.” Anwyn stepped closer. “You can’t unring that bell, child. Once it’s been sounded, it sings on its own.”

“I didn’t ring it,” she said, words coming too fast. “I didn’t mean to. I came here for research, that’s all—”

“No.” The word cut her off, quiet but absolute. “You came. That was the bell.”

She felt dizzy then, as if the earth had tilted slightly beneath her. The wind turned and curled around her shoulders. The sea, she thought, had turned to look.

“Is he real?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

Anwyn’s expression didn’t change. “He’s older than real. The sea made him because she needed something that would never leave her. And now he needs something that will never leave him.”

The storm gathered again around the corners of buildings. The grocer’s sign rocked once, twice. Something unseen knocked against the eaves above them—soft and slow, as if knocking to be let in.

“I remember your voice,” Anwyn murmured, lowering her hand to brush her pendant—carved bone, ancient and smoothed by decades of touch. “I heard it in the water. Before you ever came. Before you were born. You don’t think you belong to him. You do.”

The girl shook her head, backing a step, heart hammering. “What is he?”

Anwyn smiled then, a tragic thing.

“I stopped asking,” she said. “My mother asked. She came home one night with no tongue. The sea gave her back, but not all of her.”

The wind shrieked once across the open square, a long, high whine that didn’t sound like wind at all.

“He’s not coming,” Anwyn whispered, eyes unfocused now. “He’s rising.”

Anwyn didn’t speak right away. After that last sentence—He’s not coming. He’s rising—she seemed to retreat into memory, her gaze gone unfocused, her hand still resting lightly against the carved bone at her neck. Rain traced slow lines down her face and clung to her lashes, but she didn’t blink. The girl stood rooted before her, the ledger still tight beneath her coat, its weight a heartbeat against her ribs, and though she opened her mouth to ask something—anything—Anwyn spoke first.

“My great great aunt walked into the sea naked,” she said at last, voice thin now, spun from the same gray threads as the storm around them. “Smiling.”

The girl blinked, momentarily stunned. “What?”

“She was nineteen. Never married. Said she heard music in the fog—songs that tasted like salt and gold. Said she saw people dancing on the tide, with long hair and mouths that opened too wide.” Anwyn’s gaze came back to her then, steady and calm.

“She told her mother she wasn’t afraid. Said she wanted to meet the one who sang so sweetly. And then she walked straight down to the water without a stitch on her.”

“Did they stop her?”

“Found her footprints in the sand. Nothing else.” Anwyn looked past her now, toward the sea hidden behind the shops and homes, behind the fog and the pitch-black water beyond. “The tide came in wrong for a week after. Horses wouldn’t go near the bluff. Lanterns wouldn’t stay lit.”

She turned her head slowly, the rain dripping from her chin.

“They said it was the devil, back then. When I was small. Said girls like her were troubled, full of sin, and that the ocean knew how to spot weakness.” She gave a bitter half-smile. “Then they started calling it hysteria. Said it was fever. Or madness. Or women wanting escape.”

She leaned closer, lowering her voice to something more private.

“But it was never that. It was always him. Down there. Bound. Hungry. Loved.”

That word—loved—landed heavier than the others. The girl flinched without knowing why. Something in her belly tightened, not from fear, but recognition.

Anwyn’s gaze dropped to her again, sharp with meaning.

“He’s not cruel, you know,” she said. “Not unless he’s kept waiting too long.”

A gust of wind twisted down the alley beside them, flinging rain into the gaps of her coat, turning her hair wild around her face. The grocer’s sign creaked above them, a lonely, bone-dry squeal like a mouth trying to speak.

“They tried to erase him,” Anwyn continued, voice rising above the wind now, no longer whispering. “The men who came from across the sea with their new crosses and their clean churches. They built pews where tide-altars used to stand. Dug up stones etched with the spiral. Burned the ones who remembered.”

A pause. She took a long breath, closed her eyes.

“But memory doesn’t live in books. It clings to brine and lichen. It gets under fingernails and in marrow. And the stories… the stories waited.”

She opened her eyes again, and the girl could see something flickering behind them. Not madness—certainty.

“There were always mothers who whispered to their children, ‘Don’t go barefoot near the pools after dark. Don’t follow the singing. Don’t answer voices in the fog.’ Not because it was myth. But because the last time he rose—” Her mouth twitched. “It cost us. Cost her.”

The girl’s lips parted, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t want to stop this. She needed more, but not all at once. Anwyn’s words had the shape of a story not ready to be told in full. It was unraveling in slow, wet threads, and she knew better than to yank them.

“He hasn’t stirred in a long time,” Anwyn murmured, quieter now, as if talking to herself. “The water’s been calm. The pools shallow. But we’ve all felt it lately, haven’t we? That hush in the waves. That tilt in the tide charts. The sea holding its breath.”

The girl nodded slowly, almost involuntarily.

“I’ve been listening,” Anwyn said. “The birds fall silent in the morning now. The gulls don’t cry when the tide turns. And the wind keeps pushing people toward the shore.”

The words hung there between them.

Rain pattered harder against the rooftops. Somewhere, deep in the direction of the cliffs, a foghorn moaned once—distant and low, too low for anything still docked in the harbor.

Anwyn stepped closer once more, her presence overwhelming in its certainty. Not aggressive. Not threatening. Just… inevitable.

“The bride before you,” she said, and something in her tone cracked slightly. “She died protecting the village. Gave herself to stop him. Broke her own bond.”

That landed like a lead weight in her chest. Not fully understood, but undeniably true. The words slid through her like a key into a rusted lock.

“He hasn’t risen since,” Anwyn said, and looked her full in the face. “He’s waited.”

She could barely breathe.

“And now,” Anwyn whispered, “he wants her back.”

For a long time, neither of them moved. The storm pressed against them like a living thing, not roaring, not wild—just watching. Waiting. A soundless breath held by the sea. Anwyn stepped back first, her gaze lingering like the last warmth of a fire. Her fingers brushed the edge of her bone pendant once more. Then she turned.

She didn’t walk toward any destination. She moved into the narrow slit between the market wall and the butcher’s old shack, a place that should’ve held only shadows and runoff. But she slipped into it like it was a corridor, and vanished into the mist.

The girl stood alone.

Water streamed from the gutters and soaked the cuffs of her jeans. Her satchel pulled heavy against her shoulder, and in her pocket, the spiral-marked hand tingled faintly with warmth, as if something underneath the skin were beginning to turn.

In the back of her throat, the salt tasted sweeter than it should. Though she told herself she wouldn’t, her eyes lifted toward the fog, toward the shape of the shoreline beyond the rooftops because somewhere out there, just beneath the waves, something was remembering her, and it would rise.

—

The morning she chooses to go out on the water, the world is unnaturally still. The kind of stillness that feels deliberate, not passive. Fog has burned away in long silver skeins, the sky pale and dry as bone, the sea smooth as oil beneath her boat. The harbor is silent. No gulls circle. No engines hum. Even the wind holds off as if giving her space.

She doesn’t ask anyone for help.

By now, the town watches her movements the way one watches a sealed jar—half expecting something to hatch inside. She loads the rowboat herself in the gray light before sunrise, testing the balance of her instruments, checking the seals on the equipment case three times though she already knows it won’t matter. Her fingers tremble only once, when she presses the lid shut. Then she pushes off from the weather-beaten dock, the oars slicing through water that doesn’t resist.

No one sees her go.

Bayrun recedes behind her with all the slow majesty of a place surrendering to forgetfulness. The coastline flattens into a low smear of fog-washed cliffs, the trees along the bluff bending always inland, always away from the sea. She rows steadily, legs braced, eyes on the open mouth of the trench far ahead. Her breath stays even. Her pulse, not quite.

The surface of the water grows stranger the further she moves from shore. It no longer ripples in proper patterns. It glistens with too much clarity, reflecting the sky like glass that doesn't break when touched. Her oars leave no wake. The air grows warmer, though the sun hides behind high cloud.

She powers on the sonar.

It glitches immediately—just a quick chirp, then a whine that turns to silence. The hydrophone follows suit. No sound comes back from the water below. Not even ambient hum. Not fish. Not current. Just a vast and total absence, like the sea had swallowed its own voice.

She checks the wires, the settings. Nothing responds.

She drops a probe to take depth. The line spools for far too long. Then it jerks.

Not with tension. With breath.

She freezes. The boat sways once, gently. Not a wave. A ripple, as if something beneath her had exhaled.

Reaching the edge of the trench, she slows her breathing, leans forward slightly, and peers over the rim of the boat. The surface is black now, a perfect mirror of the hull, of her face, of the sky above—but deeper than shadow, deeper than water.

That’s when she hears it.

At first, it’s not sound so much as sensation. A vibration in the enamel of her teeth, a low thrumming that coils up the base of her spine and radiates outward. She presses one hand to her sternum, instinctively, and feels the resonance there—steady, ancient, calling. It isn’t music. Not exactly. It’s too slow for melody. Too long between tones. But it curls like singing, moves like breath, widens like a spiral.

The sound bends through pitch in ways that shouldn't be possible—shifting not from note to note, but from pressure to presence. It isn’t human. Not quite female. It has the rise and fall of something breathing through stormclouds. The syllables are felt rather than heard, rubbing against her bones with aching intimacy.

She closes her eyes and the world tilts.

The last thing she sees is the reflection of her own face on the water—except it isn’t moving with her. The eyes are open too wide. The mouth is slightly parted, like waiting to sing.

Then nothing.

No splash. No scream. Just absence.

She doesn’t know how long she’s gone. In the dream, the world is dim and silver, light diffused as though seen through miles of seawater. She floats without effort, body suspended in liquid too warm to be real. Around her, they come.

The sirens.

They don’t look like stories say they should. They aren’t fish from the waist down, and they don’t smile with needle teeth. They’re beautiful in the way tidal rifts are beautiful—long, soft-limbed things with hair like ribbons of kelp and eyes that glow too gently to be safe. Their bodies glide with a grace that doesn’t belong to vertebrates, and their fingers are too long, too knowing.

They circle her.

One drifts close, trails a hand along her jaw, then her collarbone, humming low and intimate against her shoulder. Another brushes past her thigh, hair tangling around her hips. Their skin is cold silk, smooth and endless. They don’t speak. They don’t need to.

Their humming fills her.

Each vibration burrows deeper, from skin to tendon to womb. She moans softly, breathless in the dark water. Her nipples harden from the chill of them, her thighs clench and then loosen, parted slightly without resistance. It isn’t erotic the way human touch is—it bypasses thought and goes straight to need. Her body accepts them like salt accepts blood.

And still, they do not take. They prepare.

Because he is there. Watching.

Rafayel.

He stands—or floats?—far beyond the others, past their circling limbs, past their caressing hands. The water around him glows faintly with pulsing gold. His eyes are black and full of it, rimmed in molten metal, fixed entirely on her.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t blink.

He just waits.

The other sirens part around him like currents, always in motion, but never touching. They hum his silence into her skin. Their hands guide her closer. Every pulse of their song drives her toward him like a tide pulling inward.

He is the deep pressure waiting behind the whisper. He is the stillness in the eye of the storm.

Her heart pounds.

She reaches for him.

And wakes.

Her body slams back into itself all at once—gasping, lungs heaving. The sky overhead has shifted. Late afternoon, dimmed by cloud. She lies curled in the bottom of the rowboat, limbs splayed as if flung there, her throat raw and her lips cracked dry. The equipment is still dead. The sea around her is still slick, too quiet.

Her boat drifts slowly, aimless. Her hair is wet with more than sweat. Her clothes cling cold to her body, and her thighs ache. Not from exertion. From absence. Inside her skull, the echo of the song still hums faintly, too slow to be music, too deep to be silenced.She doesn’t remember rowing back. She isn’t sure she will.

That night, the song doesn’t recede with the tide. It lingers, expanding—an infection made of sound. It swells within the walls of the old house like moisture, seeping into the grain of the floorboards, the cracks in the foundation, the humming bones of the plumbing. The pipes vibrate faintly beneath her fingertips when she presses her hand to the bathroom sink, not with water pressure but with rhythm, soft and deliberate, the beat of something ancient just below hearing. The melody echoes faintly in every corner—low and layered, the same shifting harmonics that filled her chest on the water, now rising from the dark throat of the drain, coiling in the window glass, vibrating against her skin like a lover’s breath.

It doesn't leave when she leaves a room. It follows. She inhales and it’s in her lungs. She exhales and it thickens behind her teeth. She opens her mouth to speak and realizes her tongue already knows the next note.

When she looks into the mirror above the sink, her reflection doesn’t blink in time with her. Her own face is mouthing something—slow, rhythmic syllables shaped with quiet ecstasy. Her lips part gently, eyes half-lidded, lost in trance, and for a moment she watches herself, heart frozen. She isn't humming. She isn't making a sound. But the mirror-self sings without breath, lips forming each note of the sirens’ call with aching grace.

She backs away slowly. The mirror doesn’t.

She runs her palms down her face and finds sweat. Not from fear. From heat. Her body radiates it in waves, a pulse in her groin, a prickling dampness along the backs of her knees, the line of her throat. Every time she tries to think about anything else—about science, about sleep, about escape—the melody rises behind her eyes again like blood rushing up her spine.

She opens the journal, hoping for context, for relief, for instruction. The pages resist at first, damp and swelling at the seams, but she finds the entry scrawled between drawings of spirals and tide marks, the ink blotched with haste or desperation.

The sirens come when it’s time. They pull the chosen to the gate. He cannot unbind until the bride walks into the blood pool.

The words hit her like cold water poured over the crown of her head, running down her spine in jagged lines. He cannot unbind. The gate. The blood pool. She doesn’t know what it means entirely, but the word bride sets her jaw tight. She’s seen it too many times now. Heard it. Felt it whispered across her skin as Rafayel watched her from beyond the sirens, silent and burning.

