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theflyingfeeling · 1 year

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hiiiiiiii I just wrote this little Olli/Allu thingie for fun, I hope you'll have fun reading it 💖 it's soft with a pinch of pining (please act surprised), and somewhat based on a couple of conversations that have been had here in the Olli/Allu Delulu Land, some of which in my/other people's asks, others in DMs 💕

Olli and Aleksi had touched each other in many ways before they first kissed each other. Perhaps that was exactly what messed with Olli's head the most.

They had hugged and wrapped their arms around the other's shoulder, like any good friends did. They had exchanged a massage or two in the tour bus or backstage, and each time had left Olli a little dry-mouthed somehow, to hear Aleksi's satisfied moans or to have Aleksi's fingers graze over his shoulder blades all too gently for it to be called a massage. It's nothing, Olli would say to himself in those moments. I've got this under control.

(Already then he had known it wasn't quite how things were.)

There had been the subtle touches of hands during signing sessions and the light nudges of feet under the table at band dinners that had lived inside Olli's head for days after. When either of them was tired enough, they'd lie their head on the other's shoulder or lap and have their hair played with, absentmindedly, at least in Olli's case, until he'd notice Aleksi was staring up at him with what Olli identified as curiosity or questioning, as if Olli would somehow be able to explain how or why his fingers found it so easy to twirl Aleksi's locks around them. It just happened, every heart-shattering time, and Olli had no means to do anything about it.

Amazingly, some of the touches they had shared had been far too intimate for just two guys who enjoyed each other's company but had never even kissed each other before, like that time a hotel room play-wrestle had turned into grinding against each other until they had messed their pants, or when they had been bored out of their minds on a day off and helped each other release some built-up steam under their duvet (they hadn't been bothered to notify the hotel reception for having given them only one). Yet another time they had schemed against Niko in a game of hotel room roulette and celebrated their victory by sucking each other's brains off the following night, just for the heck of it, because it was fun and they both felt like it (And Other Lies Olli Told Himself at Night When He Couldn't Sleep).

They hadn't talked about it afterwards, because why would they have? Hey mate, 'twas fun having you in my mouth last night, I hope that didn't awaken anything in you, haha, anyway, whatcha wanna have for lunch today? In Olli's defence, it hadn't awaken anything in him, per se; that had happened a long time ago already, by touches that had been far more innocent and far more devastating.

Still, ever since that night, Olli had been wondering what it might feel like to have Aleksi's tongue elsewhere on him. The thought alone sent shivers through his entire body.

"You're not getting sick again, are you?" Niko asked him, and it was then Olli realised he had got too lost in his thoughts once again. "Better not make a habit out of it, catching something whenever we're touring the States."

"Nah, it's just..." Olli lost his line of thought when his eyes met Aleksi's across the lounge. The flash of his sympathetic smile before he turned back to his phone was enough to empty Olli's mind again. "I'm not getting sick. No need to worry. It's just... chilly here."

Also, I was imagining our DJ's tongue on my shoulder bone, on my navel, on my own tongue, but let's not get into too much detail about that.

"It's 27 fucking degrees outside..." Niko mumbled, but left it at that. Olli almost felt like kissing the man on the mouth for deciding not to bother him about it further; Niko, if anyone, would've fished the truth out of him eventually.

Olli resumed his useless daydreams about Aleksi's tongue, his eyes locked on Aleksi's brown flannel jacket thrown on the lounge sofa instead of the man himself, in fear of being too obvious, or maybe in fear of Aleksi looking back at him, whichever would be the worst option. At the same time, he craved for Aleksi's attention and for his gaze on him as much as he ached for Aleksi's touch, even though the last one had taken place just moments ago when Aleksi had lightly braced his hand on Olli's knee when he had passed him on his way to the back of the bus, where Olli had been losing himself in a variety of imaginary scenarios involving himself, Aleksi, and their hands all over each other's bodies. Yes, just a small touch from him, and Olli had been going dizzy with the need for more.

Maybe he was getting sick after all.

Olli closed his eyes and tried to think of something else for change, but Aleksi's mere presence was like a siren's song that kept calling him, and helplessly he dived into another reverie that would take him back to the night they had tested out a bath bomb a fan had given to Aleksi and ended up exchanging footjobs in the hotel room bath, or that morning after they had all spent the night in some Central European train station because their flight had been cancelled, and Olli had been so tired he hadn't noticed a pickpocket taking his phone out of his hand, but he had sensed Aleksi's calm breathing against his neck as they had leaned against each other on the dirty station floor. The combination of his favourite Aleksi memories and the gentle sway of the moving tour bus was like a rocking cradle lulling Olli until his muscles relaxed and his head felt heavy.

He felt a sudden warmth next to him, but by then he was too far gone to see what it was, and instead laid his head on something soft and familiar. If falling asleep came easy to him, so did clearing his mind off anything except for Aleksi and his soft fingers caressing his cheek, which was the last thought he had before he fell asleep.

When he next opened his eyes, he realised why Aleksi's touches had felt so real in his dream.

"Hey," Aleksi whispered at him, his face hovering above Olli's. "Slept well?"

Olli had, though his eyelids still weighed a ton each. He wondered how long he had been sleeping; the dim-lit lounge offered no clues of the passage of time.

"The others went to bed already."

"Ah."

"How's your neck? I... tried to make you more comfortable."

"Oh."

Olli hated how his sleepy brain only provided him with single-syllable answers.

"Yeah. 'Cause... that one time you got a killer headache from sleeping on the sofa without a pillow, remember?"

"Mmmh." Olli did, but he had not expected Aleksi to keep books about his physical troubles. "I mean. Thanks."

He sat up, his neck feeling no more stiff than it already had been from hours of sitting in a moving vehicle.

"Feeling alright?"

