Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s hard to focus on the oddly cheerful pamphlet that’s been placed in his hands. The words are swimming, for a brief moment, so Yuuji has to blink his eyes. There’s a voice, one that sounds far away, muffled, echoing in his ears. It feels like he’s drowning underwater, like there’s no air left for him to take in.

The musty smell of the room is in his nose and his hand tightens around the stupid brochure. He can barely feel it, crinkling between his fingers. Can’t feel the paper. He feels cold, numb, knows it’s there, but he can’t feel it, doesn’t want to feel anything-

Pull yourself together, he finds himself thinking hatefully.

“…and the plot has already been secured, which is good in terms of saving money…flowers can be arranged for a price…you’ll need to decide on the font…”

Yuuji looks up blankly. “The font?”

The man in his outdated, ill-fitting suit gives him a pitying look. “For the gravestone, of course.” He leans forward and hands Yuuji a thicker booklet. “Here are some of the styles we suggest. Obviously, some will be pricier than others, oh, and you do need to start thinking of the coffin…open casket or not…”

It’s a roaring noise, blotting out all sound. The man’s mouth is moving, but Yuuji hears none of what he’s saying.

“…for a decent selection…roughly the cost comes out to…”

Dismay tastes like sour milk on Yuuji’s tongue as he absorbs the number. His heart feels like a useless, empty organ and he wants to throw himself in the nearest grave while he’s at it, just outside. Maybe he should ask how much it would cost to get his own ass buried, too.

The money. Why does it cost so much to die? He thinks through his own account and the few savings his grandfather had and his tongue feels too thick as he whispers, “I can’t afford that.”

That dreadful, pitying look appears once more. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Surely you have more family that can help you?”

 The urge to run becomes powerful.

“There’s just me,” Yuuji says numbly, a ringing sound in his ears.

It’s not exactly true. The being alone thing.

There is one other person in the immediate family that Yuuji can reach out to.

He just doesn’t want to. His psyche can’t bear it.

A day passes with this awful knowledge of being near destitute with…a funeral on the horizon. Another night of food tasting like nothing in his mouth. Another night of sobbing in the shower, where he thinks he can hide from himself.

Another night of shaming himself with thoughts like are you going to let Grandpa rest in a cheap, ill-made coffin and you can’t be thinking of passing on the service, even if he didn’t have many friends and he deserves a nice gravestone, one like grandma’s; should he go into the afterlife poorly because you’re not able to get enough money? People will think badly of you…

He’s got this favorite photo of his grandpa, from years back when Yuuji turned twenty-one, they’d been out together, for a drink. Candles and cake set in front of Yuuji’s beaming face, his grandpa scowling a little less, just for the occasion.

Yuuji’s put the photo away, hidden it, doesn’t want to see it, can’t see it without feeling his throat burn with sorrow, this screaming feeling in his chest.

All the photos in the house, he’s turned them around or taken them down. It’s like being in a damn mausoleum.

Yuuji doesn’t sleep much. When he finally gets moments of slumber, he wakes up in the dark, heart racing so fast in his chest that he’s certain he’s going to die. The stress of it all is hanging over him and the sorrow, well, he’s still trying to pretend it isn’t real.

But, it’s real. Grandpa’s room is still empty and will be empty forever.

“Have you made your choice on the coffin?” The very helpful man on the phone asks, sounding far too cheerful. “The body can only wait for so long…”

Yuuji hangs up and covers his mouth. Shoves human feelings down, far far far away.

“Who was that?” Nobara asks him as she cracks her neck idly. She’s loosening her shoulders up, getting ready for their practice, they’re at the gym, Megumi is doing some sort of stupid yoga stretches in the corner-

Yuuji gives her an empty grin. “No one. Just one of those scammers.”

She gives him a look, as if she sees through his bullshit. “Shoulda given me the phone. I would’ve had some fun with them.”

“I’m sure you would have.”

Nobara winks, clicking her tongue at him just as she lunges forward with a sharp right hook.

Yuuji ducks and feels anything similar to emotions slip away. This is what makes sense, this is what he needs, the mindless practice, the physical action until his next match in the ring. The dull pain, the sensation of muscles stretching, the ache in his gut when a solid hit lands…

Crimson is pain and pain is crimson and that’s all Yuuji wants.

~*~

They go out to eat, afterwards, laughing over their bruises and aching joints. The food and the beer doesn’t taste like anything on his tongue. Megumi doesn’t laugh, but he does grimace whenever Nobara and Yuuji make faces at each other, regaling him with stories of the hot moves they pulled on each other on the sparring floor.

Yuuji can pretend to feel normal, at least for now, even if his chest is an empty cavity full of sorrow, like a sucking, gaping wound.

Megumi pulls a sour face, listening to Yuuji and Nobara bicker. “You two fucking yet?”

“He would if I asked him to,” Nobara says brashly, overconfident to a fault, brash and un-ladylike as always. Her eyes glitter with knowing.

Yuuji swallows his beer down, chasing it with sake. He sighs, embraces the numb, blanks his mind, doesn’t want to think of the empty house waiting for him, full of his grandpa’s things, the smell of his clothes-

“Then, maybe you should ask,” he tells her dryly, because he doesn’t care, he’s empty of anything that matters, doesn’t plan on dwelling on the fact that yeah, maybe Megumi is onto something, maybe it’s something he and Nobara don’t talk about, a vile mistake that happened on a violent downswing in his brain, wanting to forget, forget, forget…

Nobara snorts into her drink, also un-ladylike, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“The pair of you disgust me.” Megumi sighs, always long suffering. He adores them, he just will never say it. “That’s it. Let’s get out of here.” He stares at Yuuji, really looks at him, something dark in his gaze. “Do you want me to walk you home? You’ve drank a lot…and I know things have been…tough for you…”

His voice drones. Yuuji can’t focus on it, doesn’t want to, doesn’t want anyone’s pity.