Sleep offers no shelter.

She tries. She truly does. She lays down with cotton stuffed in her ears, a pillow pressed hard against each side of her head. She hums other songs under her breath—childhood lullabies, sharp dissonant noise, anything to drown it. She plays static through her phone’s speaker at full volume. But the melody slips around it all, threading through the fabric of her bones like something grown rather than heard.

When sleep takes her, it doesn’t hold her down—it lets her go. She doesn’t dream. She wanders.

She wakes kneeling in the tideflats beneath the full moon, her hands sunk into wet sand, the shoreline ghost-white in the mist. Her nightgown clings to her like a second skin, soaked through, transparent over her breasts and thighs. Sand is embedded deep in her knees, her hair tangled with kelp and sea-foam. Her throat burns with salt, her fingernails are cracked and full of grit, and her mouth is half open, still forming the melody like a prayer too old for language.

She stumbles upright, breath catching, and turns to look back at the house.

It’s too far. She doesn’t remember walking. She doesn't remember waking.

The tide laps gently at her ankles—warm, deliberate, like a hand stroking upward. The pools around her flicker with movement beneath their mirrored surface, flashes of long limbs and gleaming eyes beneath inches of still water. She steps back and the song surges louder, not in her ears but in her chest, blooming from her diaphragm outward like a second heartbeat.

She tries to scream. Nothing comes out but a note. One long, shuddering hum.

She plugs her ears. She clamps her hands over them hard enough to hurt, tears leaking down her cheeks, sobs pressed into the hollow of her throat. But the sound doesn’t fade. Her bones hum with it. Her teeth ache. Her spine thrums like a tuning fork struck by a divine hand.

She stumbles back to the house at dawn, barefoot, cuts on her soles from hidden rocks, feet torn and bleeding. Her sheets are drenched when she lies down, her skin still hot and salty, her thighs trembling faintly from exertion she doesn’t remember. When she presses a hand to her pelvis, she feels warmth still lingering, a low throb that has nothing to do with cold or fear.

She closes her eyes and tries to think of silence.

But all she hears is the song.

Calling her home.

The mood in Bayrun begins to shift in ways that no one names aloud. Doors close earlier. Window shutters that once creaked in the night are now reinforced with strips of rusted metal, nailed shut in hasty fear. The market stalls, usually left half-covered and open to the morning mist, are broken down entirely by dusk, their tarps folded so tightly they look shrink-wrapped, suffocated. A child stands in front of the chapel one evening, pointing silently toward the cliffs until his mother grabs him by the wrist and drags him backward without a word. The air holds its breath, and the townspeople follow suit.

She notices the salt first when she comes home—a fine white line, carefully poured across the threshold of her porch. It isn’t crude. Someone took their time, shaping it clean, evenly spaced, as if laying a charm rather than a warning. It crunches under her boot before she realizes what it is. No note. No signature. Just an act of trembling superstition, of protection offered too late to mean anything.

That night, the wind didn't howl. It moans. The sirens’ song crests just after midnight, rolling over the bluffs and through the cracks of her bedroom window like a tide drawn from the chest of the world itself. It isn’t gentle anymore—not the humming promise of dreams, not the sweet lure she once mistook for seduction. This sound is want, raw and visceral. Urgent, like fingers dragging silk off skin. It dances up her thighs, winds around her belly, slips behind her ribs.

The music aches. It caresses her name with notes too fluid for human tongues, rippling through the wood of the house, pressing against her heartbeat until her breath comes fast and shallow. Every part of her tingles—skin flushed, lips parted, nipples stiff beneath the cotton of her sleep shirt. The salt line on the porch should’ve stopped something. It didn’t. Her feet are bare before she realizes she’s standing, moving through the doorway like she’s being poured downhill.

The air outside is thick, humming with static. The moon hangs full and waxy above the tide pools, bleeding silver into the mist. Her soles find every sharp rock, every slick ridge of moss, and none of it hurts. She descends the bluff like someone following the path of a prayer half-remembered, her steps slow but sure, her eyes glazed and shining in the moonlight. No one calls after her. No doors open. The town has gone still, watching from behind curtains as she walks the path they all feared would open again.

Down at the pools, they wait.

The sirens.

They aren’t monsters. They’re nothing like the stories carved into old church pews or whispered through hymnals. Their beauty is overwhelming, not in its perfection, but in its wrongness—a kind of grace not built for land. Their bodies stretch long and soft, the curvature of limbs flowing like ink dropped in water. Hair sways around them in ribbons, dark as oil and lit from within, kelp-slick and moving even when the air is still. Their eyes glow a subtle green, not eerie but intimate. Safe the way a riptide is safe—if you stop fighting.

Their mouths part around the song, sharp white teeth glinting in flashes between syllables that taste like salt and sorrow. They do not speak to her, but the melody becomes her name, sung low and reverent, echoing off rock and wave. They part around her, arms outstretched in welcome, a procession of long-bodied sea-daughters carving a path to the tidal gate. Her feet splash into the shallows and the water doesn’t resist her. It embraces.

One siren brushes cool fingers along her jaw, tilting her face gently toward the sea. Another leans in and presses her lips to the girl’s wrist, tongue darting out in a slow, reverent lick. Their touch isn’t sexual—it’s sacramental. They hum into her skin as if reading her, mapping every inch of flesh like it belongs to them and always has. They don’t claim her. They honor her.

She is not afraid. She is home.

The moonlight strikes the pools at just the right angle, and the color shifts. What was silver becomes crimson. A stain blooms across the water’s surface—dark and thick and blooming outward in symmetrical spirals. Not blood from a body. Blood meant. The pool itself turns red beneath her feet, and the sirens cry out in unison, their final chorus cresting like the wave before the plunge.

And he rises.

From the deepest hollow of the trench, through the heart of the tidal gate, Rafayel emerges.

Naked.

Unbound.

His body breaks the surface like a god cast upward by a sea that could no longer hold him. Water streams down his shoulders, slicking over muscle and shimmer-slick skin that catches the moonlight in shades of opal and oil. His chest is broad, tapering to a torso carved in impossible beauty, marked faintly with the iridescent patterns of coral scars and luminous spiral sigils. Where legs should be, his lower body flares into a glorious tail—plum and cobalt, rippling with transparent fin-fronds, each edge lined in silver. It unfurls behind him in lazy, tidal sways, breathtaking in its grace.

His face is sharper than dreams. Jaw strong, cheekbones high, lips full and parted slightly as if breathing her name into the air. Eyes—those impossible, drowning eyes—glow with a light that isn’t reflected, but generated, blue fire threaded with gold, focused only on her. He does not speak. He doesn’t need to.

Rafayel watches her the way a storm watches the coast. Waiting for her to understand what she already is. When the pool thickens around her ankles, when her body shivers with need and belonging so deep it feels ancestral, her lips part too. The song is still in her, but now it’s not echoing. It’s calling back.

The moment her foot breaks the surface, the pool reacts. Not with ripples, but with light—subtle at first, a soft pulse like a heartbeat beneath the surface, then brighter, stronger, until the water glows with that same impossible radiance that lives in Rafayel’s eyes. She steps forward without hesitation, water climbing her calves, her knees, her thighs. Every inch of skin the sea touches comes alive, not with chill, but with sensation—like breath held too long and finally released. Gooseflesh blooms across her arms, not from cold, but from recognition.

Her heartbeat synchronizes with the melody echoing up from below, not separate from it anymore. It’s a measure within the song. She feels the rhythm in her chest, in her spine, in the curl of her toes against the silt. Her body -s to hum—not in sound, but in resonance. The water welcomes her like a lover's mouth, curling along her thighs, licking the curve of her belly, rising up to kiss the underside of her breasts with reverent slowness. The pulse of the sea is inside her now, each beat pulling her deeper, inviting, enveloping, inevitable.

The sirens, once circling, once watching, drop silently into the glowing pool around her, their long bodies sliding beneath the surface without splash or struggle. One by one, they vanish into the depths with elegant flicks of hair and tail, their eyes never leaving her until the last moment. Their song doesn’t fade—it submerges, a chorus continuing below, a hymn vibrating through the bones of the water, winding tighter and tighter around her soul.

Rafayel stands at the center of it all. Still and radiant.

He watches her the way hunger watches softness.

And then he moves.

He doesn’t swim—he glides, his tail propelling him forward in smooth, fluid arcs. His arms are strong and bare, marked faintly with bands of iridescent skin that catch the light as he reaches for her. Fingertips trail along the water’s surface until they meet hers.

When he touches her, the world changes.

“My beloved bride,” he says, and the words hit her like thunder breaking inside her lungs.

There is no question in his voice, no plea. It is not a title he grants her. It is a truth he names aloud.

Her fingers tangle with his. Her breath hitches. Her thighs press together instinctively, not to resist—but to hold in the tremble.

The water climbs higher. Her skin responds. It ripples where the ocean kisses her, as if remembering something it was never told but always knew. Her vision blurs slightly as warmth courses through her veins, not heat from within, but from beneath, the pulse of the deep seeping upward, finding her blood, her marrow, her womb. Her body arches slightly, her nipples tightening, her mouth parting in a gasp that becomes a moan.

Not pain. Not fear.

Release.

She doesn’t scream. She sings.

Her voice isn’t hers alone anymore. It carries the echo of every bride before her, of every offering the ocean accepted and claimed. The melody rises from her throat in unbroken pitch, long and clear, the language wordless but full. Rafayel’s eyes flare brighter, gold threading blue, his mouth slack with awe, lust and longing so old it makes her bones ache to match it.

As her voice rises, so does the light beneath the water.

The pool glows red-gold now, not blood but something more sacred—transition, consummation, awakening. Her thighs shudder as the water caresses her inner seams, flickering up the line of her back, fingers of current stroking the crease where her ribs give way to soft belly. She throws her head back and opens her mouth wider, voice breaking into layered harmonics. Her body begins to shift—not changing, not deforming, but yielding. No webbing. No gills. Just the ocean remaking its claim.

Her spine arches. Her skin gleams and the sea sings through her.

Rafayel groans low, a sound that vibrates the air, the water, her teeth. His chains—those thick bands of coral and metal coiled across his shoulders and chest—glow for one final moment, then begin to unravel. They don’t shatter. They dissolve, like salt kissed by rain. Thread by thread, link by link, they fall away from him, slipping into the water like offerings returned.

His body glistens, finally unbound. Every inch of him is glorious, terrible, divine. His tail lashes once in the water, powerful and beautiful, spreading arcs of color that ripple outward like wings unfurling. He floats toward her, weightless and full of purpose, and the tide accepts them both, closing above their heads as the surface shivers and stills.

The gate is open.

The bride is home.

It is not death. It is undoing—a peeling away of everything that tethered her to air and silence, a shedding of false anatomy, a molting of mistaken humanity. The moment the water closes over her head, the change begins. It isn't slow. It isn't kind. But it is necessary.

Something splits along her ribs—first one side, then the other—thin lines cracking open like mouths learning to speak. Gills, four per side, bloom like wet petals from her skin, dark and red and raw. She convulses, instinct screaming against it, and water floods her lungs. She thrashes once, arms clawing at the space around her as panic takes her—but the breath doesn't kill her.

It feeds her.

The salt slides deep, and the craving rises with it. Her body settles into the intake, ribs expanding in rhythm with the tide. The water is thick in her throat, but it moves clean, welcome. The panic fades like it was never real, only an echo from a world she no longer belongs to.

She opens her mouth, and the scream that bubbles forth is not of terror. It is of transcendence.

Her legs convulse violently, spine arching, muscles tightening to the point of tearing. She feels her bones shifting beneath the skin, warping, bending inward—not breaking, but folding, redrawing their purpose. Her thighs fuse at the seam, calves curling in, feet retracting as the skin along them splits open with a wet, slick sound. She chokes again, not on water, but on the rush of sensation as her flesh tears and heals in the same breath, smooth scales bursting forth like blossoms under heat.

It hurts. But the pain is holy.

Fins erupt from the center of her back, thin ridges of translucent membrane edged in violet light. More follow at her wrists, flexing instinctively like second hands, then from the backs of her thighs, flaring outward in slow, sensual arcs. Her pelvis breaks with a sharp internal crack, the sound drowned in water but felt—a moment of rupture, her hips narrowing, realigning. Nerve endings scream, then settle into place. Her stomach shivers, muscles clenching uncontrollably as something below opens.

A new slit forms where her thighs once met, the flesh parting slick and seamless, throbbing faintly with new need, as though awakened into a body designed to crave touch through current, not skin.

Her arms float outward. Her back arches. Her hair spills around her in coils of shadow and ink, dancing in slow loops through the glowing water. Her mouth parts, lips plush, eyes wide—and they are no longer eyes made for land.

They have gone silver.

Not gray. Not white. Mirror.

She sees him through them. And more—she sees herself. Reflected in his gaze.

Rafayel drifts closer, the light from the tidal gate shining off his skin, casting patterns across his chest, his tail, the long curve of his shoulders. His wings—those beautiful, finned extensions of tail and thigh—fan outward around him in weightless majesty. His eyes, glowing blue rimmed in gold, take her in fully. Not with hunger.

With reverence.

He reaches for her slowly, as if daring not to disturb the moment. His hand hovers just shy of her cheek.

“You were always going to return to me,” he breathes.

His voice ripples through her, vibrating through gill and bone and belly. It strokes the slit between her legs, teases the skin behind her knees, makes her scalp tingle with recognition.

“I made this body for you.”

The words land like gravity. Like the truth. Like destiny clicking into place after lifetimes of waiting.

She floats before him, panting, raw, made of light and blood and sea. Her reflection shimmers in the red-gold water around them. She does not reach for him.

She offers herself.