Physically, Olli may have been, but Aleksi's shoulder was pressed against his and his nose inches away from Olli's face and his poor heart skipping beats left and right at the sight of Aleksi's eyes up so close all of a sudden, so his honest answer to the question would be a matter of perspective entirely.

"Yeah, I'm good."

As good as I possibly could, after having dreamt about the warmth of your skin under my fingertips and lips, only to wake up to find your fingertips on me instead and your mouth but a spur of the moment away from mine.

"Wanna keep me company a little while? I'm not tired at all yet."

There's no force in the world that could rip me from next to you right now.

"I know I should try at least, so I'd maybe be a little less jetlagged tomorrow, but..."

And deprive me of the chance to see you adorably sleepy again, resting your chin on my shoulder and pulling me to your bunk for an early afternoon nap? No chance in hell.

"Sure," he heard himself say anyway, because of course he would.

"It's good to be back in the States again, isn't it?"

"It is," Olli just nodded, letting Aleksi do most of the speaking.

"Lots of great memories, eh?"

Tons, actually, most of them somehow related to you.

"Uh-huh."

"I mean, sometimes it's rough, of course, but it's all worth it, in the end?"

"Wouldn't change a day," Olli said, although it was only half the truth; he'd never give up the thrill of playing at new locations to rooms full of people who were about to have experience the best show of their lives, but he could've lived without the sleepless nights he had spent thinking back to Aleksi's smile over his Mountain Dew or how he could swear Aleksi had stopped to stare at Olli's mouth a little too many times to not make Olli think.

(Thinking was the worst.)

"Yeah, me neither," Aleksi agreed. His eyes did it again: glancing at Olli's lips once, twice, perhaps a third time if Olli hadn't averted his own gaze.

The silence that then followed had Olli both hoping and fearing Aleksi would mercilessly cut their late-night talk short and suggest they go to bed after all, but he was soon to find out it was in vain.

"Except for maybe that day Porko pissed himself. The bus reeked for days afterwards, eugh."

It was a small miracle no one in the bunk section began to grunt in displeasure when Olli snorted loudly at Aleksi's anecdote that hit Olli like a lightning out of the blue West Coast sky and bended him over in giggles, bonking his head on Aleksi's shoulder where it rested as his shoulders shook and his chest vibrated with laughter. He felt Aleksi's hand on his back, just staying there for some unknown purpose, but Olli was too tired and too giggly to preoccupy himself with it.

Perhaps he should have, because when he lifted his head, there was no escape: Aleksi's hand was now in the back of his neck, and Olli's nose touching the side of Aleksi's. His lungs forgot how to breathe, because his brain was no longer giving orders to the rest of his body, except for his eyes that kept travelling between Aleksi's eyes and his red, parted lips.

Their lips touched, but it wasn't quite a kiss yet; however, it was enough for Olli to understand having Aleksi's lips wrapped around his erection once upon a wild night was merely a foretaste, an omen of something that would turn his entire world upside down, or at least that's what happened to all his internal organs when their mouths finally melted against each other and Olli melted in Aleksi's gentle embrace. Their first kiss was a tender one, shy even, so light that it was barely even there, and Olli kept holding his breath in fear of scaring it away if he did something has reckless as using the bodily functions that kept him alive. The next one was a little more experimental, a shade more daring, with Aleksi's bottom lip captured by Olli. That was when Olli noticed Aleksi was probably as frightened as he was, sucking in a trembling breath when Olli let go of him.

Olli brought his hand to the side of Aleksi's neck. He felt the man's pulse under his palm, pounding as vigorously as Olli's own.

"Aleksi..." he begun, without the faintest idea of what he even wanted to say. That seemed to be just enough, however, to make Aleksi sigh before pulling Olli back in, bringing their mouth against one another, tasting him, taking him.

Olli had had Aleksi touching him in almost every way he could imagine, but he had a feeling this one might just become his favourite.

#blind channel rpf #blind channel fanfiction #fwb to boyfriends? something like that i guess. read and find out maybe 😌#a bedtime story for those in need of one 💖#(again not sure if anyone on my side of the globe is awake anymore but i guess you can have some pining for breakfast ☕🥐)#yaaaay i got to include some of my favourite words in this one again 🥰#wrote this on tumblr again btw so sorry for all the typos and other errors #went to the proof-reading island and no one knew me there #edit. okay i humbled myself and did some proof-reading. hopefully it's a little less garbage now #random tumblr ficlets by theflyingfeeling

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camels-pen · 9 months

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(i haven't read Whole Cake in a while, and i never really watched it, so bear with me)

I'd love to write a fic with Usopp on Whole Cake. it'd be sooo fucking long and i'd need to refresh myself on the entire arc, but god i'd probably be so satisfied when it's done. specifically for having brought a single moment in my head to life, but we'll get to that.

On Zou, he insists to be taken along on the Sanji rescue team and has worked himself up with a whole bunch of very good reasons as to why he should go there instead of helping in Wano, but of course Luffy just immediately accepts with a "yeah sure"

With Whole Cake, I think he'd be flipping between having fun as part of the idiot trio/quartet (Luffy, Chopper, Carrot), and being terrified with Nami. There wouldn't be that many differences in the arc as a whole, though; some things would be easier/better and some things would be worse- I don't necessarily think Usopp's presence would be overall an advantage or disadvantage, just different. Like, major events would stay mostly the same, but little details would change and maybe those little details would build to a far more drastic change-

for example, maybe one of Big Mom's kids considers themself a great sniper and wants a match with Usopp, or is motivated to work harder because Usopp is around and they want to take him out and boast about it. Maybe it means Sunny takes more damage than canon, or maybe Usopp's help means less damage to Sunny. (idk if i'd really do smth like this, but it's just an example)

skjdhf fuck i'm really not equipped to try and figure this out when i don't remember shit from Whole Cake aaaa

I do know that, despite his penchant for talking and rambling, I'd probably have Usopp be dead silent after his initial shock when Sanji fights Luffy. Everything about that is the same, except Usopp is just watching Sanji the whole time- not panicking, not moving, and not speaking. He doesn't say a word the entire time, doesn't even make a sound, and that, along with Luffy's words and Nami's begging, stick with Sanji.