It’s like nails on a chalkboard, or fingers pressing into a wound, seeking a bullet, fishing it out, but sloppy.

Face numb and empty, Yuuji forces a smile on his face, like some sort of mask, saying, “Nah. I’m fine. I’ll manage.” He wants to get home and drop the mask of I’m fine, look how fucking fine I am.

They leave and as Yuuji walks home, it feels like pieces of himself are dragging behind him, like a trail of intestines from a wounded man.

~home, where it’s empty of everything but memories, like nails in his spine~

It feels like he’s surrounded by ghosts, when he sits down at the kitchen table, where he and his grand…his grandfather used to sit…

{His grandpa is an immovable, grouchy, stubborn force of nature. There are times that Yuuji admires this.

As it stands, this isn’t one of those times.

He picks at his food with irritation, running his tongue across his front teeth. Biting back sour feelings. Holding in a temper that is always ill-advised in front of the head of his household. “It’s not like I need your permission. I’m an adult. I was just making conversation.”

Shifting the chopsticks between his arthritis ravaged fingers, his grandfather scoffs. “Aye, you’re an adult, but it’s the principal of the matter. Secondly, this is my house. My rules.”

Okay, Yuuji pays rent, that has to count for something. It’s just the two of them and they’re always falling on hard times, but that’s not the point. Making a face, Yuuji groans. “It’s just an MMA gym. Yeah, there’s going to be fights and such-”

A noise of distaste emits from his grandpa. “Yuuji, you’ve always been attracted to danger. It’s your fatal flaw. It’s why you always followed him around the way you did. You trailed after him like a dog, no matter how terribly he treated you.”

His grandpa doesn’t need to elaborate on who he’s talking about. They both know.

Yuuji grits his teeth and eats in red tinged silence.}

Staring numbly at the kitchen table, Yuuji wishes he hadn’t argued so much with the old man. 

Wishes he spent more time with him, but how was he supposed to know he would get sick, how was he supposed to know death would snap him away, oh so swiftly? His grandfather did so much for him, tried to make sure Yuuji would live a better life than the broken childhood he went through.

He's gone and left Yuuji with this empty house and a horror show of funeral bills, just lining up at his front door.

He bites his lip and drops his forehead to the table, grinding his teeth, his stomach churning with sickness.

He knows what he should do, in order to give his grandfather a proper burial. He knows who he needs to see.

It just is the last thing he wants to do, because it feels like a knife, twisting around in his guts, digging digging digging until he’s throwing up blood, until all he sees is red…

It’s how he finds himself on the wrong side of town, his heart beating loud enough that it reminds him that he’s still alive, even if he feels dead inside. 

Yup, Yuuji thinks as he stares at the rough looking shop. This is the place.

Obsidian Ink glows in a murderous crimson above the ominous tattoo parlor. It’s dark out, the sun long since gone, and the cracked street empty of life. The moon is hidden by cloud and shadow, the night air full of the sound of silence. The old chocolate factory up the street is still emitting the sweet scent of milk chocolate and Yuuji inhales it thoughtlessly, the aroma so familiar.

He grew up in this neighborhood, before he and Grandpa escaped moved to greener pastures, away from the muggings, the drug deals, and the shankings on the wrong corner.

Mentally, Yuuji pushes that thought into a small door in his mind, locking it away before his feelings drown him. Don’t think about him, don’t think about him, he’s fine, everything is fine-

His heart is beating a little too fast and the wind is drifting through his hair. Taking a deep breath, he makes to open the door, trying not to note how the tinted windows don’t allow him to truly see inside the intimidating shop.

This parlor belongs to his cousin, and his cousin has a reputation.

A reputation that generally coincides with words like prison, sharp objects, cold-blooded, and downright sociopathic.

Pushing his thoughts of unease to the back of his mind, Yuuji steps inside, hearing the sound of buzzing filling the air, tasting the smoke of cigarettes on his tongue. Something that sounds like Slipknot is playing in the background, overpowering and aggressive.

The walls are covered in grotesque, beautiful art. Designs for tattoos. Skulls, coffins, intricate webs and spiders, broken clocks with the time all run out. Endless sorrow and horror, even pagan symbolism.

This is not the sort of place that Yuuji frequents. He’s an up-and-coming competitor at an MMA gym. He plays life on the straight and narrow, now. He volunteers at the local soup kitchen. He walks people’s dogs when they’re trapped in the office all day. He takes care of his grandpa-

No. Don’t think about that.

Feelings well up uncontrollably and he has to fight them down.

Sorrow. Cold and dark. Icy and full of loneliness. Yuuji pushes the thoughts away and forces himself to focus on the now, to ignore the gaping wound in his damn chest. To ignore the way that every night he avoids looking at his grandpa’s photos, he wants to sob, but he doesn’t, because that would mean he’s weak and he’s not allowed to be weak.

Yuuji clenches his jaw and forces himself to focus on what he’s walked into. You are empty of emotion, he tells himself. You feel nothing.

Deeper into the shop, there’s a woman, in only her bra and jeans, lying on her stomach on a padded table, while a painfully familiar man tattoos her.

Familiar, in the way that the family resemblance is extremely strong.

The woman looks unconcerned with Yuuji’s arrival. Her pale eyes glance over him with keen interest, her rough appearance seemingly due to smoking, alcohol, and who knows what else. Piercings cover her face and her nails are long and claw-like. She looks like the sort to be rode hard and still beg for more.

A cigarette sits idly in her fingers, the end glowing red as she takes a drag. “Look at this,” she says with a gravelly voice, betraying her fondness for smoking. “It’s like baby version of you, Sukuna. If you were a sweetie.”