She drifts in the warm dark, suspended in the cradle of the sea, no longer tethered by gravity or breath. Her gills flex gently with the rhythm of the current, each pulse a song of survival made effortless. Her tail moves in slow, exploratory arcs, muscle alive with power she hasn’t yet tested but already knows. The water holds her like she was born in it, like she never belonged anywhere else. There is no fear, no question, just the hum of salt and blood and memory settling into place.

Rafayel floats just beyond reach, body gleaming where light touches his skin, his tail flicking once, lazily. He watches her—not with hunger alone, though it lives there in the depth of his eyes—but with something deeper. A kind of awe, as if even now, unchained, whole, he still does not believe she has returned.

His expression softens, something old in him unraveling. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, the words barely disturbing the water. No grand explanation. No lingering guilt. Just truth, offered quiet and unguarded.

She doesn't need to remember the whole story. It sits inside her like silt at the bottom of a still pool—something buried, but not gone. There had been fire in him once. Anger. Hunger. After they turned from him, when they scraped the altars clean and offered their prayers to another sky, he had risen with a fury that drowned the coastline in weeks of storms. She had stopped him—not with chains, but with her body. Her life. She had gone willingly into the depths and let the sea take her before he could take them.

But that was another life. And she is not that girl.

She is this.

She is the salt and the slit and the silver-eyed thing that now curls softly through the waves like a ribbon unspooling. She is not bound by sacrifice. She is made for him.

He drifts closer, his chest brushing hers, the heat of his skin shimmering through the cold tide. He looks at her as if he’s seeing his own reflection.

Voice low, reverent. “You are my very soul.”

She moves without hesitation.

Her arms wind around his waist first, then her tail follows, coiling around him in a slow, sure embrace. Their bodies fit together like current into hollow, each press of skin familiar, inevitable. He leans into her touch, baring his throat slightly, allowing her to lead—not in surrender, but in understanding.

He opens to her—not just arms, not just mouth, but every inch of him. His fins relax. His breath deepens. His body yields and she takes him.

The shift between reverence and instinct is seamless, like breath slipping into moan. As her coils tighten around him, Rafayel’s chest heaves once, muscles flexing beneath the shimmer of his skin. From the split at his groin, something begins to emerge—first one cock, thick and slick, unfurling like a flower beneath moonlight, then another, just as long, both veined with pulsing lines of blue and violet, glowing faintly at their base. The flesh is wet with ocean heat, ridged slightly, textured to drive her mad. Just beneath the head of each, knots swell gently, throbbing with restrained need—waiting, ready to claim.

She gasps, and the sound is broken music. Her newly formed slit answers before thought can intervene—flesh parting, pulsing, wet with readiness. The ache is unbearable in its precision, a demand her body was sculpted to meet. Instinct blooms. She knows what he is. What she is. What this is for.

Her tail winds around his like a noose of silk and muscle, pulling him flush to her, bodies tight as coral in tide. She grinds her hips forward, her slit guiding the first cock to her entrance, and the head slips past her folds in a single breathless moment—hot, hard, perfect. She moans aloud, voice catching as he fills her inch by inch, her inner walls twitching around him, slick suction drawing him deeper. Her arms tighten around his shoulders as the second cock presses low against the lower edge of her slit, insistent.

Her body shudders.

A pause—then her cunt opens again, wider this time, stretching impossibly. The second shaft pushes inward, a slow, impossible claim. Her slit seals tight around them both, muscles flexing in wet, rhythmic pulses as he sinks into the base. She feels full—not just stretched, but claimed, locked. The sensation is indescribable, a divine overwhelm. Her back arches, gills flaring wide, breasts heaving against his chest.

Inside her, the shafts shift—not independently, but together, rubbing, grinding, stimulating her from within. Her walls flutter around them, each throb pulling a cry from her throat. Rafayel moans low, mouth brushing her neck, hips rocking gently—not thrusting, but grinding, pushing deep in slow, tidal pulses. There’s no rush. No chaos. Only need. Only union.

“You take me like a god should be taken,” he breathes into her, voice breaking.

Her head falls back, mouth open in a wordless gasp as pleasure coils hot and hard in her belly. She clutches tighter around him, her tail moving in slow waves to keep their bodies pressed, sealed. The ridges of his cocks stroke every nerve, every ache, and the pressure builds inside her, exquisite and unbearable. Her moans rise higher, sharper, until they break into pure sound—a song, high and layered, ultrasonic, carried through the water like an aria of lust and divinity.

The sea responds.

Coral pulses open. Anemones flare. Shoals of fish scatter and whirl, moved to frenzy by the echo of her pleasure. She is more than a woman now. She is song.

His knots swell thick, stretching her even more. She groans into his shoulder, eyes rolling back, and Rafayel bites down gently—just above her collarbone. Not to wound. To mark. His teeth press into her skin with careful reverence, and that final pressure breaks her wide open.

He cums inside her—hot, thick, endless.

Each pulse is a shock wave, twin shafts throbbing deep, filling her with divine heat that floods every hollow in her. Her belly swells slightly, not grotesquely, but visibly, her skin tight and glowing where his seed fills her. She milks him with long, rolling contractions, her slit sucking around the base of his knots, locking tight, sealed. His moans mix with hers now, a duet of ruin and ecstasy.

Her orgasm hits like riptide, gills flaring wide, chest convulsing with each fluttering wave of bliss. Her cunt clamps down again and again, spasming around him, drawing him deeper still. Her hands clutch his shoulders, nails dragging over the iridescent skin, and she breathes him in—not air, not water—him.

All around them, the sirens begin to sing.

It is no longer mourning.

It is exultation. They float in concentric circles, arms raised, hair trailing in luminous coils, their voices joining hers in harmony. The sea vibrates with celebration, not worship, but witness. Their goddess has returned—not as myth, not as sacrifice.

As sovereign.

Rafayel holds her through it all, trembling, moaning into her mouth, still pulsing inside her as their bodies remain locked in holy aftermath. The tide has taken its bride and she has taken everything.

They remain joined for what feels like eternity.

No thrusting. No urgency. Just the slow, coiling aftermath—Rafayel’s knots sealed deep inside her, each slight movement a reminder of how completely she holds him. Her arms stay wrapped around his shoulders, her tail looped tight around his lower half, the fin of his spine fluttering faintly as his body pulses out the last waves of seed. Her belly is warm, stretched taut and glowing with fullness, her breathing shallow, more sigh than need. She doesn’t speak. She can’t. Words are for the land. Here, where breath is song and blood is memory, silence says more.

Rafayel rests his forehead against hers, glowing eyes half-closed, his expression open in a way it has never been—stripped bare of rage, of hunger, of pain. He looks at her as if trying to memorize her shape anew, though it’s clear he never forgot. His hands move slowly over her back, over the new slits of her gills, reverent fingers exploring her form with the patience of the

There’s nothing to forgive. The past has settled, the weight of her sacrifice diffused into this union, transformed from sorrow into something holy. His apology lingers in the space between them—not groveling, not weak, but true. And enough.

The sirens begin to fade back into the sea, their bodies streaming past in luminous lines, no longer needed as heralds or guards. They move with joy now, no longer haunted. The song they sang has reached its end, and the silence that replaces it is soft, sated. She watches them go, hair trailing behind like banners of ink, arms wide as they spin into the depths.

Only she remains, held in Rafayel’s arms, marked and filled, reborn.

Eventually, his knots shrink. Her body relaxes around him, the ache giving way to afterglow. He slips free with a soft moan, warmth seeping from her slit in slow ribbons, floating like oil in the red-lit water. Her body trembles slightly at the loss of him, but he holds her steady, mouth brushing her cheek, her jaw, her gills. Not as a god claiming a prize—but as a man reminding her: you are mine, and I am yours.

They rise together through the warm, humming water, their tails brushing, bodies entwined. Above them, the surface waits, silver and soft. The moon still glows, but it looks different now, smaller. Less important. The world up there is a faded thing.

She breaks the surface first, hair slicked back, face upturned. The sea kisses her lips with gentleness. Rafayel surfaces beside her, his hand sliding into hers without ceremony, fingers curling around the web of hers like he’d always been meant to anchor her here.

They float in silence for a time, looking not at the shore, but at each other. Below them, the water still glows faintly, the last traces of the union echoing outward. The wind brushes over the sea like a lover's breath, calm now, satisfied. The cliffs remain untouched. The houses above are dark. No one watches. No one dares.

She no longer wants to be seen.

She knows who she is.

They dive together, smooth as a bladefish, disappearing into the dark beneath. Her laughter carries once, light and strange, followed by his, lower, rougher. The sea swallows the sound and keeps it.

Beneath the surface, life begins once again.

#fic recs #rafayel x reader #rafayel lads #rafayel ficrec

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gojosperms · 6 days ago

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This could be us - Satoru Gojo

You stood in the parking lot, dramatically tapping your foot like someone would actually show up faster if you clicked your heel hard enough.

You glanced at your watch, sighed loud enough for God to hear, and mentally drafted an obituary for your punctuality.

Then, right on cue, a black convertible viper roared into the lot, blaring music so loud you were pretty sure the bass just gave someone heart palpitations.

Subtlety? Never heard of her.

Satoru Gojo rose from the car like he was starring in a shampoo commercial sponsored by daddy issues. That trademark smirk—the kind that dissolved morals and common sense—was already plastered across his face.

In the backseat, Suguru Geto and Shoko Ieiri were laughing like they’d just committed arson and gotten away with it. Honestly? Probably had.

Satoru wore sunglasses indoors and outdoors and probably in the shower too. His platinum-blond hair was perfectly tousled, defying both gravity and basic humility. The way girls looked at him as he parked? Like someone had just unleashed a boy band on school grounds.

And then, because life is unfair, he stepped out and adjusted his black cap, giving Suguru and Shoko that smug little look—the one that said yes, I’m aware I’m the main character and yes, you’re welcome.

Satoru freaking Gojo (yes, that's his middle name from now on), the school's resident heartthrob and menace, strutted across the parking lot like he was auditioning for Grease 2: The Unbearable Ego. His loose white tank top hung just enough to show off his abs and that ridiculous rib tattoo that read Don’t tickle.

Suguru and Shoko? The school’s official agents of mischief.

Monday mornings were basically disaster roulette—would it be glitter bombs or superglued chalk again? Suguru was on a lifelong mission to give every teacher an early retirement, while Shoko aimed for maximum mess with minimum remorse.

Today, Suguru wore an unbuttoned black shirt over a gray tee, looking like he just stepped off the set of a brooding teen drama. Shoko was rocking a checkered shirt and a black denim skirt like she hadn’t just flooded the chemistry lab last week.

Icons, both of them.

You watched them approach, and—oh joy—Satoru's eyes locked onto yours like he had no other purpose in life than to ruin your day. His smirk stretched like he was already planning something illegal.

He stopped right in front of you and did the whole lean in, block your escape routine like this was some rom-com and not your personal nightmare.

“See something you like, Y/N?”

You didn’t even blink. “Actually, yeah.” You snatched his cap straight off his head and plopped it on yours. “Mine now. Thanks, accessory boy.”

He licked his lips like that was supposed to be seductive and not deeply concerning. “I don’t mind at all. Can I take this, then?”

His fingers hooked your bra strap, tugging like a child about to get smacked.

You flicked him in the forehead like the disappointment he was. “Try it and I’ll file a harassment report so fast your sunglasses will sue for emotional damage. Now walk, disaster.”

He laughed, teeth blinding enough to be a public hazard. “Lead the way, babe.”

“Hello? Are we just extras now?” Suguru called out from behind, sounding personally offended.

“To be fair, you are next to me,” Satoru said with a shrug, slinging his arm around your shoulders like it was part of your anatomy.

You rolled your eyes so hard you practically saw 2003. “No, you’re not extras,” you told Suguru and Shoko. “How was the party? Any near-death experiences or just the usual hormonal chaos?”

The two exchanged a look that said we know things. Then Suguru said, “Gojo got lucky. Twice. Rumor has it, there was a third involved. Simultaneously.”

You blinked. “Like… a ménage à dumbass?”

“I call bullshit,” Shoko said, coughing into her hand. “No way you rode the tricycle, Gojo.”

Satoru laughed like he was proud of the alleged war crime. “What can I say? Two birds, one extremely attractive stone.”

You punched him lightly in the chest. “You are the reason aliens won’t visit us.”

“You’re just jealous,” he said with a raised brow, grinning like a villain. “Just say the word, Y/N. I’ll give you the deluxe experience.”

“Say one more thing and I’ll revoke your flirting license. Turn down the sextalk, Captain Cringe.”

He grabbed the cap off your head and popped it back on like it hadn’t just been touched by your superior aura. “Relax, I’m just teasing. What’s our first class again?”

“Biology,” you said, trudging toward the school building while girls all around you sent Satoru wistful stares like he was some rare breed of puppy they couldn’t afford.

“Sweet,” Satoru said. “I could use some hands-on learning.”

You didn’t dignify that with a response.

“Oh, and I heard from Mei Mei,” you added. “Her dad’s throwing a quiz at us today. Probably because she got caught making out with Atsuya Kusakabe yesterday.”

Satoru snorted. “Glad to hear Mei Mei's spreading more than just her legs. Her dad’s probably traumatized.”

You laughed, covering your mouth. “Tragic. Prayers to his eyes.”

“You wanna know what’s even more tragic?” Satoru smirked as you stepped into Biology class. “I smashed that three weeks ago.”

You stopped in your tracks, looked him dead in the eye, and said, “...Congratulations. You’ve successfully lowered my standards even further.”

#fic recs #jjk #jjk fanfic #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #fluff #jjk fluff #jjk gojo #satoru gojo x reader #gojo x reader

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gojosperms · 7 days ago

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currently thinking about dante sparda who’s a feminist, 6’3, built—and oh, did i mention feminist?

“say, dante, what’s your opinion on men’s rights ?”