(Usopp is thinking of his own fight with Luffy in Water 7, he's partially wondering if this was what it was like- if it was this painful to watch from the sidelines- and partially knowing he doesn't have to say a word, because he knew, like he knew back then, that it didn't matter what was said. It wasn't quite the same, but he could tell in the way Sanji moved, in the way he spoke and held himself, that he was putting on a front, trying to be brave in all the wrong ways. Usopp didn't say a word to Sanji because there was nothing he could say that Sanji himself didn't already know. Should've known. And his quiet, direct stare, was more than enough.)

the singular moment i really wanna write, is a scene where Sanji is apologizing for dragging them into his mess- either during the big meeting in Bege's castle or some other time- and Usopp's like "I'll do what you can't, you do what I can't, right?" and Sanji pauses, a little confused, until he remembers Enies Lobby and a stupid mask and cape and-

and tears are gathering in his eyes now, fuck, but he laughs a little. It sounds wet and his face is itchy and they're surrounded by tentative allies, but he- he laughs again and he says, "Fuck, you remembered that?"

Usopp shrugs, a little smile on his face. "They were some wise words from a wise man."

Sanji laughs a third time. "You think I'm wise?"

And they banter a little more before Bege tells them to quit it since they're on a time constraint or something. Quietly, Usopp will ask, "It-it helps. On bad days. And I figured, 'what's a worse day than this?' Ah, not that you getting married would ever be bad per se-"

"Usopp," Sanji says, looking more relaxed and settled. He smiles fondly and grabs his friend in a one armed hug, crushing him to his side. "Thanks."

And yeah, don't remember much beyond that, except the whole "hiding and then busting out of the cake" bit, which would mean Usopp in a cute little tuxedo or smth- maybe with a fedora aaaaaa <- loves fedoras- helping out with the fighting and eventually sailing with everyone to Wano.

He would be so distressed about fixing up Sunny now that the whole thing with Whole Cake is over. Maybe there'd be a gag about him promising Franky to take good care of Sunny while they were gone and being confident, after being Franky's tinkering partner and learning from him over time, that he could handle minor repair work much better than he did the first time around with Merry. And so when he finally takes in all the very-not-minor repairs he has to do, he's certain Franky is gonna strangle him for not keeping his promise. Probably also try to write in some nostalgic 'repairman Usopp' vibes from pre-Water 7.

Also something something, Sanji, wanting to do more for the crew bc he still feels guilty about Whole Cake, decides to take it upon himself to help Usopp not fall into a whole anxiety spiral about the ship. In turn, Usopp ends up helping Sanji not feel so guilty- usually by handing his own words back to him on a silver platter. And, yknow, having the two of them bonding and being buddies again like they so rarely get to be in canon nowadays qwq

#one piece #usopp #whole cake island #nemotime #that bit in bege's castle isn't exactly how it would go. just kinda. trying to get the vibe. also it's wayyy too short lol #the sanuso bit can be platonic or romantic. originally when i was gonna write out this idea a while ago i was thinking romantic with my #'they get engaged/married b4 dressrosa' au but tbh platonic works just as good #im- these guys man. i hate them so much (affectionate)#i'll get to rereading whole cake and finding a way to put him in there but for now. this.#if anyone's got other ideas im all ears #edit from like march 7: thinking about this again #maybe usopp being silent is an indicator for sanji that usopp's really fucking disappointed or shocked or w/e #but for usopp himself it's like being back in water 7. he doesn't even mean to be silent. he's got words built up on the tip of his tongue #but none of them come out. and despite sanji being Right There all he wants to do in that moment. is run.#at the very least he stays and watches the whole confrontation through. but afterwards he probably feels like shit #because he's the guy who's great with words right? he's the guy that can relate the most out of the group who went to WCI. he should be abl #to make a significant difference and help convince sanji to come home. but he feels like he failed. like he's going to lose another friend #and it's going to be all his fault. (again)#[not really. we all know merry wasn't his fault but we love old insecurities rearing their head in this house]#later he'd probably end up saying the words he wanted to say. and maybe it's better that way. that he ended up waiting #until luffy's had a proper shot at scolding sanji first. because then usopp can act as support and reinforcement. which. yknow.#a sniper's duty and all #anyway i got other shit to do so i'm cutting myself off here #wci usopp

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asparagusgremlin · 1 year

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Why the fuck have i not seen any nanako drawings where she's older and has her own persona HUH? Have i just not scrolled art of her enough?? I NEED IT! I NEED TO SEE HER RAGE!!!

#PLEASE!!!!!!#I'd kill for shit like this #so many people agreed that haruka should have grown up to be fighting bitches on the street why isnt there anyone saying this for nanako!!!#might do it myself >:(#gremlin talk #p4 #persona 4 #nanako dojima #edit hi people seeing this post im actually working on this :) i will be posting it eventually #gremlin nanako au #tagging this with that now in case other people see it and want to scroll the like 1 or 2 other posts in that tag on my blog

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samuelroukin · 8 months

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if i keep writing jerking off scenes this won’t go anywhere. but i need them to set the Tone and move on. like the point is they’re jerking that thang before anything else but good lord i want something else

#i’m only at like 5k and it’s just so much penis in hand. and there’s more to come (haha come) too #just guys being pals #i can’t believe i’m saying this but i need plot #we’ll get there. we’ll get there #i swear there’s like characterization and lead up happening #but also idk how anyone is gonna read to this point and not get bored so #i’ll just leave it for editing ben to deal with ig #ben.txt #writing tag #god there’s so much other stuff to put in i hate myself