For a moment, there is no answer. The tattoo gun buzzes sharply before cutting off. There’s some noise as a protective covering is placed over the skin.

After a moment, Yuuji’s distant cousin glances up from where he’s focused on his task. Those deep, garnet eyes pierce straight into Yuuji’s soul and Yuuji forces himself to glower back. Sukuna straightens up to his full height, powerful shoulders squared, tattooed arms visible in the black shirt he’s wearing. He’s tall and muscular, with a dangerous sort of air that sends off alarm bells in any decent person. Something in his gaze is always missing, or maybe there’s something extra. Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it’s the way he looks like he’s wondering what you sound like screaming.

Could be the threatening facial tattoos. Maybe.

Yuuji’s stomach twists.

The radio is roaring out a new vicious song, the guitar wailing in an impressive solo, echoing off the walls.

His hands are covered in tight black gloves, which he takes off with care, still holding Yuuji’s gaze in that all-consuming way, even as he addresses the woman. “Juli, we’ll finish that on our next appointment, yeah?”

The woman blows out some smoke from her cigarette and sits up, caring not about how Yuuji can see all the odd scars on her abdomen, the ones that look self-inflicted, or how she has lurid tattoos crawling across her heaving breasts. He looks away, even if she has no modesty.

When she’s dressed in a loose shirt, to make sure nothing rubs her tattoo, she leans up to kiss the bottom of Sukuna’s jaw. He doesn’t react at all. She presses some cash into his hand. “Thanks, doll. You’re the best. Call me later?”

Yuuji makes a disgusted face, which his cousin sees.

Sukuna breaks away from his staring match with Yuuji to give her a rather false smile, eyes cold and hard. “If I feel like it. You know how busy it can get after hours.”

She pouts convincingly and leaves, but not before eyeballing Yuuji up and down like a prime slab of meat. She pinches his ass hard before she walks out the door and Yuuji grits his teeth, holding back a yelp of surprise.

The raging soundtrack of hell shuts off abruptly the moment the door shuts behind the rather forward woman.

The smell of cleaning supplies hits Yuuji’s nose, harsh and abrasive. “Is the plan to ignore me?”

His cousin finishes washing off the table and sterilizing his supplies. Sukuna’s striking, if you’re into men that look like they might just enjoy making you cry. He’s older than Yuuji by a little under a decade, his body filled out in a way that never seems to happen to younger men in their early twenties.

“You’ve gotten older,” Sukuna drawls, eyes roving across Yuuji’s frame. “Probably wouldn’t have recognized you if weren’t like looking in a fucking mirror. Tell me; are you still a little snitch?”

Here we go, thinks Yuuji in dismay. Dragging the past out of the grave.

A darker part of Yuuji whispers, well, why else did you come here, if not to feel pain? If not to hurt yourself? Because everything hurts, now that you’re alone, now that grandpa is dead-

“I’m not here to talk about the past,” Yuuji says stiffly.

An eyebrow rises. Sukuna’s nose wrinkles slightly, the black tattooed slash across it moving with his disdain. “No? Why are you here?” His tone is cruel, like a razorblade at Yuuji’s throat.

Yuuji wants to be a smart ass and say, nobody made you join the Curse gang, nobody told you to deal drugs, nobody fucking told you to launder money, nobody told you to commit crimes in front of me. He doesn’t say it. Sukuna will blame him for his time spent in the slammer either way. And he should.

You came here to hurt, that wicked part of Yuuji whispers, like a phantom.

You came here because you need help, but you’re too ashamed to admit it. His mouth forms the wrong damn words and he regrets them immediately. “I want an eyebrow piercing.”

…I what? What did I just say? Was that…my voice? Yuuji internally groans in dismay. Like a coward, he couldn’t spit out the words, he couldn’t just say I need to borrow some money, oh no, not fucking Yuuji.

Sukuna scoffs, looking off to the side. His jaw works, briefly. “…and you came to me. Of all people. Out of all the shops in town. You. Came. To. Me.”

Yuuji shifts, his red sneakers squeaking on the crimson epoxy floor. It looks like he’s standing in blood and gore, but he’s not. “Blood is blood, isn’t it?”

An ugly look shapes Sukuna’s face as he repeats the words. “Blood is blood and you’re mine.” He shifts the adjustable table, so that it looks more like a doctor’s chair. “You trust me with a needle in your face? After what you did?”

After you got me sent to prison, is left unsaid.

“Yes,” Yuuji lies with a blank face.

He doesn’t trust Sukuna at all.

Sukuna’s eyes, a deep dark garnet, go half-mast as he examines Yuuji in a way that makes his hair stand on end. Every inch of his body is hyper aware of the attention he’s being paid. Those eyes crawl across his flesh, taking in its perfection. The absence of scars mostly, marks, piercings, tattoos. “Your skin is flawless,” his cousin says darkly. He pats the seat. “Come here. I’ll give you something to remember me by, little cousin.”

Warily, Yuuji walks forward and settles himself into the seat, leaning backwards, feeling utterly exposed. His cousin towers over him, like some sort of demon with malicious intentions. Sukuna is fully capable of committing violence and horror. Things the law never actually found out about. Things people never proved.

When Sukuna leans down by Yuuji’s ear, all Yuuji can think about is blood and violence. He imagines all the violence the body next to him has committed. All the souls he’s harmed without a care. “Next time you look in the mirror, you’ll think of me,” Sukuna says in his ear nastily. A dark promise.

Yuuji doesn’t want to tell him that he already sees Sukuna when he looks in the mirror. How could he not?

{“How do you not see him when you look at me?” Yuuji had asked his grandfather once.