“irrelevant.”

dante doesn’t miss the slight pause you make before continuing to stir your drink. he sits in the booth across from you, enzo munching on fries opposite him as he sneaks a sip of his sundae.

“yer joking !” enzo says between belches. “something wrong with ya kiddo ? what do you mean men’s rights are irrelevant ?!”

but dante isn’t listening. he’s more concerned about the gap between your lips & coffee cup, the way you tilt it slightly above your mouth so as to not stain the glass with your gloss. your lips tug into a pout when you find the rim stained in coke pink regardless. you pull out a napkin & wipe it with a frown. cute.

“well, as a six three, employed and financially stable male,” dante clears his throat, smug, “i can’t help but turn my focus to more important things. for example, the widening gap between men and women’s wages. and we can’t forget the rising prices of feminine hygiene products, of course.”

enzo wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve. he doesn’t miss the way dante’s pupils seem to flit over to you every now and then. he clicks his tongue,

“kid, please, y’know she hasn’t even looked at ya, right?”

“she will.”

you continue to scroll through your phone.

but dante takes your silence as intrigue.

“anyways,” dante pauses as if searching for the words, “i just think it’s important to raise awareness—”

“yer raisin’ my freakin’ blood pressure.”

dante shoots him a glare. “i just think that, as a six foot four male, it’s my duty to raise awareness about the issues women face and the obvious gender bias in america’s modern day economy.”

“y’said six three before, kid—wait, what’s yer’ height gotta do with anything ?!”

as if on cue, your teaspoon clatters to the ground, and dante, ever the feminist, is quick to lean down to pick it up—rattling the table and spilling enzo’s fries in the process.

“hey! watch it—“

“your spoon, lady,”

you blink. dante’s taken his time to wipe the spoon clean & present it with a napkin. you hesitate a little before obliging with a murmur, “thanks..?”

“you’re welcome,” he says smoothly, relaxing into the booth seat. “no woman should ever have to bend over in a skirt. i mean—unless she wants to. then it’s her choice. her feminine power.”

“oh !”

enzo chokes on a fry. you stare at dante for a beat too long & he can’t tell if you’re confused or interested, but dante has an ego bigger than his head so he decides upon the latter.

“say, lady, don’t you agree that men should always pay on the first date ?”

you raise a brow. “the first ?”

dante waves his hands. “all, really. i only mention the first because i know some strong, independent women prefer to pay too. i respect that. i respect all women, really.”

“right. and is this your way of offering to pay for my food ?”

dante’s pupils shift to your table. only now does he realize you’ve ordered the most expensive french breakfast on the menu, as well as a drink too milky brown to cost the same as your average cappuccino. his wallet aches heavy in his pocket. “with pleasure ! lemme just get my wallet out…hope i didn’t leave it in the hellcat…”

“huh? wasn’t our uber a toyota?”

dante bares his teeth, ready to strangle enzo when you giggle—

“oh, gosh,” you sniffle, wiping tears, “that’s enough, you two are hilarious.”

clearing your throat, you raise your hand to reveal the diamond settled on your finger. “i’m sure you’re lovely and all, but i’m happily engaged.”

“that’s okay! i support women having multiple streams of happiness—ow !”

dante rubs at his shin as you continue. “that’s nice for you, but i’m fine with my fiancé.” you set some cash on the table and dust your skirt off, standing up to leave. “thank you for the laugh, though, gentlemen.”

you wave them goodbye and make your exit.

“God, i love women.”

“seek help,” enzo mutters, as he sneaks a sip from dante’s drink again.

#fic recs #devil may cry #dmc dante #dmc netflix #dmc anime #dmc #dante sparda #dante sparda x reader #dante devil may cry #dante

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gojosperms · 9 days ago

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you again

satoru gojo x fem!reader

synopsis: when satoru gojo breaks up with you, youre left heartbroken. until someone named “sukuna” messages you.

content warnings: slight angst?, good ending, kind of messy and rushed <\3

The coffee was cold. You didn’t remember how long you’d been sitting there. Long enough for the ice to melt, long enough for the sun to shift in the sky, throwing longer shadows across the café window. The condensation on the cup had dried, leaving behind faint rings on the table like little ghosts of time passing. Still, you brought it to your lips, sipping out of habit rather than want. It tasted watery, bitter, and empty.

Gojo’s voice still echoed in your ears, stubborn and sharp despite how softly he had said it.

“This isn’t working.”

You had looked up then, instinctively, as if his words hadn’t fully made sense until you saw his face. Those impossibly bright blue eyes, always gleaming, always daring the world to challenge him, looked… tired. Not just physically. Something deeper. Like he had finally come to terms with a truth he didn’t want to accept.

“You deserve someone who pays attention.”

Your chest had ached, not with surprise, but with recognition. You had known. You’d been knowing, for weeks, maybe months. The space between you had been growing, slow and invisible at first, like a crack in glass that only becomes noticeable when it splinters all at once.

You flinched, but not at his words. You flinched at how much they sounded like your own thoughts, the ones you had whispered to yourself at 3 a.m. when he hadn’t come home, or when he had, but hadn’t really been there.

His world had always revolved around Satoru Gojo. Brilliant, untouchable, adored. His work, his students, the weight of the title he carried. You had tried not to resent it. You really had. But even gravity has its limits.

You sipped the coffee again, just to do something with your hands.

“I agree,” you had said, and your voice hadn’t cracked. That surprised you. It came out flat, clean, practiced. Like you’d been rehearsing this moment without knowing it.

Not because you didn’t care. You did. God, you did. But you had already grieved it. Quietly. Slowly. Alone.

The breakup wasn’t explosive. No raised voices. No thrown glasses or last-minute pleas. Just… sad. Like watching a balloon drift upward until it was a dot in the sky. No bang. No snap. Just the weightless letting go.

You remember how he had nodded, just once. Like he respected you more in that moment than he ever had before. And maybe he did. Maybe, for a second, you weren’t the person orbiting his world. Maybe you were your own sun, burning just as bright. Even if he couldn’t look at you without squinting.

Now, in the quiet hum of the café, you traced your finger along the rim of the cup, grounding yourself in the texture of it. The seat across from you was empty, but you didn’t rush to fill it.

Some losses didn’t leave gaping wounds. Some just left silence. And sometimes, silence was the first breath of something new.

Weeks passed. You tried to move on, or at least pretended to.

You redownloaded dating apps with the same enthusiasm as someone forcing down cough syrup. You told yourself it was healthy. Normal. The thing people did after breakups. Swipe, match, chat, meet. Rinse and repeat.

The first guy had dark black hair and green eyes. He talked about crypto the entire dinner, comparing emotional investment to Ethereum trends. You nodded politely, internally debating if you could fake a phone call emergency without being obvious.

The second date had brown hair tied into two cute pigtails above his head. He opened with a Donald Duck impression and closed with him pouting because you didn’t laugh. “It’s, like, a perfect impression,” he’d muttered, genuinely wounded. You’d offered him a strained smile and left early under the excuse of “a migraine” which was only half a lie.

You kept trying. You gave normal people chances. But every conversation felt like dragging your feet through wet cement. Every laugh felt forced. Every kiss, if it got that far, felt cold and mechanical.

What you missed wasn’t the drama or the distance. Not even Gojo’s beauty, which was effortless and unfair. You missed ease. The casual magnetism. The way he could say the dumbest thing and still make it sound like the most brilliant idea in the world. He was frustrating. He was selfish. But with him, you never had to fake a laugh.

And then… there it was. A new message request. You almost ignored it. The username was strange.

Name: Ryomen. No mutuals. No last name. No bio. Just a single profile picture.

You tapped it out of curiosity, and immediately stilled.

The photo looked like it had been taken in low lighting, shadows curling around his jawline like smoke. His eyes were dark and sharp, the kind that didn’t just look at you, but through you. A face like it was carved from stone, all angles and tension, handsome in a way that made your pulse quicken for the wrong reasons.

Tattooed forearms rested on his knees, strong and relaxed like he had all the time in the world. He wasn’t smiling. Not really. His mouth was tilted in a smirk that felt like a dare. Like he knew things he shouldn’t. Like he’d burn you just to see what you’d do.

Everything about the profile felt… off. Intense. Like someone who didn’t belong in your filtered, polished digital world.

You should’ve blocked him. Or ignored it. Or at least Googled the name first. But your finger hovered.

You hesitated.

Then tapped Accept.

A second later, the message came through.

“Hey.”

That was it. No emoji. No awkward pick-up line. No “how’s your day?” Just one word. Direct. Confident.

You stared at it longer than you meant to.

Then your thumbs moved, almost on their own.

“Hey.”

You didn’t expect much. Not from someone with no bio, no mutual friends, no visible ties to your world. At most, you thought Ryomen might be a brief distraction. A few flirty texts, a momentary escape, something to fill the quiet space Gojo left behind.

But Sukuna, the name he told you he’d prefer to go by, was different.

He never flooded you with compliments or heart emojis. No love-bombing, no desperate attempts to impress. Instead, he was deliberate. Focused. He asked about your day, not just in the way people do to be polite, but like he actually wanted to know. He remembered the small things you didn’t even realize you were sharing.

Like how you always drank tea late at night, when the world was quiet and still.

Or how you hummed absentmindedly when you were working, your mind drifting into rhythm without you noticing.

Or how you absolutely couldn’t stand the sound of people chewing with their mouths open.

“You like that weird floral tea, right?” he asked one evening.

You blinked at the message, your fingers pausing mid-scroll. Your heart thudded.

“How’d you know that?”

His response came a second later.

“Just a guess,” he wrote. “You seem like the floral type.”

You stared at the screen. Smiled. Bit your lip. It was such a small thing. But it stuck with you. The way he noticed. The way he saw you.

Gojo, for all his charm, never paid attention like that. He used to wrinkle his nose when he caught a whiff of your tea. Called it “leaf water” and joked that it tasted like someone boiled a garden. You’d laugh it off, but some part of you always shrank under it, like your preferences were quirks he barely tolerated.

But Sukuna noticed. Remembered. Noticed without being prompted. And never made you feel ridiculous for it.

You started looking forward to his messages. His dry wit. His blunt honesty that somehow never came across as cold. He had a way of saying things that cut through the fluff without being cruel. And when you vented about your day, no matter how mundane, he always had the perfect one-liner to snap you out of your spiral. He never tried to fix things, he just listened. He got it.

He never overshared. Never really talked about himself. His replies, while thoughtful, kept a certain distance. You learned to read between the lines. A comment here, a half-joke there. You pieced together fragments like a puzzle: he didn’t sleep much, he preferred silence to noise, and he wasn’t particularly fond of people.

But you didn’t mind the mystery. You didn’t mind that you were the one talking more. Because with him, even silence felt like connection.

Your late-night chats became a ritual. Lying in bed in the dark, screen lighting up your face, his name at the top of your screen. A private thread of something intimate and unspoken. You caught yourself smiling at your phone more than you had in months, smiling without guilt, without trying to justify it.

It wasn’t just a distraction anymore. It felt like the beginning of something real. Something unexpected. Something dangerous, maybe, but real.

And somewhere in the back of your mind, a quiet voice whispered: Be careful.

But for now, you let yourself ignore it.

One night, tucked under your blankets with the blue glow of your phone illuminating the room, you found yourself sharing something you usually kept buried. An old college memory, the kind that still made you wince when you thought about it.

You typed slowly, unsure why you were even telling him.

“Okay, embarrassing story time. I once tripped during a group presentation and accidentally spilled my entire iced coffee on my professor’s laptop.”

You paused, then added:

“Right in front of thirty people. He had to cancel the class. The IT guy said the damage was ‘catastrophic.’”

It was the kind of thing Gojo had never let you live down. He’d teased you about it for weeks. Called it “the laptop massacre” like it was a moment of historical significance. You remembered the way he’d wheezed with laughter every time he brought it up. You’d roll your eyes, pretend it was annoying—but deep down, you’d laughed too. Back then, things were good. Back then, he was good.

The typing dots appeared instantly on Ryomen’s side.

“Ah yes. The laptop massacre. A classic.”

You stared at your screen.

Your breath caught.

No one else called it that.

Not your friends, not your classmates, not even you. That phrase, that specific phrasing, had belonged to one person.

Gojo.

You sat up, heart hammering, the phone suddenly heavy in your hand. Your room felt smaller. Stifling. Like the walls were inching closer with every breath.

You reread the message.

Nothing changed. The message was the same as it was when you first read it.

Your hands trembled.

Your mind raced through possibilities, desperate to rationalize.

Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe you mentioned that detail and forgot. Maybe he’s joking, just playing along.

But you knew better.

Ryomen wasn’t the type to “just play along.” He was precise. Every word he typed had weight.

And this? This wasn’t an accident.

You swallowed hard, fingers hovering above the keyboard, heart in your throat. The silence of your room roared louder than ever.

Then you typed:

“We need to meet. Tomorrow. Shibuya Crossing. 3 PM.”

There was no emoji. No hesitation. Just urgency. Raw and exposed.

You watched the screen, chest tight. The reply came almost immediately.

“Can’t wait.”

That was all.

You stared at the words for a long time, the weight of them pressing against your chest.

You’d spent weeks thinking this was something new. Something separate. But now, the threads tangled. Familiarity in the unfamiliar. Gojo’s voice in someone else’s mouth.

Was this a coincidence? A game? Or something far more deliberate?

You set your phone down and looked around your room. Everything was where it had always been, untouched and familiar. And yet, nothing felt the same anymore.

Tomorrow, you’d find out the truth.

One way or another.

The next day, Shibuya Crossing pulsed with its usual chaotic rhythm. Pedestrians surged in every direction, businessmen brushing past tourists, flashing lights bouncing off glass buildings, the sound of street performers lost beneath the mechanical voice of the crosswalk timer. The air smelled like asphalt, sweet crepes, and too many people in one place.