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helianskies · 5 months

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ugly maths.

i hate maths, right. i don't usually like numbers, and if i do like numbers it's gotta be an 8 or a 48 and nothing else.

thing is, i've recently caught myself doing maths again. ugly maths. the kind of maths that, really, i've been trying to avoid as much as possible because, well, it's ugly!

you... wanna see?

okay, fine... but don't say i didn't warn you!

ugly, see? look at all those numbers! not a 48 in sight!

huh? what's that? you don't see what i'm on about? oh... oh! hang on, lemme just—

better? yes? no? no? okay, what if i—

mmh, yes. ugly numbers. see it now? can you see why they're ugly?

here, i can make it worse.

these numbers are ugly. the maths they make me do is ugly.

now i'll level with you: the worst ones by far are the yellow numbers. the maths they make me do it the ugliest.

why ugly?

because it makes me ugly.

those numbers turn me into not only a suddenly number-obsessed fool, but a fool who also cannot understand these numbers and what they mean and why i feel like they reflect on me and my ability.

87, 75.

the thoughts are as follows:

• the orange numbers are big, so why are you being ugly about the yellow ones? you should be happy with what you have. so many nice big numbers! not everyone receives that.

• is it that there are two different audiences for these two different fics? perhaps. they are quite different works, with different appeals, and different themes. maybe you are reading too much into it.

• why are you obsessing over numbers anyway? you don't like maths! you left maths behind when you were 16, put it down!

okay, okay, fine! i'll put the maths down. right here, in fact!:

that 87 was an 83 at the start of the year. the 6161 it is attached to was a 5453.

4, 708.

ugly maths.

the 75 is a nice number. in fact, compared to 87, it is beautiful, radiant, enchanting. at the start of the year, 75 was 48. wow. now that is one sexy number!

27.

mmmm.

6161, 1061.

5100.

87, 75.

12.

mmmm.

you know, my most favourite comment left recently on a fic of mine was 2 characters long: :(

it made me :)

well, actually, it made me >:) because it was left in response, presumably, to one of the key scenes in a new chapter which left the exact impression on someone that i hoped it would.

they must be the only one who reacted like that, though.

have i mentioned that that 87 and 75 include author responses?

i won't try to do more maths, there. it might not end well for me. the maths is making me tired enough as it is, and i have an early start tomorrow.

oh! but, that being said, i have another set of ugly numbers to show you, so keep 87 and 75 in mind.

ready?

838, 245.

(want a hint? the green numbers!)

838, 87. 245, 75.

9.6, 3.3.

ugly maths. it's ugly again, see? i don't like it. i'm seeing numbers within numbers within numbers, and i can't seem to stop!

the numbers make me ask new questions:

• why is it not good enough?

• people seem to engage more with one fic over the other, so shouldn't you prioritise?

• is all this maths this really good for you?

no, it isn't.

i want to avoid ugly maths. ugly maths makes me want to tear my hair out. it makes me want to start from scratch. it makes me want to grab someone and scream. it makes me want to cry and press a button that has tempted me many times before when the numbers become too ugly to bear.

ugly maths turn me into an ugly person.

ugly maths make me obsessive, paranoid, anxious, regretful, vindictive, spiteful, alone.

i hate maths. i hate numbers, just like, it feels, the numbers hate me.

#helia rants #cw vent #i'm okay but i'm not #this has been playing on my mind over the last couple of weeks #it's aimed at the sky rather than anyone here #i know i'm not the best myself as commenting. i justify it to myself by affirming i don't read much. which i don't.#since the start of the year i have tried to comment on everything i have read #bearing in mind i may also dm someone rather than comment because i want to scream and ramble about their fic more personally #that being said. i know i'm not the only one who finds themselves doing ugly maths #and in turn starting to feel uglier too #i don't like looking at the numbers #i was doing well at the start of the year #but as i open my drafts and look to a new chapter and at the notes i wrote #i can't stop myself from opening the fic. from seeing where it's at. from seeing if it's changed. from checking my inbox to see if...#if only...#what it's meant is that i've come to a point where a fic i loved has become exactly that: a fic i loved. past tense #the other fic is still a fic i love. but i know deep down that that is tied to the numbers too #i hate that this is what i've become #because i have tiny fics. fics with 50 hits and maybe 1 comment. and i love them. i still love them #but when it comes to the big ones. the multi-chapters. the hefty fics. after a point all i see are numbers #and those numbers have come to determine both my happiness and fulfilment as a writer #and so i am ugly. i am sad. i am pathetic.#and i don't know how to stop.#helia's stuff #this was meant to save back into my drafts. i was editing tags. tumblr decided it should post. so... so be it.#also this is not an attention thing if anyone dares go 'oh but you're a good writer uwu' i might do something we'll all regret #this is also not a 'ffs comment on my fics will you 😒' hell no #it's just about me. and my issue. and my unhealthy relationship with these fucking numbers.#gotta get this shit out of my head somehow :)

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agueforts · 26 days

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i wonder, if i ever met a dropout watcher irl and somehow managed to not drop a reference anywhere in my time around them and so they wouldn't know i watched anything from it, how fast they would catch onto me from my speech patterns, or how fast they would realize in retrospect where all these things come from upon finding out. or like, alternatively, someone getting to know me irl and then being introduced to dropout, and suddenly having a frame of reference for like. what a lot of my speaking habits are probably modeled after. does it show that i watch dropout? do i talk like a good percentage of the audible conversation i am exposed to in my daily life comes from one streaming platform? would love to know. would truly love to know