The elderly man sighed. “Your soul is soft. Gentle. Easily wounded. Where you are full of selflessness, he is empty. I could never mistake you for him, Yuuji. It’s in your eyes; when I look at him, I think the soul has already died and his body doesn’t know it.”}

Yuuji has spent many years trying to erase the fact that he’s the kid related to the infamous felon in town. Trying to forget. To distance himself. He and his grandpa succeeded in that, all these many years. But now that he’s gone-

No. Stop thinking about that.

Sukuna holds up a terrifying pair of tweezers, some crazy looking instrument meant to hold Yuuji’s brow still while being pierced. With a slightly sadistic grin, Sukuna says, “Are you afraid of pain? Needles?”

Yuuji blanks his face and stares upward at the ceiling stubbornly. Is that supposed to be a sick joke? With their history? “No.”

For a moment, nothing happens. Yuuji closes his eyes and waits, assumes this will just get done with.

When nothing happens, he opens his eyes once more and finds his nefarious older cousin looking at him with a patient expression on his face. Yuuji frowns. “What-”

Like a serpent, Sukuna darts forward and pushes Yuuji’s head back, hissing something like don’t move. He comes at Yuuji with that terrifying, creepy tweezer clamp tool and grabs at his eyebrow hard enough to hurt Yuuji.

It can’t possibly be professional, this sheer aggression. The way he angles his body to keep Yuuji pinned in his seat. His cologne deep in Yuuji’s nose, shaking his senses with alarm bells and the scent of spiced clove, dark whiskey and molasses.

He’s a fucking felon, two times over, what did you expect from him, chocolates and roses? Yuuji mentally scolds himself, hating himself for getting into this situation. He didn’t even come here for this, why can’t he just suck up his own pride and ask for help with grandpa’s funeral costs-

“Stop,” Yuuji says, feeling panicked. Lightning terror seizes him. Sukuna is made of danger, pressure, and sharp needles. “Let me up.”

Fear is an interesting feeling, the way it blacks out everything else.

Sukuna grins, all pale teeth and nightmares in his gaze as he holds Yuuji down effortlessly, his awful instrument clamped hard on Yuuji’s extended flesh. “Keep struggling if you want more pain. I’m fine with that.”

The needles comes and he makes damn sure that Yuuji sees it, flashing it near his wide eyes.

“Oh, God,” Yuuji groans. His heart in pounding in his skull. He going to push that thing through his skin. It’s going to hurt and Yuuji can’t stop it. {Doesn’t want to stop it.}

“People call me many things,” Sukuna rasps as he lines up the needle with the clamp on Yuuji’s flesh. “They don’t usually call me that.”

I wonder why.

Though he’s already in place and this should only take seconds, Sukuna doesn’t push the needle through. Yuuji is still pushing at him, trying to get him to get away, no longer thinking any of this is a good idea.

“Let go,” Sukuna says coolly. “Give in and everything will be okay.”

It’s then that Yuuji realizes he’s hyperventilating. He’s thinking of all the rumors he’s heard, of Sukuna committing murder, of his drug organization and the shady shit they did, and all the things his cousin is literally capable of. He’s at his mercy in this stupid fucking chair with a needle in his damn face.

“Easy, jailbait.” Sukuna drawls, eyes like the glittering pits of hell. “Just give in.”

I'm way too old to be jailbait, fucker.

Yuuji is coiled tight, like a cobra, and Sukuna wants him to let go? Of what? He tries. He focuses on letting go, on becoming nothing, on leaving his body. On mentally dying.

A small part inside of him is crying, rocking back and forth saying, I miss my grandpa, I miss him, I love him, why did he have to die and leave me without anyone-

A strange thing happens then. His body seems to drift away and he gives up. Relaxes. The panic fades away and his limbs feel numb and weak. Nothing matters, aside from letting Sukuna have his way, having him take all this painful noise away from Yuuji.

It tastes like dangerous vulnerability. A part of him likes it. A part of him curls up and wants to die for it. Yuuji doesn’t like this part of himself, wanted to forget it existed, and yet-

A pleased sound. “That’s my boy.”

The needle goes in, piercing his flesh.

~painless~

There’s a precise snap of gloves, afterwards. A mirror is handed to Yuuji, to look at what he’s had done to his face.

“You know, I’m glad you came to me, brat. Someone else would have jacked up your pretty mug, because it looks like mine…and that…would have irritated me,” Sukuna is saying from what seems like far away.

Yuuji examines his reflection. Looks at his soft amber eyes and the glittering duo of silver balls on his eyebrow. He still feels empty. There’s an odd, unfulfilled ache in his abdomen. His chest feels hollow, like everything has been burned out from within.

Loss still tastes like ash.

A hand snakes around and grips his jaw with domineering force. Sukuna’s hand is bare now, so his touch is nearly electric. “Say, ‘thank you, cousin.’”

Yuuji puts the mirror down. “Fuck you.”

A dip in that midnight tone, harsh. Sukuna tilts his head to the side. “Want me to do your tongue too?”

Without answering, Yuuji fishes out his wallet to pay, which is stupid, he came here for money, not to give it away, but his awful cousin just waves the gesture off.

“Ya know, I heard about your old man.” His cousin is lounging like a king on one of his chairs now, looking like some sort of gangbanging lord, lighting a cigarette. All ink, silver rings, and malice. His crimson eyes flash. “Want a shoulder to cry on? I know how much he meant to you.” The last part is said mockingly.

The roaring sound is back in Yuuji’s eardrums. He’d already been a coward, unable to ask for help with the funeral arrangements, but now it’s damn impossible to utter the words. “You never liked him,” he says instead.

Sukuna sneers widely. “Well, he never liked me much either, now did he? Said I was a…bad influence, was it? You remember, don’t you?”

{“Boy, what is that in your damn ear?” His grandpa’s eyes are sharp, despite his growing age.