You stood near the Hachiko statue, fingers curled around your phone, thumb absently hovering over the screen. Your eyes scanned the crowd, tracing over every tall silhouette, every dark jacket, every pair of tattooed arms.

But he wasn’t there.

No shadowed eyes. No quiet menace. No Sukuna.

Your chest tightened. Maybe it had all been a joke. Or worse, maybe someone had been using you. Some anonymous stranger hiding behind intensity and pretty lies.

Then your phone buzzed in your hand. One word.

“Look.”

You turned.

And everything stopped. Gojo stood a few feet away.

He looked nothing like Ryomen. No tattoos, no curated shadows. Just him, messy white hair slightly flattened under the hood of a black sweatshirt, jaw unshaven, eye bags dark and heavy under those once bright eyes. His phone was still in his hand, screen lit with your message thread.

You stared at him like he was a ghost. No. Not a ghost. A lie, one that had taken on skin.

Your breath caught. Your lips parted. No sound came out.

His mouth moved first.

“I—”

“You,” you whispered. And then louder, voice sharp, cracking. “You absolute idiot!”

He flinched. The sound hit him like a slap.

“I can explain,” he said quickly, words tumbling. There was no grin. No sarcasm. Just a man unraveling in real time, stripped of the charm he always used as armor.

“Explain what, Gojo?” Your voice shook, but it didn’t break. “That you catfished me? Pretended to be Sukuna? Used some stranger’s face like a costume?”

The betrayal burned. It wasn’t just anger. It was humiliation. You’d opened up. You’d trusted. And he’d been behind the mask the whole time.

He rubbed his face, fingers pressed hard into his temples. “I know. I know. It’s insane. I messed up. I messed up bad.”

He looked up, and in that moment, he didn’t look like the strongest sorcerer in the world. He looked tired. Small. Wrecked.

“I missed you,” he said quietly. “But I knew you wouldn’t answer if it was me. I figured… maybe if I was someone else. Someone you’d actually want.”

“You used Sukuna’s face.”

He winced. “I found those photos on some old forum. They were just anonymous images, no name. I didn’t know he was some guy you’d… get attached to. I just thought… he looked like the kind of man you might choose. Someone more grounded. More serious. Less… me.”

You stared at him.

“All that time,” you murmured. “The conversations. The way you listened. Remembered the smallest things. That was you?”

He nodded, ashamed. “Yeah. Every bit of it. I didn’t make any of that up. I just, tried to show up as the person I should’ve been when I had the chance.”

Silence fell between you. Around you, the crossing lights changed again. The city pulsed on. But for a moment, it was like everything had narrowed down to just this: you, and him, and the enormous, stupid lie he’d wrapped in longing.

You crossed your arms, staring hard. “You’re such a disaster.”

“I know,” he said, eyes holding yours, vulnerable. “But I’m your disaster. Or… I want to be. Again.”

It wasn’t just his words. It was how he looked at you. Not with cocky expectation, but with something raw. Something real. Like he was afraid to hope, but doing it anyway.

You exhaled, your breath fogging faintly in the air. The betrayal still stung. But behind it, under it, was something else.

The way he’d remembered your tea. The way he’d listened when no one else had. The quiet patience in those late-night messages.

And now, here he was. Not behind a screen. Not behind a mask. Just Gojo.

A laugh escaped you, bitter, involuntary. “You’re lucky you’re pretty.”

He blinked, then let out a soft, relieved breath. “So… you’re not leaving?”

You paused.

“Not today,” you sighed.

His shoulders dropped, the tension leaking from him all at once like a balloon with a pinprick. He didn’t move closer. Didn’t reach for you. Just stood there, hands loose at his sides, letting you set the distance.

Then, gently: “What do you want, Gojo?”

He stepped forward a fraction. “You. Us. A do-over. No tricks this time. No masks. Just me, mess and all.”

You looked at him. At his chapped lips. His shaking hands. The desperation softening into something quieter. Braver.

“I can’t promise I won’t screw up again,” he said, voice rough. “But I can promise I’ll never forget your tea. Or your stories. Or the way you hum when you’re deep in thought.”

You swallowed hard.

“This is going to take time.”

“I’ll wait,” he said immediately. “I don’t care how long.”

You looked around, at the endless waves of people brushing past, the shimmer of traffic lights on wet pavement, the world rushing by like it always had. But somehow, here in the noise, you felt a stillness. A flicker of something fragile and real.

“Alright,” you said. “Let’s talk. Properly. Just us. No personas. No pretending.”

His face cracked open into a smile, relieved, warm, and just a little shy. “Thank you,” he whispered.

He didn’t reach for your hand. Didn’t pull you into a hug. He just stood beside you, close enough to feel, far enough to be careful.

And maybe, just maybe, the worst idea he’d ever had was also the one that finally made him human.

And gave you both the start you’d never had the first time.

dividers by @/dollywons <3

#fic recs #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #gojo jjk #satoru gojo jjk #satoru gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader

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gojosperms · 9 days ago

Text

tags: 18+, suggestive, college setting, reader is mean and a little entitled, gojo is a freak (duh)

you and college rival!satoru cannot stand each other.

your majors are similar so you take a bunch of classes together. satoru thinks you’re insufferable because of how ‘holier than thou’ you are. You’re a perfectionist, as type A as can be. A part of him feels shitty when he hears you scoff in disgust when he flirts with a girl during class, like you were somehow better than him because you didn’t sleep around.

he relishes in your grumbles when you hear he scores just as well as you do on exams. Even making a show of letting everyone know that he didn’t even study and showed up thirty minutes late just to piss you off.

you hate how laid back he is, a textbook rich kid, and that stupid smirk that never leaves his face as he chatters and flirts his way through classes, still answering the professor’s surprise questions perfectly on the fly. It’s pathetic but sometimes you pray he gets it wrong, so the suave smart guy facade can shatter to pieces and every girl in class could stop acting like he was a god. You think he can tell, because sometimes he turns to you with that infuriating smirk and winks.

sometimes you see him in the library while you mull over flashcards, you think he does it on purpose when he sits near you, with a girl on his arm who he makes out with, as loudly as can be. It drives you insane listening to the damn near pornographic noises they make and no one ever seems to mind. Or more the library is practically empty during this time of day.

you want to get up and leave but leaving feels like defeat, feels like another 95.3 to his 97, despite the fact that he was practically dozing off the entire exam. Your cheeks might be heating from embarrassment and none of the words on your flashcards internalized, but you weren’t leaving, you wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

when you spare him a glance he’s already looking at you, lips latched onto the girl's neck, his eyes a mix of amusement and darkness, daring you to look away. And you can’t, you just stare, your breathing growing heavier as you can slightly hear the girl’s small pleased pants. A part of you feels disgusted, of course, you’re in the fucking library for god’s sake.

but another part, a part you want to ignore so badly, is squeezing your thighs together as you watch him peel those irresistible lips from the girl’s neck and see his pink tongue lick at the bruised skin there. You force yourself to look away, to look down at the flashcards in your shaky hands. You can hear satoru chuckle and you crumple the card in your hand, gathering your things and leaving with a grumble.

you’re not proud of it, but when you go back to your dorm you’re tossing and turning in your bed, struggling to fall asleep. You lay on your back and stare up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the ache between your legs, trying to ignore the fact that rubbing one out is the only way you’ll be able to fall asleep.

and so you do, rubbing fingers against your clit to a quick finish, trying to convince yourself you weren’t seeing satoru’s tempting blue eyes and pink lips in your mind as you allowed yourself a single moan, clutching your sheets.

𖤐

the next day you plan to avoid him, ignore his smug glances and irritating presence. But that quickly proves difficult. Because the professor announces a group project, and you two are in the same group.

“this’ll be fun.” gojo muses to the group, and they all respond with equally enthusiastic responses. Only you know that it was meant to be mocking as he smiled at you all nice-like. What a fucking snake. You didn’t think it was possible for you to hate anyone more.

a few days pass just like that, you’re sick of everything and need a release. So you don’t protest when your friends drag you to a house party on the weekend. You kind of needed this, needed to simultaneously reward yourself and let loose.

you’re two shots in you when you see him, dancing with a girl, a different one of course. You scoffed into your solo cup, shaking your head at his theatrics and attempts at getting into the poor girl’s pants. So fucking pathetic.

satoru could see you, of course he could. You couldn’t make your distaste for him more obvious if you were holding a speakerphone and booing. He hated how gorgeous you were, it wasn’t fair. Hated how he pretended he wasn’t attracted to you. He couldn’t be attracted to someone so snobby. You got on his nerves that’s all, so intent on his downfall, despite the fact that he didn’t think he’d ever done anything to you personally.

maybe he was drunk, he thought, smiling back down at the pretty girl latched around him. He’d had a few drinks after all. He didn’t think of you at all, it was just the alcohol talking. He didn’t get a little hard when you glared at him in disgust whenever your eyes met, didn’t fuck his fist to the thought of you sometimes, didn’t imagine that face when he was balls deep in other girls. Hell no.

he doesn’t even realize he’s walking towards you till he can see that pretty face in detail and watch your relaxed expression quickly harden as you meet his eyes. “What the hell do you want, satoru?”

“i dunno you looked a little lonely standing here.” he muses with a smirk. You don’t even grace him with a response, pushing past him and walking towards the hallway. He follows you eagerly, a little too excited at the idea of annoying you.

you make your way into a room and jump a little when you see satoru behind you, “don’t you have a girl to fuck?”

“yeah, and what are you gonna do, sit here and read?” he took a few steps towards you, “you’re at a party and still manage to act so superior.”

you roll your eyes, “oh please, who followed who? I’m sorry you can’t help but think the world revolves around you.”

he lets out a chuckle, “i could feel your glare across the room. You find me so disgusting, huh?” he relished the scoff that you let out, a sign he had the upper hand, “like you weren’t absolutely creaming your pants that day at the library.” he took another step, smiling down at you.

if looks could kill, he’d be dead and buried. Your eyes were practically aflame and he couldn’t be any fucking harder. “I’d never fuck or fantasize about a loose slut like you.”

he knew he should have been pissed, but he was so turned on that his cock hurt. “You probably went home and fucked yourself like one thinking about me—” his words were cut short by a sharp slap, a hard one as he felt the sting and redness blooming in his wake.

the two of you stare at each other, wide eyed in momentary silence, before you practically concuss one other with the quickness that your lips join together.

#fic recs #jjk x reader #satoru gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojo x y/n #gojo smut #gojo x reader #gojou satoru x reader #jujustsu kaisen x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you

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gojosperms · 11 days ago

Text

a/n: alexa play 'desi girl' (ft. satoru finding his name in your mehndi) lowkey think that i like the suguru one more LOL

there's music playing in the background, almost muffled by the excited chatter of friends and family invited to your most special day. but if gojo's being honest, he can't hear the music or chatter, solely entranced by you. you and him in your own little bubble of happiness.

his hands cradle yours tenderly yet firmly, your knuckles brushing against his palms. you expect his eyes to be scrutinising the brown stain, intricate and beautiful, but when your gaze flickers to his face he's staring at you with a lovesick grin.

“satoru, you're not even looking,” you laugh.

“oh, i am. and i'm thoroughly enjoying the view.” he winks. you roll your eyes playfully.

“you're so goofy.”

“mhm, but i'm your goofy husband now, mrs gojo,” he smirks, but it soon melts back into a loving smile. it almost hurts his heart, in the most euphoric way possible, to look at you, adorned in deep red and gold. his wife.

“hey, don't try to weasel your way out of this by talking sweet like that.”

“i'm not trying to weasel out of anything. am i the bad guy for wanting to stare at my stunning wife?” he emphasises the last word on purpose, savouring the way it rolls off his tongue so beautifully.

you huff, beginning to slide your hands out of his but he quickly grasps them again, his thumbs circling your palms.

“ah, you don't need to let go. fineee, i'll take a looksie.”

he spares one more glance at your features before his eyes trail down to your hands painted delicately with mehndi, to find his name embedded into it.

it's hidden on your wedding ring finger. he already knows it. he found it about ten minutes ago before his eyes had wandered to your face. but he doesn't say anything, not wanting to let go of your hands yet as his thumbs continue to caress your palms.

as he pretends to continue to look for it, he speaks up softly, “your grandmother told me about that myth - that the darker the stain of your mehndi, the more your husband loves you. and it's no surprise that yours is so dark,” he smirks playfully, eyes briefly meeting yours.

a soft smile decorates your lips, and his heart skips a beat. “in that case, i never want it to fade.”

“i'll make sure it never does,” he whispers, bringing your hand up to his lips and he kisses the spot where his thumb once was. and his thumb moves to hover over his engraved name.

you notice where his thumb drifts and raise an eyebrow at him. “you saw it this whole time, didn't you?”

he grins cheekily, crinkled eyes marrying yours, such devotion and admiration shimmering in his. “yeah,” he admits quietly, “i just didn't wanna let go.”

his lips travel up from your palm to the gold ring sitting prettily on your finger, a diamond nestled in the middle so luminous, yet his eyes still put it to shame.

“am i the pope? kissing my ring like that,” you giggle teasingly. but your eyes are warm and affectionate as you watch him.

“chup, and let me love on my wife.”

#fic recs #gojo satoru #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #gojo x reader #jjk fluff #gojo fluff #jjk fic #gojo fic

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gojosperms · 11 days ago

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୨୧﹕fem!reader, riding cloud strife

cloud’s hands are fisted in the sheets like he’s trying to tether himself to reality.

he’s flat on his back—gorgeous even like this, flushed and helpless, golden bangs stuck to his forehead with sweat, glossy lips parted around soft, desperate whimpers. you’re straddling his hips, dripping wet, riding him with that mean, devastating rhythm, slamming down on his cock over and over again while his brain short-circuits under you.

“f-fuck—s–slow down,” he gasps, voice high and cracking, his eyes wide and dazed. “you’re—too much—fuck, you’re so tight—”

you don’t slow down. you grin.