#aspen tag #it really is like. like.#there is only so much of sentence delivery you can convey online and i STILL think i'm noticable out here #but like. in my head? just fucking thinking my thoughts?#i will look back in on myself like a hall of mirrors and go “oh i am putting emphasis on this sentence exactly like brennan does”#or “oh i am doing this thing to make people laugh that i picked up from aabria”#i straight up like do not see ppl irl often or rlly even like talk to people out loud with my mouth all that much #bc not all the friends i have online rlly vc and i'm also not always awake when they do #or i'll be like bouncing around between discord and watching something and i don't catch that they're on until they're not doing it anymore #and . ..... this is a rheka voice. is what i'm doing as i'm thinking this #sorry. anyways. back on track #i don't have a job i'm not in school i have like ... just started a hobby but i haven't really connected with anyone there yet etc #the people i have conversations out loud with regularly can be sorted into two categories and they are my parents and doctors #so like i have so little frame of reference for what i am like in actual conversation with ppl just out of scarcity of data to work with #and like ..... idk. it'd be interesting #obviously i know i'm mirroring it because i'm in my own head #but i don't know to what degree it'd be noticable to other people (if at all)#it'd just be cool to dig into if i ever got the chance #and like. y'know. obviously there's like the “in-credible” level tells and shit. but like. inflection? wording habits?#the stuff that's like. influences. as opposed to direct draws. i SAID smth about this in the tags and somewhere in the edits it got lost #so. yeah. that stuff. that stuff

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ikemenomegas · 2 years

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Nightmare for Gojo? Because he's kind of a nightmare 😂

He is kind of a nightmare [affectionately] isn't he XD. Hmm how about in a nightmare?

You wake with a quiet gasp, alone in a room that is familiar but not yours.

Throat feeling too thick, you sit up and fumble for the cup of water on the bedside table. It is stale, but it forces you to hold your hands steady and you grip it just a little tighter than normal while you slowly cycle cursed energy through your body.

It warms your limbs and wakes you up. You're unsure whether to be disappointed about that. It's still dark outside and the dull white numbers of the clock in the bookshelf read some time late after one in the morning. Too late to be wandering but you shrug a thick oversized shirt over the clothes you had put on - too wary of being woken by more than your own mind to change into pajamas - and pad out the door, into the chill November night.

You can't sit still while images, real and imagined, tear around your mind. The path before you goes up and around the mountain the school is built around, and you start to climb, lungs tingling with cold.

No one stops you.

You weren't there in the barrier on Halloween. You're not on trial. You're not under arrest or even truly censured. You're just... remanded to the school. Waiting. While they decide whether or not you're enough trouble to execute outright.

Satoru has made enough of a nuisance of himself that you're fairly confident they'll ignore you in comparison. Especially once they won't be able to prove any binding connection. It makes you wonder for a moment how intentional it is the way he pushes away everyone but the college's dozen wayward teenagers, and how much is just his bad personality.

Children he can protect. The world of sorcerer's is a harsh one, but it has still learned to excuse youth and its inexperience.

It makes you wonder again why he has you.

Your nose is cold by the time you run out of road and end up at your destination. Night washes out color and it hasn't helped the constant replay in your head, like the pages of a book flipping back and forth: bodies surrounding a bed, moving the bare figure on it, dead to the world.

When you enter the infirmary, the familiar scent of antiseptic and medicine just makes you shudder. The lights are low, half of them turned off given the late hour, tiled walls and floors gleaming dully. You move deeper into the building, listening, but the only footsteps are yours.

At every corner, you're apprehensive of what you might find.

The infirmary is dim and gray as the vision that woke you where pooling light doesn't touch. You hesitate once, just the tip of your finger on the door to a room you have been in before, and then steel your nerves and slide it open.

The fact Shoko can't describe how to create or use reverse-cursed energy used to frustrate Satoru. You'd thought she was enigmatic, since then you've come to understand.

Even when you can lay out the rules of a technique in perfectly comprehensible terms, the feeling is not so easy to describe.

How does Gojo Satoru make something that literally shouldn't exist? The answer lies in mathematics. The way Shoko repairs the human body is based in biology and physiology. Your own technique is only an answer to certain laws of physics.

Even Suguru, whose power was the closest to the kind of pure and terrible magic that you used to think existed only in storybooks, who didn't want to explain himself...

You'd guessed over a decade ago that his physical form was acting as some kind of barrier but the truth is you still don't understand it.

Even knowing what you know, maybe you don't understand any of the people around you.

Just like how Shoko can't quite explain herself, she can't explain why Nobara hasn't woken up yet. The curse called Mahito should have rent her to ribbons like it had done to Nanami but sorcerers are good at subverting what should happen.

Instead, she like so many other things, is simply a secret here, her injury frozen while Shoko carefully tries to augment whatever technique Nobara discovered at the edge of death.

She'll be fine, that's the verdict, but with nothing else to do, you come here to see her, to remind yourself of what it is you're protecting.

You sit on a hospital's version of a some kind of padded bench, and rest your elbows on your thighs and drift into an uneasy sort of vigil.

ii.

"Nightmare?"

Megumi's voice jolts you out of your doze. You can't have been here long because you don't yet feel the chill, but you hadn't heard him approach the door. He doesn't look convinced when you try and smile at him.

"You always did know. Even as a child."

"You shouldn't try to hide it."

You just give him another smile and Megumi sighs, settling down next to you on the bench. It's familiar the same way you sat down was familiar. The heaviness is a mirror to your own. You've seen him here and have left him alone while he works out whatever he has to at his healing teammate's side, silencing your steps to give him privacy.

"I'm proud of you, you know."

Megumi starts. He's been different, since Shibuya. You all have been, the world has changed, but there's a weight to his steps that's just... different.

Megumi rests his head against the wall, disordered hair even messier at the back than usual. He must have been here before you and stepped out. You must really look worn down if he broke the unspoken rule you'd both been abiding by. Or maybe he just wanted to be around a familiar face for a while.