Yuuji, smiling, reaches upward to briefly touch the piercing in his cartilage. “Um…an earring. Sukuna said it was cool…”

Grandpa makes a disdainful noise of disgust. “I suppose you let him do this to you? Hm? You’re thirteen, boy. Have some damn pride.”

“But…I like-”

“Take it out. Your cousin is nothing but trouble. I don’t want you following in his footsteps.”}

“My mistake,” Yuuji replies with a certain amount of iron in his tone. “Are you not a bad influence? Or am I remembering my childhood wrong?”

Yuuji’s eyebrow feels warm, a certain ache there, heated. Another part of him, forever changed by the man in front of him. He’s got scars from his childhood; they’re all under his skin, never to be seen.

Sukuna’s gaze doesn’t flicker. He exhales smoke slowly, letting it coil about him like sin. “What did you really come here for, little cousin? It wasn’t for a piercing; I’m not stupid. You want something, otherwise you wouldn't be here.”

Just like that, Yuuji feels his tongue go numb again. The words he needs to say just won’t form, his pride is too strong, he hates groveling-

His cousin must read something off of his face, because he smirks nastily. Taking a quick drag off his cigarette, Sukuna drawls, “Do you need my help, brat? You’re going to have to say the words.”

Yuuji swallows thickly, hating himself. Hating how transparent he is. He looks away from his awful cousin. “Maybe.” His voice is sullen. "I need dough. For his...his fu-...funeral..." The words feel like knives, slicing his tongue, his throat.

Silence. Then-

“Oh, yeah? It’s going to cost you.” Sukuna sneers. He flicks ash off his death stick. “I just haven’t decided how, yet. So, how about it? Want to owe me one?”

Dread fills Yuuji like a plague of darkness. Owing Sukuna some unknown debt is like his worst nightmare come true. He shakes his head and steps backwards, towards the door. “I don’t trust you.” Why does he feel like running?

“You used to. But good. You shouldn’t.” Sukuna watches him retreat, like a viper. “But if you change your mind…you know the price, brat.”

He’s about to leave, to say fuck it all, but that dark ache inside of his chest, the reminder of all his grandfather sacrificed to give him a better life, makes Yuuji pause. “Can’t I just owe you money?” He hears himself asking.

Sukuna smirks. “I don’t think so. I want a favor. I want you to owe me a favor, brat.”

It’s for…for grandpa…

The cost of the coffin, the service, all of it pilling up in Yuuji’s mind, the breaking stress of it all slamming on his spine.

“Fine.” Yuuji spits out hatefully.

Lounging in his seat, Sukuna looks at him with heavily lidded eyes. “Come here. Shake on it like a man.” He stands up, taller than Yuuji, his tattooed hand stretched outward, waiting.

Yuuji does not want to bloody well touch his cousin, doesn’t want to touch anyone, but he steps forward and reaches out a hand, only to be pulled into a rough embrace, Sukuna’s mouth at his ear. He squeezes Yuuji hard, like a snake, suffocating him.

For a moment, Yuuji allows it, wants to be crushed, asphyxiated. Wants to be dead, but no, thoughts like that have no place here, sorrow is eating him up from the inside out…

“Ya know, I think I might have missed you, you little shit.” His voice fills Yuuji’s skull, mocking amusement coiled in his tone. Somehow, he sounds fond. Sukuna’s warm and real, a human touch, can touch him while Yuuji will never hug his grandfather ever again-

Yuuji growls and manages to crawl out of those deadly arms, stumbling away. “I didn’t miss you at all.”

“Is that what you tell yourself to feel better at night?” Sukuna laughs, lighting another cigarette. “Don’t forget, I know you. Think of all the fun we used to have, yeah?”

{self-loathing is like oil, filling him up to the brim until he can't breathe}

“Your idea of fun is fucked up,” Yuuji says, hand on the doorhandle. It’s true and it’s probably why Yuuji has always been a little off. He refuses to reminisce, as if their relationship has ever been anything other than toxic waste.

Flicking some ash onto the floor, Sukuna rolls his eyes, inhales, says, “Suit yourself.”

Feeling no better than how he did upon entering the awful parlor, Yuuji leaves, even though he leaves with a solution to his problem, feeling ill, Sukuna’s low chuckle chasing after him into the night, like a phantom of ill-will.

His cousin is the last person on this earth he wants to owe a debt to.

But at least his grandfather will rest well in the afterlife. His death with be honored well…and Yuuji has to live with that.

At least, until the clock runs out and Sukuna calls to collect.

Tick, tock, Yuuji, Sukuna used to say, mockingly, when Yuuji was a boy, a simple boy trying to keep up with his idol as they sped out of some store they’d shoplifted from. Any day now, or do you want us to get caught?

...or Yuuji playing lookout, watching for cops while his cousin slid bags of drugs into some shady fuck's pack. His eyes, garnet, catching on Yuuji, seeing him looking. A scowl on his mouth, Sukuna hissing, do you want to get us caught? Lookout, you fucking lookout.

Perhaps worse, when Yuuji was nineteen, the door shutting behind them, they're alone in someone's bedroom, he doesn't know whose, he thinks there's a needle on the bedside table, and Sukuna whispers in his ear, warm, too warm, far too close, saying, shh, shh, do you want us to get caught?

~sickness coils, like poison~

These are all things Yuuji doesn't miss, doesn't care to recall, things he's been glad to hide from for all these years, with g-grandpa at his side.

He grits his teeth and wipes his eyes as he walks down the dark, empty streets, feeling like a clock of doom is ticking over his head, feeling like he's just walked into the spiders web and the spider is waiting...

Tick, tock.

Chapter Text

For nine years, Yuuji didn’t see his cousin. Not even after he got out of prison on good behavior- whatever the fuck that meant. No, they wanted nothing to do with each other after that whole debacle, and that suited him just fine, pretending his past life wasn’t roaming around the darker side of town again. Wasn’t just there, running his ink shop as if nothing ever happened.