“can’t handle me, soldier?” you purr, dragging your nails down his chest. his abs flex under your touch, thighs twitching as you roll your hips down and grind, letting his cock drag along every inch of your walls. he whimpers again, biting his lip, chest heaving.

god, he’s so fucked. red in the face, pupils blown, every part of him tensed like he’s either gonna come or cry.

“you’re gonna cum again, aren’t you?” you whisper, leaning down, kissing just under his ear. “just from me riding you. like a good little—”

he growls.

and then he snaps.

in one brutal, fluid motion, cloud sits up—arms locking around your waist, face buried in your throat—and slams his hips up into you, hard enough to knock the air from your lungs.

“ah—cloud—!”

“oh, now you’re whining?” he snarls, voice suddenly dark, thick with frustration and heat. “you wanna ride me like a fucking brat, huh? bounce up and down like you own it?”

he fucks up into you again—harder—deeper, and your whole body jolts. his grip on your waist is bruising now, holding you in place while he pistons his cock into you from below, the mattress shaking with every punishing thrust.

you’re not riding him anymore. he’s using you.

“feel that?” he hisses, forehead pressed to yours, sweat dripping from his temple. “that’s mine.”

you try to speak—try to moan, cry, something—but it’s all just broken gasps now. you’re drooling, eyes rolled back, clinging to his shoulders like you’ll fall apart if he stops.

“thought you were cocky,” he pants, slamming into you again, harder. “thought you could fuck me into the mattress? now look at you—fucking ruined.”

your orgasm hits like an explosion, pussy clenching around him so tight he grits his teeth and groans, fucking you through it with ragged, desperate thrusts, chasing his own release now. your body trembles in his arms, twitching, overstimulated, drooling and moaning as he fills you, hot cum spilling deep inside, his breath catching in your ear like a curse.

you go limp in his lap.

and cloud, flushed and panting, still pulsing inside you, just grins.

“…don’t ever try that shit again.”

#fic recs #final fantasy 7 #final fantasy vii #final fantasy imagine #final fantasy series #ff7 #ffseven #ffvii #cloud strife

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gojosperms · 11 days ago

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something, somehow, someday

series masterlist

series summary: you know you will love satoru for the rest of your life, but when you wake with his cursed energy in your navel there is no option but to flee. what future is there for a child of a god? at 18 satoru is without you, and you make off with a piece of him you hoped he'd never meet.

pairing: secret baby daddy!gojo x reader

tags: secret child trope, angst (lots), eventual fluff, eventual smut, hurt/comfort

18+! minors dni <3

~~~~~~~

prologue: aurora borealis

chapter 1: your takara

chapter 2: tba!

~~~~~~~

let me know if you'd like to be tagged :3<3

#fic recs #tbc #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru #jjk x reader #gojo smut #satoru gojo x reader #gojo x you #jjk #satoru x you

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gojosperms · 11 days ago

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around the clock pt2 teaser (gojo x reader)

a/n. twas bored so here’s an atc pt2 teaser 🫶🏼

It’s been two hours of anxious pacing. Two hours, a glance at the clock telling you it’s close to two-twelve in the ante meridiem, the sun having long set seven hours prior and you're sleepy because your usual bedtime when you’re at university is closer to nine.

With your nail between your teeth, you gingerly chew on it, walking back and forth between the mirror posted to your bedroom wall all the way to the window on the other side of your room.

In one of your laps, you pause to eye yourself in front of your mirror. You tug at the short hem of your sheer flowy dress, something that’s close to lingerie but you could also wear it to a bachelorette party in Vegas depending on the occasion. You wonder if it’s too much. Too sheer. Too…romantic?

The string lights were somewhere in the middle. Those warm, glowing ones that you’ve turned on that hang above your bed, because you want there to be enough lighting to see what he’ll do to you but you don’t want so much to where you’re under inspection by those beautiful eyes of his. Also, you look pretty damn hot under dim warm lighting.

The sheets were neatly made, your gigantic Costco teddy bear stashed off to the corner of the room somewhere, and the rest of it all was tidy. You tidied up for this. Why? And why were you so nervous? And, again, was this dress-slash-lingerie too romantic? And was the candle you lit at the bedside table also too romantic?

Oh goddd of course it was. You rush over to it and pick it up, blow it out like it’s the opposite of your birthday, and then shove it back into the drawer somewhere, the scent of ashy smoke tickling at your nose.

It wasn’t your idea. It was Gojo’s. He said something about how he could never fully focus on the sex when he was taking you against some corner of the house because he was always worried your mom was gonna pop out of nowhere and catch the two of you fucking. Like with each time he came inside of you, he was being conditioned like a dog to only nut when he has the feeling of fear in his veins. His words, not yours. And so he suggested: Why not at night? Just sneak me in.

It was hot. The idea of sneaking a dude inside the house. The windows set off the alarm, so you learned how to turn it off both on your mom’s phone and also at the windows without her noticing. Maybe you had the skills to run a heist of sorts, with the way you’ve thought this whole thing through.

And honestly, the idea of him in your bed was, well, kind of a silly one at first because it’s a very effeminate bed to picture a grown ass man to be in first of all, but also nice, because you’re so used to the two of you having sex standing up or on surfaces close to the nearest closet or exit such that if your mom unexpectedly came home, there was an easy escape plan. There was no easy escape plan for Gojo if the two of you were to get caught in your room, other than perhaps jump off the roof and risk breaking an ankle.

But, still, you said yes. Yes to the idea of sneaking him in at night.

Problem was, it’s been about a month since he’s seen you. You couldn’t really visit often since you had finals last week, but now you’re home for spring break and that meant a lot more time on your hands than you knew what to do with. A sentiment you shared with Gojo, to which he responded with, just do me?

Everytime you came home and saw him, it felt brand new all over again. Which was an exciting feeling for your girl down south, but not so great for your brain. Because every time you saw him after a long break of being away at some far, far away land (college), it felt like he was a stranger all over again. And you didn’t know how to act in front of him. Second-guessing things like candles and string lights and vanilla perfume and–okay, the more you look in the mirror, the more it just looks like romantic lingerie.

You take a few deep breaths to calm your nerves, and the universe couldn’t even afford that for you, because you hear scattered pounding noises at your window, which entirely startles you. You rush over to your window and open the blinds, just to jolt when the sight of a small pebble thwacks at the glass that would otherwise have hit you right between your eyes if not for the protection.

You see Gojo standing on the lawn of your house at the dead of night, only barely illuminated by the front door light of your house, and his lengthy shadow is casted across the driveway. He’s holding some loose pebbles in his hand, of which he stole from the garden clearly, and has his other hand shoved in the pocket of his gray sweatpants. He looks as he always does. Casually gorgeous. Like it took him ten minutes to get ready and look like that while you were fussing with your hair for the better part of the past couple hours just to get it to sit right.

You open the window by pushing it to the side, not without struggle due to how ungreased the panes were, and then lean over it to shoot a death glare at him. “Pebbles?? Really?? You’re throwing pebbles at my window??” you whisper-hiss at him.

He raises an arm up into the sky lazily. “Cinderella! Let down your hair,” he whisper-shouts.

“It’s Rapunzel, you idiot.”

“Oh. Well, will ya let me in?”

You glance off into the neighborhood, the darkness you find being unsettling. It was also eerily quiet, which the neighborhood always was at night to be fair, but tonight, the silence felt unwelcomed.

You glance down at Gojo, who has now abandoned the rocks off to the grassy part of the lawn and is looking up at you with hopeful eyes.

“Not through the front door,” you whisper, “that’s risky. Climb up here.”

He shrugs. “Okay.”

You watch his form disappear somewhere underneath the roof towards the garage door, and then next thing you know, he’s climbed up onto the wood paneling to then make it towards your window.

You step aside so he can squeeze through the barely sufficient amount of opening you’ve cracked open for him, ducking his head wildly under too because he was too big in general for most regular-human-sized things, and then he was standing in your room, visualized only by the warm string light lighting, and he dusts his hands off as he looks around the room.

“Damn, place looks nice,” he comments with a small huff as he catches his breath and dusts his hands off, then he turns to look at you, dragging his gaze downwards in a way that has your cheeks searing, “and you look really hot.”

“Thanks,” is all you can think to say before he grins and walks up to you, towering over you and there those nerves are again as his hands hold you by the waist and he pulls you towards him to kiss you, wasting no time at all in sliding his hands up to wrap your ribcage and prod his thumbs against the softness of your breasts through sheer fabric. You stand stiff, your arms only raising up slightly to make room for his hands with no contact, and then you gently push him away, breaking the kiss.

“I’m worried about getting caught,” you tell him candidly, placing both palms on his chest, warm through the soft cotton of his black t-shirt.

His hands slide down to hold your waist again. “What?”

“I dunno. Like, what if my mom heard you outside the house just now. Or if Yuuji can sense your presence.”

He snorts. “What, like a dog? I mean, he’s not far off from one.”

You glare at him and then pull his hands off of you before crossing the room over to the door, checking for the umpteenth time that you put the door stopper underneath it as your own version of a lock, since the actual door didn’t have one. You hear Gojo sigh behind you, and when you turn around, he’s pacing around the room now.

“Being in here’s a lot different at 2am than it is at 2pm,” he comments at the foot of the bed before continuing his leisure stroll.

“You go inside my room when you’re babysitting??” you ask.

He shrugs. “‘Course I do. You look cute in your yearbook, by the way. Nice braces.”

Heat spreads to your cheeks. “I can’t believe you, trespassing on my private property.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve never stolen any of your panties.”

“I wasn’t even worried about that.”

He stops by the foot of the bed again. “Oh. Well, in case, in the future someday, you do worry about it, then just don’t.”

He puts his hands in his pockets again and stares at you from across the room. He looks ethereal almost, with the backdrop of subtly moving lighting behind him across the wall, and you could say there was a hint of longing in his eyes with the way he was looking at you.

He jerks his head towards the surface of the bed. “C’mere.”

You shake your head slightly.

He finally crosses the room and stands in front of you, so close that you feel the warmth from him, and you look up at him with a beating heart. “It’s just me,” he says, and he takes your hand in his before placing your palm flat to his chest, “See? Just me. You remember me, don’t you?”

You melt, releasing the stiff breath you were holding in, and your arms slide past his shoulders, linking behind his neck as you pull him down to kiss you, feeling him smile against your lips as he holds you to him. He smells clean, of shampoo, like he just took a shower before coming here, and when you run your hand through the hair at the back of his head, you notice it was still a little damp.

He lifts you up suddenly by his palms under your ass, and you loosely wrap your legs around him as he carries you over to your bed, then drops you down onto it, from enough of a height where you bounce up and down a little with the springs, and suddenly he’s all you can see as he hovers over you in dim lighting.

“Um,” you squeak out when he kisses under your jaw, your hand curling to hold his shoulder as he trails his lips down your neck. “My bed is squeaky in some places, so, um, sorry. Might have to avoid those spots.”

He withdraws his lips from your skin to look at you, raises an eyebrow, then says, “you think of all the things I’d give a fuck about right now with you half naked underneath me, that it’d be a squeaking bed?”

You let out a huff of air. “It’s so that we’re quiet. So that my mom doesn’t hear.”

“Again,” he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek as his hand snakes up the flimsy fabric of your dress, his eye watching the way you’re already shivering to his touch, “not exactly my biggest worry right now.”

[end of teaser]

i love boxer gojo

#fic recs #gojo x reader #gojo x reader smut #gojo satoru #jujutsu kaisen #fanfiction #jjk x reader #jjk smut #jjk

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gojosperms · 13 days ago

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ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ in which ceo!gojo satoru came to a conclusion that you like him because one: you came to work on valentines day (to see him?) and two: you gave him chocolates (girls give chocolate to their crushes so...).

you were growing old. not that old because you were only pushing your late 20s.

but you were growing old for love.

it doesn't look like it but you had a whole plan for the future. getting married at the age of 26. build a home with a fence and a dog. start to have kids at the age of 28. and living happily ever after with your dear family.

but how old are you now? 29.

you told your self that it's fine. that love should not be rush. having a family should not be in a rush. the right time will come eventually.

but when exactly? you're getting anxious for waiting for that miracle to happen.

it's probably your job that's holding you down, it might have been hindering you to meet your prince charming. but thinking back... there were only a few guys who actually confessed that they like you.

but you didn't like any of them so you rejected all of them.

god, you wished you gave them a second thought. you didn't get the chance to date with someone because you were preparing to enter your professional job. and look where it brought you to?

“no boyfriend,” you palmed your face with your elbows on your desk. “is this karma for rejecting everyone?”

you shake your head. “i'm jealous. they're all gone to celebrate valentines day while i—”

you peek at the bright screen of your computer.

“...stayed for a job.” you groaned.

worst of all, you actually like your job. and you thought it was so nerdy of you to spend valentines day for this job.

“it's fine, i'll get the paycheck for today anyway.” you nod, feeling convinced with that reason.

“mh? oh, you're here?”

you lowered your hands to look at the person on your side. and here you thought there was another employee in the office besides you. turns out it was the ceo, sir gojo.

though he always tells us to just call him gojo because quoted "his father is also sir gojo". the other employees would just shrug it off playfully and continued to call him sir gojo.

you nod at him. “good morning, sir.”

he raised a brow and darted his eyes on the screen of my computer. i followed to look at it as well.

“you're not celebrating valentines? thought i chatted on the group chat that everyone is feel free to have the leave today?”

you nod again. “yes, sir. you also sent a message that if anyone is free for today, they're free to go to work.”

sir gojo:

happy valentines, everyone! since it's the day of hearts, i'll be treating your hearts well and announce that everyone can take a leave from work today!

aren't i the bestest of the best boss all of you have? 😎

everyone can go back to work of the 15th of february. just don't forget to bring chocolates for me!!

but if you want to be miserable, feel free to go to work 😟 you'll get an extra pay for helping out on valentines, though 💰

so choose! chocolates or paychecks 🤑

your peer employers reacted a laughing emoji and some thanks him. you got a feeling that some people took this as a sign to sleep all day and probably not celeberate valentines.

you couldn've done that as well. but you were just gonna be depressed in your bed so instead of that... you got up and went to work.