The light in Nobara's room is turned down, and it's like the scratch of discordant strings, the screech of a train, the way the grey false memory of your dream cuts through your chest.

There's no such thing as prophetic sorcery. Nothing is set that far in stone.

And yet.

"I know what you're trying to do. The strategy is good, but if it's a choice between your lives and accomplishing your mission--"

You trail off while Megumi looks curiously down at where you're still hunched over your folded hands. You have just enough courage to let your hands shake a little in exchange for meeting his eyes and seeing the guard there, and the trust.

You turn away before you can see that most precious thing break.

"Take your lives."

You can feel the way Megumi stiffens beside you. He's been raised by the Strongest sorcerer in the world and told more than once that he has potential to be that equal. He can be forgiven the hope and arrogance that one can win it all.

Although... they'll be with Hakari, so maybe not.

There's always a price to be paid though. If the kids don't come back, if this kid you've known since he was six and far too serious--

"Gojo-sensei has done a lot for everyone," Megumi says, voice dark and low.

He tries to keep you out of it, is what you don't say. There's lines he won't cross. The spirit possessing our old classmate's body found one of them.

Even though the kid's taken up the mantle, clan head at his age, it's still worlds cleaner than it could have been.

"The world needs him," Megumi adds, and you say nothing to the slightly desperate edge. The world needs a lot of adults to do more than they are and some adults to do less than they've done.

"The world might be able to rise to the occasion," you reply, and you're trying for dry but even to your ears you just sound tired.

"Don't you want him back?" Megumi finally asks, quieter. He doesn't talk about the thing between you and Satoru. It's been what he knows most of his life even when he hated the "lanky layabout teenage delinquent" that showed up in front of him like some kind of criminal. He's old enough now to assume what is still, for the time being, true.

"I think that Gojo is a little safer in there than the rest of us out here." It's stupid to be this emotional about it, it was just a dream. "Don't you think?" you try and joke.

He gives you the kind of look he sometimes give Satoru when he does something to try and derail a conversation in the worst way possible.

"Well whatever Megumi-kun is going to do, is what Megumi-kun is going to do," you say, leaning back so your head touches the wall too, the chill seeping through your skin as you speak blithely into the air.

Megumi leans back and sags a little sideways, sighing. "You shouldn't worry so much," he finally says.

I wouldn't worry so much if you valued your own life a little more, but how can he? A sorcerer's life is lived in the service of a world which barely knows they exist, fighting the kind of battles that barely hold the line against curses. Protecting people from their own creeping self destruction.

You had normal friends, once upon a time. Sometimes you still see those people. You make excuses for your absences and fend off well meaning attempts to get you to try and date someone, to come out drinking and catch up, to see them more often than middle school reunions.

Satoru doesn't get it. He's never had any of that. A normal life? It's pointless to try and you don't miss it. Being a sorcerer is what you can do. It's just a hard truth that you have to do it alone.

Satoru wants the students strong enough to be an indispensable threat, to fill the ranks and tip the balance of power. You want them strong enough to stand together.

Sometimes you think that makes you the worse of the two of you.

"You don't have to take it all on your own. I know I'm not around a lot, so it's okay if my words don't carry as much weight. If it makes you feel better though, you all are the plan, so you can't go around dying. Satoru knows you're important to changing the world so--" don't let him ask you to die for him.

The mark between your shoulder blades burns.

"I'll be careful," Megumi says, but his voice is weird, too close, and you know why a second later as his head lands on your shoulder, curling up a little into himself like when he was younger. "I'll make sure Itadori is careful too."

He's hidden his face in the high collar of his jacket but your own embarrassment is harder to hide up close. "Well," you settle in, moving the bare minimum so Megumi can rest a little more comfortably without being embarrassed into leaving completely. "I'll be here. Probably."

His elbow digs into your side hard enough to knock your breath out.

"Ouch. I think Nobara is rubbing off on you. You know she's going to be insufferable about the reverse cursed technique once she wakes up."

Megumi hummed, amused, but went quiet after that. You felt as his breath deepened and more of his weight dropped against you and he eventually fell sleep.

iii.

"You smell like him," Shoko says, leaning against the wall. She doesn't have to say who. You are wearing a piece of clothing you'd left in his room for far too long and your old classmate has always had a sharp nose.

"Hmm," you distracted yourself by checking on Megumi again. You want to smooth the unruly hair from his forehead like you had done when he was a mistrustful boy, tug the wrinkles from his collar like you had when he was an angry middle schooler.

Now he's a sorcerer, somewhere between a man and a child, steady and kind and tired. You can see the dark circles under his eyes and the way he slouches when he walks has to do with that new weight he carries.

When you look up, Shoko is still looking at you. She hasn't given you a look like that since first year when none of you liked or trusted one another further than you had to.

You incline your head towards Nobara's bed anyways, giving her permission to enter the room. She doesn't need it. The infirmary sits squarely in your mind as part of Shoko's territory. When she's administering to her patients, she is the only one in charge.

Still, she gives you a wide berth on her way to check on Nobara and it gives you an odd sense of relief. You want to say it's because you came to talk to her as much as checking on the injured students, but begrudgingly you admit she's treating you like she would treat any Alpha guarding their pups. She comes close only to the one you've granted permission until you feel safe around her again.

They're not your kids, you remind yourself guiltily. You don't have that kind of right, no matter how protective you feel.

If I am ever incapacitated, look under the loose floorboard in his old room. You know the one where he kept Shoko's--

Cigarettes, yeah.

As if any of you could forget. It was so long ago, more years spent apart than together, but that year still haunts you like a ghost.

Earlier in the afternoon, you'd followed those instructions and found your own piece of Satoru's contingency plan. Then you'd watched it burn between your fingertips, turned to less than ash.