The point was to dissociate himself from that part of his life and Yuuji thinks he did a damn good job of it…at least until now.

Now that Yuuji’s seen him, just this once, he can’t get Sukuna out of his mind. It’s as if every horrid, wretched detail from his past has come rushing back at him, out of some dark forgotten box in his head. The skeletons in his closet are rattling loudly, ready to spill free like an ocean of bones.

Yuuji tries to close his eyes to it all, the way he always has. He’s only barely keeping the worst little box in his mind shut away, because if he opens that one, he’s going to lose whatever sanity he still has.

He drifts through the next day, pretending he’s okay, the way he’s been wearing a fucking mask since the day his…grandfather…passed.

Unfortunately, it seems Sukuna is right; every glance in the mirror at the glittering silver on his face makes Yuuji think of him.

It’s sick and it’s wrong and it brings forth memories that make him feel like a shit human being.

Megumi grunts when Yuuji strikes the punching bag in a fast combination. “Easy there, killer.”

Sweat trickles down Yuuji’s face as he dances lightly on his feet. He jabs hard and then follows it up with a roundhouse kick, shaking the bag. Also, physically shaking Megumi, who looks about ready to quit on him.

Nobara is stretching out a few feet away from them in the gym. She’s got her tight ass pants on and she makes a point of rolling her eyes at every scrub that looks her way. Yuuji always asks her why she dresses like that if she doesn’t want anyone to look and she always replies, who says I don’t want them to look? I like tormenting them with what they can never have.

She’s a bit of a bitch, Nobara is. Just how he likes her.

Catching his eye, she winks at him saucily as she bends over, limbering up. “I’m still trying to imagine you going to Claire’s, sitting in some cute little pink chair with glitter, getting your eyebrow pierced.” She’s looking at him upside down. “Did they do it with a pink gun too?”

Sweat trickles down his forehead and he wipes it away with his arm. “I did not go to Claire’s. What do you think I am, a thirteen-year-old girl? It was with a needle.” Yuuji bites back, striking the punching bag again, causing Megumi to groan with exasperation, grumbling about Yuuji’s over-enthusiasm to beat the thing to death.

“You could have paid me to do it,” Nobara ribs Yuuji as she stands on one leg, lifting the other over her head. “I’m good at everything.”

“No, you aren’t,” Megumi replies in that overly dry tone of his, unimpressed. “You’d have probably poked his eye out with your manly hands.”

Straightening up, Nobara points at him threateningly. “Shut your dirty mouth before I come over there and knock you into next Tuesday with my manly hands.”

Yuuji snorts, sidekicking the bag.

Megumi rubs his forehead and says irritably, “Maybe the two of you should hop in the cage to prepare for the upcoming tournament. I’m tired of being the go-between. Beat up on him, Kugisaki.”

“Oh, I would.” Her smile gets a little sly. She gazes into Yuuji’s eyes as she mimics a chokehold with her arm across her throat briefly, “If I didn’t think he’d enjoy it so much.”

Yuuji flushes red, heat crawling up his neck in a rush of blood. He’s never going to live that down with her. Megumi looks confused, like he’s trying to piece something together, one brow raised up high. Then, he shakes his head, like a dog shaking away an annoying fly buzzing in his ear.

Before Yuuji can try to dismiss her words, erase what she said, Nobara leaps at him with a sharp right hook, followed by a sweeping sidekick that he narrowly blocks. He does a double-leg take down, getting her on the ground, but she’s slippery, already trying to get her strong legs around his neck.

Megumi sits on a chair, idly drinking from his water bottle, watching them the way he would watch annoying siblings brawl.

In the end, Nobara submits him on the mat, her viciousness on the ground always in her favor.

As she’s got Yuuji in a rear naked choke, she hisses in his ear from behind, “You let me win, you little shit.” He can barely breathe and that makes his stomach coil up, a fact he tries to ignore.

Maybe, princess.

When she releases him, he can breathe again, her arm no longer locked around his jugular. He ignores the warm burn low in his gut, closes his eyes, pushes the feeling away. He's nearly half hard. He knows it’s wrong, sick, but the darkest part of him likes the feeling asphyxiation gives him.

…and Nobara knows it, though he doesn’t think she appreciates how thoroughly fucked up it is yet. He’s been spiraling downward after his grandfather, as if the ground has opened up beneath him and all he can do is continue to sink.

He goes home with her, afterwards, because he doesn’t want to face the empty rooms in the home that he shared with his grandfather. He doesn’t want to unlock the door and realize that no one is waiting for him, that no one will ever be waiting for him ever again.

The suffocating, drowning feeling of anger and despair. The hole in his heart and the way he hugs the pillow that his grandpa used to sleep on every night. The fear that fills him, not knowing how he’s going to cope without the rock in his life, the one who supported him and hauled him out of his shitstorm of a childhood.

Yuuji wants to face none of it and this is the healthiest form of escape he knows anymore; avoidance. It’s much better than his old routine for escaping difficult things, after all.

He goes home with Nobara because he also needs to set the record straight with her about the minor slip of her tongue at the gym. The thing she shouldn’t have joked about. At least not where other people could overhear, dammit.

Her apartment is much nicer than his place, all modern and pale white. Sparkling granite countertops. Stainless steel appliances. Everything smells like a lovely rose. She spends a lot of time cleaning, an outlet for her own stress. “I thought you agreed not to say anything about…about the thing,” he tells Nobara at her kitchen table as he pokes at the dinner they brought home, feeling vaguely humiliated still. “I told you not to bring it up again, Kugisaki.”

Her hair is drying from when she showered. She’s wrapped up in her fluffy white robe. “Oh, are you embarrassed, you little perv?” She teases, dark eyes smiling at him.