...when you suddenly feel his eyes on you. you took a peek, not moving your head, to look at him. and his face shows he was actually shock to me being here.

i took my bag and start rummaging for something.

“i did but woah... someone actually came? and it's you, miss y/n?”

“it's all good. i was in the mood for a productive day anyway.”

“don't you have... you know,” he shrugs. “a special someone to spend valentines?”

you mirrored his action. “don't have one. kept wishing on it though.” you let out an airy laugh.

you pulled out a small bag of chocolates and handed it out to sir gojo. he looks at it and his eyes slowly widens.

“happy valentines day, sir gojo.” you smiled politely at him.

his lips parted. “oh shit... do you like me?”

you blinked.

“do you wanna have a date today?" he added.

“i'm sorry, what?”

masterlist ♡

credits to @anitalenia for the wonderful divider ♡

#fic recs #gojo satoru #gojo #satoru #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojo satoru x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk x y/n

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gojosperms · 15 days ago

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remember when?

pairing — satoru gojo x reader

synopsis — while cleaning the attic, you stumble across photos of your husband from his school days.

wc — 5.2k

warnings — mentions of scars (au where satoru survives shinjuku showdown), angst but in the yearning way, so much fluff, husbandjo, domesticity, not proofread! i also made hc's behind some of the photos hehe

author's note — the new illustrations from the jjk movie completely broke me :( so i had to whip up a little something from the jjk fold of my brain.

It was just some random Tuesday, and your husband Satoru wasn’t due home until after six — something about looking over a pile of reports on rising cursed energy in the Kanto region. Even with Sukuna gone, chaos liked to linger.

The thought alone makes your stomach twist, like it always does when your mind drifts back to that winter two years ago. The Shinjuku showdown. You’d been convinced you’d lost him — his cursed energy disappeared, his body literally split in two. The moment still plays in your nightmares: the blood, the silence, your own voice screaming. You remember clutching his hand — or what was left of it — while Shoko fought to bring him back. And somehow, impossibly, she did.

He survived. Scarred, different, quieter in ways only you can read — but alive.

Sometimes you still wake up and run your fingers across the long scar that traces the soft skin of his abdomen, as if to confirm he’s really still here.

After that day, everything shifted. You left your role as a teacher at Jujutsu Tech — too much pain, too many memories, and honestly, too much peace. Not many cursed spirits dared show their faces anymore. These days, you exorcise a lingering curse here or there, but mostly? You spend your time being what Gojo Satoru once joked about during a late night walk back when you were still just colleagues: a housewife. A relaxed one at that — sans the apron clichés.

And truthfully? You don’t hate it.

Your house — the one Satoru picked out, of course — is enormous. It sits just outside of Tokyo, nestled high enough to offer sweeping views of the city skyline on one side and forested hills on the other. Wide windows. Sun-drenched walls. Room for both quiet and chaos. "A house that can hold all of our egos," he’d grinned when you moved in, but when he saw you spinning barefoot in the sunlit kitchen, he’d gone quiet. You’d looked over and seen it in his face: this is home.

You decide to clean the attic today. Partly because it’s been ages, partly because the place is a mess of dusty boxes and half-forgotten memories, and partly because you just want to surprise Satoru with something useful. Maybe you’ll find that old vinyl player he swears he didn’t lose.

You spend a solid hour sorting through stacks of cardboard — some labeled with scrawled handwriting (Nanami’s, definitely), others with faded Jujutsu Tech stickers. There’s a whole box of broken sunglasses you recognize immediately. Another of loose-grade mission reports that probably should’ve been shredded, like, a decade ago. You toss what you can into piles — keep, ask Satoru, burn before someone finds it — and you’re wiping sweat off your brow when you find it.

It's in a box labeled “JJT archives”, a thick, heavy book tucked beneath a pile of old uniforms and loose cursed tools wrapped in cloth. The cover is cracked leather, and there’s a faint, almost unreadable embossing on the spine.

It’s not labeled.

Curious, you tug it out, brush the dust from its cover, and flip it open.

Instantly, you realize what it is.

Photos. Dozens of them. Smiling, chaotic, deeply youthful energy practically radiating off the pages. Gojo Satoru. Geto Suguru. Shoko Ieiri. Haibara Yu. Kento Nanami. Their classmates, their mentors, the Tokyo branch in all its raw, messy, golden-era glory.

You blink, and your throat tightens. There’s a warmth in your chest — fond and aching all at once.

You close the book gently, your fingertips resting on the worn leather for a moment longer. This isn’t something you want to rush through alone.

You set it aside carefully, ready to go through it together when he gets home.

He always said he wanted to show you what he was like back then.

–

The front door clicks open at exactly 6:14 p.m.

You hear the familiar jangle of keys, the rustle of his coat as it hits the entryway hook, and then—

“Honeyyyyy,” Satoru’s voice calls out in that signature sing-song tone, the one you always say makes him sound like a bored housewife in a drama. “I’m hooooome and emotionally exhausted!”

You can’t help the smile that breaks over your face. “Kitchen,” you call back.

A beat later, you hear his footsteps pad across the wooden floor — not quite heavy, but still loud enough to announce his presence. He never really learned how to walk quietly. Maybe he just doesn’t want to.

He leans into the doorway like he’s posing for a magazine shoot, white hair tousled from the wind, shirt wrinkled from too many hours slouched at a desk. His jacket’s half-off one shoulder, and his blindfold’s gone — replaced by tinted glasses that slide slightly down his nose as he tilts his head at you.

“Whoa,” he says, deadpan. “Who’s that absolute beauty in my kitchen?”

You snort, stirring the sauce on the stove. “She’s married.”

“Lucky bastard,” he murmurs, crossing the room and slipping his arms around your waist from behind.

His body is warm — always — and it fits against yours like muscle memory. You feel the hard line of his chest, the loose way he rests his chin on your shoulder, the way his breath ghosts against your neck when he exhales like he’s finally safe again.

“Hey,” he says more quietly this time. “Missed you.”

“I saw you this morning.”

“Yeah,” he hums, lips brushing the shell of your ear, “but that was twelve hours ago and I almost died again from boredom.”

You turn around and press a soft kiss to the spot just below his jaw. “You hungry?”

“Starving. For food and love. In that order, but barely.”

You flick his forehead and he pouts, but he lets go so you can plate the food.

Dinner is nothing fancy — rice, grilled fish, the sauce you were working on, a couple of side dishes you whipped up out of boredom. But Satoru reacts like you’ve served him a five-star meal, moaning dramatically with every bite.

“My beautiful, talented wife,” he groans, flopping sideways in his chair like he’s been slain by deliciousness. “You’re always spoiling me.”

“You spoil yourself,” you mutter, pouring him tea with the practiced grace of someone who’s done this a hundred times. “I saw your UberEats bill last week.”

“Hey,” he says, mouth still full of rice, “those were all emotionally necessary. There was a lot of paperwork. Such labor requires tiramisu.”

“Three separate orders in one day?”

“They were from different places. Variety is key to mental wellness.”

You shoot him a flat look as you sit back down. “Pretty sure buying four desserts doesn’t count as a balanced diet.”

“I got one of them for you.”

“No, you got it for you and said, ‘you can have half if you want.’”

“And you didn’t want it,” he points out smugly. “Which means it became mine by universal law.”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. You always sit across from him — it’s become a quiet habit over time, a way to read his expressions even when he’s being dramatic. Like now, when he’s chewing with exaggerated slowness, eyes half-lidded like he’s in some kind of blissful trance.

Sometimes he nudges your foot under the table, tapping his toes against yours like a child trying to get attention without using words.

Other times, like tonight, you catch him staring mid-bite — not in a silly way, but in that strange, still quietness he gets sometimes. Like he’s memorizing you. Like there’s a part of him that still can’t believe this is his life now: a warm dinner, soft light, your voice in the kitchen, no curses waiting around the corner.

“What?” you ask, raising an eyebrow as you set down your chopsticks.

“Hmm?” He blinks, then smiles, and it’s all teeth and softness. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

He kicks your shin lightly under the table. “Thinking about how I tricked the prettiest person in the world into marrying me.”

You scoff. “Yeah, still trying to figure that out myself.”

“Oh come on,” he groans, laughing, “at least let me pretend I’m a catch.”

“You are a catch,” you say, voice softer now, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “Just… a really expensive one with terrible food delivery habits. And you hog the bathroom a lot.”

He grins and laces his fingers with yours. “I’ll take it.”

After dinner, he insists on helping with the cleanup, which mostly means he dries dishes while doing an elaborate stand-up routine with a tea towel slung over his shoulder like a bartender. You’re halfway through rinsing a plate when you feel a cold splash hit your back.

You pause. Slowly turn.

He’s holding the sink hose, blinking innocently.

“…Did you just—?”

“Oh my god,” he gasps, “did someone get wet? That must’ve been a malfunction. Tragic, really.”

You squirt him back instantly. He lets out a squawk like a wet cat, and before long, the floor is a mess, one of you is definitely going to slip and die, and he’s trying to use his body as a shield while cackling like a maniac.

“I live with you,” you mutter, wiping water off your face.

“And what a gift that is,” he says grandly, leaning in to kiss your damp cheek, water droplets still clinging to his ivory eyelashes. “Totally worth the near-death experience.”

You shake your head, but let the moment linger, let him hold you there by the sink, his lips brushing against yours like a silent thanks.

Eventually, he drags you to the bathroom.

The shower is big — another Gojo-specific choice when you built the house. He said he needed “space to dance dramatically during hair-washing.” You hadn’t realized he meant it literally until you walked in one day to find him swaying under the water, humming some ballad with shampoo running down his face.

Tonight, though, it’s quiet.

You both strip down without fanfare. He steps in first, holding out a hand like a gentleman even though he’s already dripping wet. The steam fills the air as you join him, the water warm and soft as it runs over your skin.

You wash his hair, carefully, gently, nails scraping his scalp in slow circles. His eyes are closed the whole time, a rare expression of serenity on his face.

Next up is washing his body — an act you love a bit too much.

His hands are by his sides, water cascading down the large expanse of sinewed muscle and scarred skin. There's a glimpse of a jagged scar that runs diagonally across his collarbone — one of the many pale remnants of the battle that nearly ended everything.

Your fingers brush against it absently, and Satoru doesn’t flinch.

He never hides them anymore — the scars. They scatter across his body now: fine lines, brutal gashes, faded burns. A slash across his abdomen from where Sukuna’s curse split him in two. A jagged cut down his spine that he jokes looks like a zipper. An old puncture near his hip that Shoko sewed shut with her own hands, mumbling curses the whole time.

You’ve memorized each one. Some days you trace them like constellations. Some days he lets you.

He doesn’t talk, not much. Just stands there and lets you take care of him.

Later, he returns the favor — fingers combing through your hair, rinsing soap from your back, holding you steady with his large hands reverently roving across your body when you lean into him just a little too much.

When you’re both towelled off and dressed in pajamas (his: old Jujutsu Tech sweats and a faded tee; yours: one of his shirts and soft shorts), you crawl into bed.

He flops down beside you with a dramatic sigh, limbs sprawling everywhere. You make a sound of protest when his knee knocks into yours, and he just grins at you lazily.

“Can we watch that dumb baking show?” he asks, already pulling the blanket over the two of you.

“The one where they all sabotage each other?”

“Yes. It’s healing. Sorry that I said it was boring before.”

You roll your eyes but grab the remote anyway.

He shifts closer as the episode starts, arm sliding under your neck to pull you in. Your head rests against his chest, and you listen to the steady thrum of his heart, strong and sure beneath old wounds.

“Comfy?” he murmurs.

“Mhm.”

He kisses the top of your head. “Good. Stay right there. I had a long day of being the strongest and I need my beautiful wife.”

You laugh into his shirt.

This — the warmth, the closeness, the scent of his skin mixed with soap — this is the part no one sees. Not the world, not his students, not the remnants of the Jujutsu world that still whisper his name like a myth. Just you. Just him.

The baking show is halfway through an episode. Some poor contestant has just dropped their chiffon cake while another is sabotaging the whipped cream station. You’re tucked under the covers, your head resting on Satoru’s shoulder while his arm holds you close, fingers occasionally playing with the ends of your hair. The glow of the TV casts soft light over the room, flickering across the ceiling in pale pastel hues.

You’re warm. Safe. Your husband smells like your shampoo, and the gentle rise and fall of his chest is starting to lull you into that lovely, sleepy post-dinner haze.

But then — like a light flicking on in your brain — you remember.

“Oh!” you sit up suddenly, disrupting the blankets and causing Satoru to yelp, “I almost forgot. I cleaned the attic today.”

He groans like you’ve just committed a war crime. “Babe… why would you voluntarily enter the attic. That’s the one part of this house I refuse to enter.”

You ignore him, already swinging your legs off the bed. “No, listen — I found something. I think you’ll really like it.”

He props himself up on one elbow, squinting through his glasses. “Oh? What is it? Old love letters from your angsty high school boyfriend?”

“You mean the one who cried when he found out I liked Gojo Satoru more than him?” you smirk, heading toward the walk-in closet. “Yeah, no.”

You pad barefoot across the room and slide open the double doors. The closet is huge — because of course it is. Satoru insisted on custom shelving, backlighting, and enough hanging space for what he called his “seasonal drip.” But your things have taken over half of it by now, neatly folded sweaters, coats, your woven baskets for accessories. You had tucked the book on the upper shelf earlier after finishing the attic, too tired to sort through it just yet.