You wonder if Shoko is here for Nobara or for you.

She checks the girl's pulse and you watch her close her eyes in concentration, a golden glow filtering through Nobara's veins.

You're glad to see her chest rise and fall a little easier.

When Shoko finishes you use a tiny bit of your technique to draw her scent towards you on a breeze. She smells like smoke.

The scent flashes grey over those old memories of delinquent days.

What the hell are you two doing?

It's disconcerting to be left out of the loop, but as Satoru's letter proved, maybe it's the right thing to do. You do have your own part to play after all. It won't do to die yet.

You don't want to wake Megumi though. It's been a long time since the last time you've been able to take care of him. It's the only thing that's felt right since Satoru was sealed, since Nanami died.

It's not going to be yours much longer in any case. Maybe that's why Shoko quietly sits down at a desk in the corner and starts making notes in Nobara's chart.

He's not your kid. He's not even Satoru's kid, he was never adopted as a ward, the clans just didn't fight the sponsorship. And he's a few years too old to be able to pretend, which is probably a good thing. What kind of parent wants this kind of job for their child, for children to meet early deaths? Some of the students grew up being told there was honor in it, some that this was what they were born to do.

Megumi's smart, loyal. He could have found a way into the world of non-sorcerers and to a normal life. But he would never leave his sister behind or the promise he made. You don't think he's capable of leaving behind the people he's decided to care about. It would carve out his heart.

That more than anything reminds you you're not his Appa. He had a father and Satoru killed him.

"Megumi-kun" you say softly.

He stirs, but doesn't open his eyes. A muffled chuffing chirp is all you get as he turns his head into your arm.

Shoko's pen stills on the paper for a second before restarting. Still it's a second too long and it's probably the tension in your body that makes Megumi blink open his eyes before you call for him again.

"Sorry to wake you," you whisper.

Megumi sits up slowly, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand.

"You should go sleep in a bed. I'll come get you if anything changes."

He tips his head around your body to see Shoko, probably doodling nonsense right now to keep your instincts at bay.

Maybe he gets it because he nods sleepily and stretches when he stands.

You shrug off the oversized shirt, leaving you in your typical sorcerer blacks. The shirt is more like a jacket anyways, with a thick weave and heavy material, and it will help keep him warm on the walk back. "It'll be colder now, so don't linger, okay?"

He takes it with a little bit of red in his cheeks, but you already guessed he was leaning on you at least partly because it smelled like Satoru. Satoru who's always been there no matter how much Megumi didn't want to ask too much. He puts his nose in the collar as if he's cold.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

You hope your expression is a little more convincing this time. "I'll be fine. Get some rest."

When he leaves Shoko stays. She sits heavily beside you, her fingers tapping on her thighs like they want for something to do.

People don't look at Shoko. She is, like the school, a secret kept with silence. She keeps her own counsel the same way.

Once, you thought you would always know where to find her, but sitting here, in the pre-dawn dark, she is both familiar and a stranger.

The dream is fading, as dreams do. Already it has slowed so that it is no longer a familiar body, limp, spare, Hellenic muscle of his naked flank and thighs dimpling under some masked, gowned creature's handling. Turning your mate so that he lies lateral, faced away from you while horror yanks you back like a hook through your navel.

The scene turns to snapshots and the dull, ill feeling remaining to thrum through your body. It's a bitter match to your resolve.

"How's Toge?"

Shoko shrugs. "The wound is sealed but it's still resisting my technique. We have to wait for his blood supply to build back up before anyone tries again."

"I'll see him when he wakes up then."

"You're planning to stay the night?"

"You expect me to sleep after this?"

Shoko sighed, looking suddenly more tired. "You're really going through with it then? It's only been three days."

"They made the declaration this evening. Against any argument that this Getou isn't Suguru, the higher-ups have decided. Satoru's conditions have been met."

"Being his mate could still give you some pull," Shoko said, "even mated to the exiled clan head, you'll carry weight with some of the factions."

"They're already hunting Yaga. If I want to live long enough to make any difference at all, it has to be before they start sincerely going down the list and assigning bounties."

Her lips twist in distaste. She might be aware of sorcerer politics but you've always gotten the distinct impression she tries not to be.

"I didn't expect you to try talking me out of it." Aren't you in on whatever he's planning? Either way you're getting close to dangerous territory.

"It's not exactly a standard procedure but you should still know what your options are."

You carefully pressed the tips your fingers into into your left palm. You'd never thought of yourself as having pride exactly in the bond-mark. People in the non-sorcerer world could show theirs off but it meant something different in the sorcerer world.

Even though both of you typically had it covered, it's been there for almost four years, a constant reassurance of the promise you'd made to him. One hand comes up to grip your own shoulder.

Will he feel it?

"It's what has to be done," you say. You remember Satoru's wide hand coming to rest on your back, steering you clear of the Harajuku crowds. You remember brushing against the mark with the tip of your nose as you leaned over the back of the sofa, arms wrapped around his shoulders. You remember talking with him about it in the weeks before you'd bitten the mark bloody and deep at the very base of his neck. You remembered the way you own spine had bent when he placed his own mark on you.

"Ready?"

When could anybody who has made this choice be ready?

When you nod and Shoko's hand slips down the back of your neck and under the hem of your uniform to where your bond-mark hides.

The three steps of mating in the sorcery world are each a binding vow.

The bond vow is a less formal, more emotional tether, and the fear of loss makes one stronger. The emotional difficulty of leveraging that fear lending a sorcerer increased power. A marriage vow is a declaration, saying that this was someone important to you whom you would protect as family placed a target on each sorcerer in the bond and heightened the sense of risk. In the mating vow, the bond-mark that goes with it claims ownership and power, one over the other, sealing the other two bonds so that no one else could easily break them.