He flushes. “Yes!”

The dark, dirty thing inside of him, trying to consume him. The thing that came into being so long ago, or because of long ago. Being restrained, being powerless. Being vulnerable, at someone’s mercy. The embarrassing arousal that came a few days ago when she pinned him down in a dangerous lock on the sparring mat, nearly cutting off all his air, just like she did tonight.

The way he’d relaxed into it, wanted it, and how for a moment, he thinks she wanted it too.

The horror he’d felt, realizing he was aroused. The thoughts of sick sick sick wrong…

Huffing slightly, she comes over to him and swings a leg over his lap with that sheer, overwhelming confidence of hers. No shame, no hesitation. Yuuji allows it, his hands coming to her waist as he looks at her coolly, a strange anticipation itching along his spine. The weight of her is familiar from the sparring mat, almost comforting.

What she does next shouldn’t be comforting at all.

Slowly, she places her hands around his throat, slowly tightening her grip, not enough to block off his air, but enough that he feels in her power. He’s at her mercy and if she wanted to strangle him, she could. Disappear him into nothing, that black hazy feeling of asphyxiation, powerless, almost like flying, like a high-

His breathing shifts and his pupils dilate, excited. He presses into her grip instinctively, wanting more.

For a split second, she squeezes harder, something dark flashing in her gaze, there and gone in an instant. The next thing Yuuji knows is the pressure is vanishing, as is the heat of her body. Nobara dismounts from his lap, stepping away from him, looking vaguely off kilter, as if surprised by the intensity of his reaction. Perhaps afraid of her own. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she whispers, eyes doe-like. She straightens her robe with a hint of insecurity. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. You’ve been having such a tough time…at home. I’ve been thoughtless.” Nobara isn’t one to be apologetic, so Yuuji knows this is genuine. She wouldn’t waste her words otherwise.

He allows her apology to wash over him. It sounds wrong, because disturbingly, deep down, he doesn’t want to be apologized to. Stepping closer to her, breathing her air, he inhales slowly. He wants to blank his mind-

“No. I’m not going to be the whip you use on your own back,” she says sharply, a command, reading something in his eyes. Something that scares her. “You should go.”

“But-” he wants, oh he wants to turn this down a darker path, because she’s the only one now who knows and accepts what he really wants.

“You’re hurting. That’s what this is about. You want to hurt and I don’t think I’d enjoy it. I like you too much, Yuuji.” Her voice is soft as she walks him to the door. For a moment, she looks less than confident, a softer version of Nobara that he isn’t used to seeing, standing there in her robe. “I won’t tease you about it again.”

I won’t be the self-loathing you’re looking for, is left unsaid.  

The funeral director calls him the next day, telling Yuuji he can’t hold the time for the wake much longer without pay.

The cemetery wants him to make the down payment on the plot tomorrow. The gravestone isn’t even carved and won’t be if Yuuji doesn’t dish out the dough. Oh, and the coffin, he can’t even afford the cheapest one-

He’s still got to pay the mortgage next month. There’s an elephant standing on his chest and the pressure never alleviates.

Yuuji wishes it would all just disappear, but none of his problems are going to disappear without cash and it feels like the chains around his mind are growing tighter. He knows Sukuna is good for the money, the problem is that Yuuji is going to have to see him again to get it.

Grandpa would be tossing in his grave if he knew, so thank God he’s not in a grave just yet.  

I’m sorry, Grandpa. I had no other choice but to go to him.

He’s getting ready to go to the gym for training, exiting his shower, towel around his waist as he strolls around the house, looking for his favorite shorts and gloves-

Sukuna is sitting in his grandfather’s chair, idly flipping open a switchblade in his tattooed hand. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. Open.

His harsh gaze is pinned on Yuuji, watching him silently. Those eyes flicker down once before boring holes into his eye sockets once more.

Yuuji’s mouth goes dry as a desert, standing frozen. There’s still water dripping from his hair, running a trail down his spine. His mind is pulling in a thousand directions, it feels like it’s screaming for help because the weight on his chest just gets heavier. It’s a miracle that he keeps his tone even. “How did you get in here?”

The goddam criminal gestures to the front door without a single care as he sinks deeper into grandpa’s chair. “I broke in.” Sukuna says it so casually, as if he’s talking about how he likes his coffee in the morning. “Dreadfully easy, by the way. Looks like living in the Yuppie side of town has made you soft. Nice place, by the way.” His cousin smirks unpleasantly, cocking his head. “But you know what they say about taking a boy out of the hood...”

Yuuji’s jaw tightens. Blood flashes in his mind and he has to step away before his mind cracks in half. He leaves the room after grabbing his shorts off the nearest chair and dresses in the bedroom, fury in his every movement. How dare he just bust into grandpa’s house like this? Grandpa would have never wanted him here. Not in his favorite chair! Motherfucker.

When he gets back into the main living room again, he sees that Sukuna is turning all the photos around on the walls, facing them outward again, looking at Yuuji’s life with their grandfather, all the things they did together in recent years while Sukuna was locked up. “You always were his favorite,” Sukuna drawls nastily without looking at Yuuji. “These are so wholesome. Sickening. Gardening? Sailboating? What the fuck. No wonder you both ran out of the place we grew up in. All the shit and crime and poverty.” He flips around another framed photo, giving Yuuji a look. “You have all these lovely photos turned backwards. Figured I’d fix that. So, you can see them.”

They were all turned with the backs facing forwards for that very fucking reason; because Yuuji can’t stand to look at them right now. The pain he feels seeing his grandfather’s face is enough to make his mind feel that icy numb and fear of being alone all over again.

The fear of losing control and destroying the life he has now. All it could take is one mistake and his grandfather isn’t here to save him anymore.