It takes a second of rummaging, but you find it: a thick, heavy photo album with a fabric cover that’s fraying slightly at the edges. You had found it in a box labeled with faded marker: JJT Archives.

As you walk back into the bedroom, Satoru’s sprawled on the bed like a lazy cat, hair wild, blanket pushed down to his waist. He raises an eyebrow when he sees the album.

“Oh? What’s this, a cursed object?”

You roll your eyes, climbing back in beside him.

He smacks your butt lightly as you settle under the covers again.

“Satoru!”

“What?” he grins. “You turned your back on me. That’s an invitation.”

You elbow him in the ribs, but you're smiling. “Figured we could look at it together. I think it’s a photo album of sorts.”

His expression softens instantly. “Yeah? Alright. Let’s see what kind of damage my past self got up to.”

You flip the cover open.

The first photo is grainy and a little off-center — a picture of him and Suguru pulling exaggerated faces at the camera, their expressions wild, faces contorted in a weird expression. Satoru snorts.

“Oh, wow,” he says. “Look at us. I told him I’d look better than him if we both pulled a dumb face.”

You study the image closely. Suguru’s hair is tied up, not unlike most of the photos you’ve seen of him, which were during his time as a wanted criminal.

Satoru’s laugh fades into something quieter.

“That was my old phone. Shoko looked at this picture and said we looked ‘ugly enough to preserve for future generations.’”

The next is a selfie — Satoru smiling into the camera in his black sunglasses, unlike the round ones he wears to protect his sensitive eyes. Suguru is beside him with sunglasses, and Nanami just barely in frame, scowling at the lens like he’s half being forced at gunpoint to participate and half wanting to do it.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, amused. “Kento looks so cute. His hairstyle… He definitely had an emo phase.”

“Because he was,” Satoru grins. “And he did have an emo phase. The amount of Visual Kei he listened to… We made him go shopping with us in Harajuku that day. Got the sunnies as a treat for doing well on the mission. And because they were on sale.”

You both laugh, the warmth lingering even as the sound fades. You flip the page.

This one’s softer: Nanami, Shoko, Suguru, and Satoru sitting at a dinner table at someone’s house, a dinner spread between them — looks very much like homemade food. It’s candid. Suguru’s laughing at something and posing with a peace sign. Shoko’s mid-clap, mouth open in laughter. Nanami looks slightly more relaxed than usual, a peace sign on his fingers too. Satoru’s grinning widely, and your heart melts at how lively his smile used to be when he was a teen.

“That was Shoko’s family house,” Satoru murmurs. “She invited us over after a mission. She lived nearby. We just… stayed. Slept in her living room. Talked until like, three in the morning.”

“She really was part of your trio, wasn’t she?” you say softly.

He nods. “Yeah. People always think it was just me and Suguru. But Shoko was there too. She was always there. Holding us together.”

You flip to the next: the entrance ceremony.

A selfie again — this time it looks like Shoko’s doing. They're all grinning like idiots. Principal Yaga is in a corner. Suguru is holding up a peace sign. Shoko’s teeth are out as she grins. Satoru, front and center, is glowing with the kind of cocky, pure-hearted energy only youth can give you, throwing a thumbs up, rounded glasses slipping down his nose.

“Your smile is so big in these, sweetheart. You look beautiful when you smile,” you say softly.

Satoru presses a kiss to your neck in quiet thanks, arm coming around your waist as you both continue flipping through the album.

The next photo is pure chaos: Satoru, Suguru, Nanami, and Haibara standing in the bathroom mirror, toothbrushes in their mouths. Looks like they were having a sleepover of some sort.

You let out a startled laugh.

“Oh my god, you guys are so cute. Was it a sleepover?”

“It was,” Satoru says. “Haibara had to practically force Nanami to come. Too bad Shoko and Utahime couldn’t come. For some reason, dorm restrictions were actually quite strict — not that we’d ever do anything like that. We were like a family.”

You laugh, squeezing his knee under the blankets.

You keep going.

A photo of Suguru with his hair mussed, smiling into the camera like he doesn’t know it’s pointed at him. It's intimate — the angle low, soft light filtering in.

Satoru's voice drops. “I took that. We’d just woken up from a nap in the common room. He hated being caught without brushing his hair, but… he let me keep it. He never had a bad hair day, you know? Was always so particular about it. Only used a specific shampoo that he said his mother would buy for him in the countryside.”

He goes quiet for a long moment, hand flexing slightly on the luminescent film of the album page.

“He really loved his mom.”

You rest your cheek against his arm.

There’s a photo of Shoko tying her Converse, crouched down, her fingers deft and focused. It's an ordinary moment — a cute smile on her face — but something about it feels lived-in. Real.

“Shoko loved this pair,” he chuckles. “She wore them to annoy the elders. They claimed proper shoes were needed if we were to go on missions.”

You grin. “Respect.”

The next is crowded: all of them standing outside a classroom door. Nanami, Shoko, Suguru, Haibara, and Satoru — shoulder to shoulder, smiling like they’re just normal teenagers, not the weapons the Jujutsu world molded them into.

The key highlight of the photo is Satoru’s arms are around Suguru and he has this big, goofy smile on his lips.

“I can’t believe they’re all…” you trail off.

Satoru doesn’t respond right away.

You glance up.

His jaw is tight. His eyes are wet.

“They were… good. All of them,” he says at last, voice barely above a whisper. “They should’ve had more time.”

You nod, curling into his side.

Another photo makes you both pause. It's taken from behind: Satoru, Suguru, and Shoko in matching red soccer jerseys, standing on a field. They're holding up peace signs with their backs to the camera. You can almost hear their laughter, imagine the mud on their shoes, the heat of the sun.

You run your hand down the page.

You flip through more: snapshots of their friend group — sleeping, on trips, in classrooms, in ceremonies. Candid, fleeting, young.

And then — the final ones: close-ups of Suguru.

Photos taken with quiet intention. One where he's clearly caught off guard. One where he's looking out from the bridge. Another where his back is to the camera and he has a small bear keychain on his bag. The sight makes your stomach clench.

You don’t say anything.

Neither does Satoru.

The weight of the past settles thick in the room, like dust stirred from an old shelf. The baking show continues on in the background — a contestant shouting about a collapsed ganache — but it feels distant. Muted. Like it belongs to someone else’s life.

Your hand finds his where it’s resting on the bedspread. His fingers twitch, then curl slowly around yours.

You glance at him.

He’s quiet in that particular way he gets when he’s fighting to stay intact — jaw locked, mouth set, shoulders wound tight with grief. His eyes are glassy, tracking the same photo over and over, like he’s trying to memorize it before it disappears.

Nanami with his dumb emo haircut. His peace signs. Haibara’s joy, how young he looked when he laughed. Suguru’s sleepy, messy hair. That crooked smile. The ghost of laughter in his eyes.

It’s rare to see Satoru this still. Not just physically — but inside. No quip. No grin. Just silence, and the slow breathing of someone on the edge of something sharp.

“I used to think,” he says eventually, voice hoarse, “that we’d grow old together.”

You don’t interrupt. You let the words come, raw and aching.

“Me, Suguru, Shoko,” he murmurs. “Nanami and Haibara. I pictured it sometimes. Thought we’d be old and bitter and still calling each other dumbasses over desserts. Thought maybe… maybe we’d all be able to come back from the shit we did. Thought we’d last”.

He pauses, taking in a deep breath.

“Thought I could save him.”

Your thumb strokes his knuckles.

He blinks fast. Swallows hard.

“I see these pictures and I—I forget he’s gone. Just for a second. And then it hits me all over again. Every fucking time.”

You press your forehead gently to his shoulder. “He was your best friend.”

A hollow laugh escapes him. It sounds like it hurts. “He was everything. The only person who ever really… got me. Not the strongest. Not Gojo Satoru. Just… me.”

You wait.

You let the silence stretch — thick, aching, heavy with the weight of everything left unsaid.

“I hate that I still miss him,” Satoru finally says, voice raw. “I hate that he left. I hate that I couldn’t stop him. But I miss him. Every day. Like an ache in my ribs I forget about until I breathe too deep.”

You turn toward him, hand still wrapped in his. He looks like he’s trying to hold himself together with nothing but willpower — a man who’s used to keeping the world up with one hand, now struggling just to hold his own heart in place.

“I miss him too,” you whisper. “I never even met him — but with the way you talk about him, I miss him too. I miss him for what he meant to you. For who he must’ve been, to leave this much of a mark.”

His breath falters. A quiet shudder works through him. You lean up and kiss his cheek, slow and steady, then press another to his temple, just where his hair is growing back in, short and soft. He leans into it, like it’s the only thing keeping him grounded — like he’s been brittle for a while now and you’re the only thing keeping him from cracking open.

“He would’ve loved this house,” he murmurs, voice thick. “He’d pretend it was too flashy. Say I was compensating for something. But then he’d steal all the good tea and claim it was just to humble me.”

You smile gently, warm against the side of his face. “Well. You do have terrible spending habits.”

That gets a sound out of him — a real laugh, shaky and low in his chest. He presses his forehead to yours.

“He’d have hated the mirror in our bathroom.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” he says, the faintest curve to his lips. “Would’ve said it makes me look even more insufferable than usual.”

You laugh. “To be fair, you are insufferable.”

“Mm. Don’t forget stunning.”

“Of course,” you breathe. “That’s a given. My beautiful, insufferable husband.”

You kiss away some of the tears that have fallen down his pale, scared face, wiping away the tracks as you pull back.

The silence settles again, softer this time. You tug the blanket higher over both of you. His thumb is rubbing slow circles against the back of your hand now — absent, but insistent. Like he’s anchoring himself to you, to this moment, to anything that won’t vanish like the rest.

You watch his face, watch the way his expression drifts somewhere far away and comes back a little more worn every time. A man standing in the ruins of his past, trying to build something worth living in.

“Hey,” you murmur.

He turns, only slightly. But it’s enough. His eyes find yours — wide, blue, shining a little too much even in the low light. You see everything there. The love, the grief, the guilt, the ache. The part of him that never really left that bridge. That battlefield. That moment.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you say, your voice barely above a breath.

He looks at you like he’s trying to memorize your face. Like he’s seeing the future and the past crash into each other in the shape of your smile.

And then, after a long beat:

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Me too.��

His hand lifts — trembling just faintly — and he cups your cheek. His thumb swipes gently across your skin, reverent. Then he presses a kiss to your temple, slow and careful, like he’s sealing something sacred inside you. A promise. A memory. A hope.

The baking show buzzes quietly in the background, someone yelling about a collapsed meringue, the absurdity of it all somehow making it feel more real — more here. More now.

Grief still sits in the room, thick like fog, but it no longer feels unbearable. It lingers, yes, but it’s softened at the edges by something gentler. Something like love. Something like healing.

You curl back into him, resting your head against his chest. His hand comes up to cradle your back without thinking. His heartbeat drums steadily beneath your ear — a rhythm that tells you he’s still here. Still trying. Still holding on.

You hold each other in that silence. In that ache. And in the quiet miracle of still being able to love, even when it hurts.

You close the album gently, smoothing your hand over the cover like it’s sacred. And maybe it is. The only reliquary you have left of those years — of who he was, of who they all were, when the world was still a little less cruel.

Satoru shifts a little closer, nosing into the crook of your neck like he’s trying to burrow into the safest place he knows. His hand finds your waist beneath the covers and rests there, thumb absently stroking small circles against your skin.

“Hey,” he murmurs.

“Mm?”

“Do you think we’ll still be like this when we’re old? All wrinkly and stubborn and falling asleep at nine?”

You smile into the dark. “We already fall asleep at nine.”

He laughs — a soft, sleepy sound. “Okay, fair. But I mean like… old-old. Like, arguing about soup and forgetting where we put our keys kind of old.”

You tilt your head to look at him. His eyes are lidded, lashes brushing the tops of his cheeks, hair messy and soft and just barely starting to silver at the edges. You think about him with deeper lines around his eyes, laugh lines etched into his skin from years of grinning too wide.

“I think we’ll be annoying,” you say.

“Hell yeah.”

“Annoying and still obsessed with each other.”

“Obviously.”

“Still holding hands in public and making waiters uncomfortable.”

“I plan on kissing you in every checkout line we ever stand in,” he whispers, and presses a kiss to your shoulder to prove it.

You laugh softly. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You love that about me.”

You turn in his arms until you’re face to face. His eyes are warm in the dim light, and you can feel his breath on your lips.

“I do,” you murmur. “I love everything about you.”

He leans in, kisses you — slow and unhurried. Not out of need, but out of affection. Out of something deeper. His hand cradles your jaw as he does it again, then again, softer each time, like he’s trying to say things he doesn’t have words for.

You kiss him back, just as slow.

He pulls back only slightly, just enough to rest his forehead against yours.

“I want it all with you,” he says. “The boring parts. The little arguments. Taxes. Grocery lists and laundry days and late-night walks when we can’t sleep. All of it. I want to grow old with you.”

Your throat tightens, but not from grief this time. From something tender. Something whole.

“You have me,” you whisper. “For as long as we both get.”

He kisses you again, this time on your nose. Then your cheek. Then the corner of your mouth. Then your lips again, just because he can.

Eventually, you settle into the silence, warm and safe under the covers, his arm around your waist and your head tucked beneath his chin. His breathing evens out first, deep and steady, but his hold on you never loosens.

You stay awake a little longer, just watching him. Memorizing the curve of his mouth, the softness in his face, the way he looks at peace when he’s finally, finally allowed to rest.

And before you let yourself drift too, you whisper it one last time, just to be sure he hears it — even if he’s already asleep.

“I’ll love you when we’re old. And after that, too.”

And in his sleep, Satoru smiles.

u guys i'm genuinely sooo devastated over jjk it isnt funny i cried to sleep the other night thinking abt satoru :)

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