In return, its destruction destroys all physical evidence of the other two.

The bond-mark is a seal and can only be broken by the death contingency or by cursed and reverse-cursed energy being used on the seal at the same time. It's intentionally difficult, meant to protect the powers achieved by sorcerers entangled this way.

Shoko sets her fingers into the faint indented marking of the bond-mark bitten over where your heart chakra would be pierced through.

The mark resists her, but the crawling of your skin lets you know that the scar is already changing.

Better not to draw it out.

With your hand on the other side of your chest, you push cursed energy into the mark, swirling slowly around the elliptic shape. It feels hot and cold and like pins and needles as you break the muscle and collagen apart and Shoko knits it back together.

She presses her fingers into the smooth skin, checking on her work. But you can feel it. The bond-mark is gone.

As if it were never there at all.

It doesn't make any difference. You couldn't feel Satoru's presence before he was sealed or after.

It shouldn't make a difference, but you feel both lighter and heavier, like Gojo's gravity is still rooted somewhere in your body.

You drop your hand back to your knees.

Shoko doesn't leave.

You listen for Nobara, for her still-human breathing.

When you look over at her, Shoko is also looking down at the ground.

"I didn't think you'd do it."

You look back at the black and white pattern on the ground. You weren't sure you would either. It had felt too much like admitting defeat but then...

"I dreamt of him."

You shouldn't be saying anything. Shoko doesn't do this. But she's staying even though she should leave so you can make your confessions to a comatose fifteen year old who won't ever know you've been here.

"A bunch of scientists, rolling him on a table," you say, wry and feeling ridiculous. The dream doesn't sound terrible when you say it aloud. "Just... faceless people manipulating him while he just lies there." Unable to stop it. You, unable to stop it because you'd been as frozen as that day in the city, and then you'd woken up.

The dream might be fading but you feel like it's still happening.

Shoko straightens up and you know she's finally leaving. You know what she's thinking too because you made sure to say it that way, in the way that would make the dream a metaphor of what's happening right now. If you'd hinted at your simply literal horror, she'd be within her rights to laugh at you.

"So it's not like a vow will be useful anyways," you force your voice light and slightly self mocking. "He can't do anything from in there so why not pretend it never happened."

You raise your head only meet Shoko's apprehensive expression and falter. There aren't a lot of people who know for certain that Satoru is your mate. Now your place by his name in the family tree will be burnt away. The sealing ink on the marriage documents will fade to nothing. The bond itself might still exist, but any promises intentionally attached to it are blown away like so much sound in a gale.

There's a pinched edge to Shoko's usually cool expression. It's too bad that even with this, you can't promise not to leave her all alone. "Let me know if you need anything for it," she says before spinning on her heels and clicking away down the hall.

iv.

You bury your face into your folded hands, thinking of that body, his body, knuckles pressed hard to your forehead, while the vision shifts slowly to Shoko, to the dead-limp body of the students, to Nanami's hellbent flesh, and back.

You hadn't told Shoko everything.

The only part you can't shake was the way that grayscale atrocity began - with Gojo Satoru torn open and bloody like that day, something bundled and birthed dead being taken from him, and how you knew even while he was turned away from you that he was back to being as pristine as he was when this began.

Megumi leaves again in the morning and you don't say goodbye from the window where you're watching. You didn't go back to sleep, there's too much to do. Your power courses like a livewire inside of you.

You started cycling it to see if your typical energy was still there. You should feel weaker without the vows and restrictions weighing you down, but for now you don't. Anger pours molten through you, fear slinks under it like ice. Grief lays over it all like it lays over everyone and the black and white terror of truly losing what Megumi really means when he talks about the world needing Gojo Satoru is both more stark and more abstract in the morning.

You've never thought of yourself as living in Satoru's shadow. Suffering that particular misconception was thankfully prevented by having a good insight into the reality. You hated that there were so many things he took care of alone.

Megumi doesn't think you have it in you to burn the world. You'd seen the faint disbelief in his eyes when you'd told him to give up on Satoru if it meant surviving. And maybe he's right.

But what he doesn't see, behind the mask Satoru wears and Shoko's distance and Suguru's death and your silence is that you all became monsters. Maybe Gojo Satoru chose to keep you close because for a while you were the only one left.

If the kids don't come back, you think it might just be enough.

Gojo Satoru isn't the only nightmare in the world after all.

#In case it wasn't clear because this isn't that good the implication is that mating marks between sorcerers are a binding vow #i'm aware vows between people aren't typically done. but it was explained that this is because it's difficult not impossible #the mating vow is particularly strong because of what is signifies and therefore leaves a physical mark that is connected to vow's existenc #mates don't have to take on the mark but Gojo has spent a lot of time implicating such to the world at large that you both have #as a binding vow the mating vow does two things #one: it prevents a bond and a marriage from being broken by outsiders #(this does not limit the number of people one can bond/mate/marry in the sorcerer world)#two: the binding vow gives each person an option of control over the others' power and actions #the risk of giving someone power over you in turn increases your own power like another layer to the first order bonding vow #which is another reason sorcerer's have the mating vow #it has been abused in the past of course. this is jjk. but because the bindings must all be “consensual” they're still used in modern times #satoru's instructions were for his mate to break the mating mark if he is ever implicated #because if they're “under his control” the elders won't hesitate to execute them along with him and if he's gone he can't prevent it #if it makes anyone feel better his mate doesn't actually thing satoru doesn't love them #but like everything in this world it's complicated.#jjk #gojo satoru x reader #prompt fill #a/b/o dynamics #omegaverse #mating bites #gojo satoru #reader insert #edited #shoko #i am so sorry #for some reason i convinced myself that ieri was her first name #what convinced me the boys were being so polite i have no idea #io.omegas

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