“Get. Out.” Yuuji says harshly, a certain unease rising up in his veins. It was bad enough to see Sukuna a few days ago, he doesn’t want this to become a habit, because bad habits die painful deaths. Yuuji knows this very well.

His cousin chuckles meanly, reaching into his pocket to pull out a check, waving it in the air. “Relax. I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to go anywhere without handing off this. Though, I admit I’m confused; this place isn’t exactly cheap. The old man must have been overextending himself to live here in his attempt to keep you out of the hood. Your problem now, I guess-”

“I helped him pay for it,” Yuuji interrupts coldly.

Sukuna makes a pained face, as if to say ‘ouch, you’re definitely in money trouble’. Which, yes. One hundred percent.

Yuuji swallows hard, staring at that innocuous piece of paper. The money to pay for…the…for all of it.

Hopelessness hits Yuuji. Of course. He knew this was coming. “So, hand it over and go. We already agreed to a deal on it. We don’t need to fucking socialize.”

Sukuna tilts his head mockingly. “What if I want to socialize? It’s been so long, little cousin. Don’t you want to catch up? You ran out so quickly the other night.”

“No.” Yuuji says between gritted teeth, cars crashing in his mind. The two of them being in the same room, breathing the same air is dangerous enough. The past bites at Yuuji's heels. “We have nothing to talk about.” Absolutely nothing, the past is gone, it’s dead, it needs to stay that way. Yuuji is not going backwards.

Those dangerous eyes harden, unpleasantries dancing in Sukuna’s gaze. “I disagree. I think there’s a lot to talk about-”

“You’re still pissed at me. I can’t help you there.”

“Yeah. I’m fucking pissed at you, but I’ve had a long time to think about it.” Sukuna leans back against the wall, fooling around with the fucking knife of his again in that intimidating manner that doesn’t exactly intimidate Yuuji. It used to be a sound he liked hearing, hanging out with his cousin. There’s calculation in Sukuna’s eyes as he stares at Yuuji from across the room, like a tiger lying in wait. “Our dear old man sent you packing off to that little yuppie thoughts and prayers place and when you came out, you wouldn’t see me, and the pigs showed up to cart me off to the Big House. Funny how that happened.”

Grim, hating having it all thrown in his face, Yuuji says with a broken smile, “Guess I was finally thinking clearly. That’s not what you want to hear though. Nothing I say will ever make you feel better.” Only worse, and there’s so much worse. Locked away in Yuuji’s mind, where even he never looks.

Sukuna’s jaw works briefly as he appraises Yuuji. “Do you have the faintest idea of what they would do to a boy like you in prison?”

The air heats with tension and danger. Yuuji swallows and Sukuna’s eyes follow the motion. With a hint of his old rebellious spirit, Yuuji lifts his chin arrogantly. “I’m a fighter. No one would be able to touch me.”

Sukuna throws his head back and laughs, an honest sound from deep in his chest. “Is that what you think?” He pushes away from the wall and circles around Yuuji slowly, exhaling against the nape of his neck, close enough to kill, as one might say. Yuuji shivers and Sukuna says lowly, “That’s what they all say, until they get caught alone.” The words are barely finished being said when Sukuna grapples Yuuji from behind, using his superior strength and his first move advantage.

It's a brutal clash of strength and skill, but Yuuji allowed himself to be taken unawares and his cousin fights dirty. Always has.

Sukuna pins him on his belly and swiftly puts an end to Yuuji’s struggles. “The truth is, you’re too pretty for that life and your ass is far too sweet,” Sukuna taunts viciously. “You would have made some lifer a very happy man, what with your sweet mouth and your sappy doe eyes-”

“Dude, can you get your dick off me?” Yuuji demands crassly, furious over being proven wrong. “You’ve made your point, asshole.”

He grinds Yuuji’s face into the carpet briefly, his aggressive rings digging into the back of Yuuji’s skull. “That’s not how you talk to your Daddy, brat.”

Yuuji growls. “Guess it’s a good thing I never had one of those, isn’t it?” He snaps his head back and cracks it into Sukuna’s face. There’s a satisfying snarl of pain and the weight on Yuuji’s back is gone. He listens to the way Sukuna goes to the sink in the kitchen and spits blood from his mouth.

Yuuji sits up and watches him the way prey watches a predator. “Great. You’re still a bigger motherfucker than me. I get it. Would you just fuck off now? Jesus Christ.” Yuuji hisses furiously, rubbing at the back of his neck. He feels caged in his own home as it is and having Sukuna here is not helping. He wants to dig up the past and Yuuji wants to hide from it.

“You’re a fucking shithead,” Sukuna mutters, spitting into the sink again, his lip split. “You never used to treat me this way.”

“Yeah?” Yuuji sneers, the expression feeling foreign on his mouth. He doesn’t want to think about who he used to be. That Yuuji wasn’t anything to phone home about. Yuuji has tried so hard to kill that version of himself. “Well, I got old. I’m not the little dog that used to follow you around anymore. I’m not going to jump when you snap your fingers. Get over it. That Yuuji has been dead a long time.”

Sukuna straightens up and pulls out the check he’s written for Yuuji to cash for their grandfather. “Has he?” His lip curls slightly, taking measure of their situation. Then, he shrugs his broad shoulders. “I brought my end of the deal. Don’t say I never did anything for you, because I know you’re writing some dramatic little story in your head about how I ruined-”

“You nearly did ruin my life. So, put it on the table and go.”

Those crimson eyes flash dangerously; Sukuna’s patience is growing thin. “Come and get it from me, you cowardly cunt.”

Yuuji’s jaw ticks at the insult, but he has no choice; he needs the stupid money. Reluctantly, Yuuji goes forward, reaching to grab the check.

The hand holding the check moves out of Yuuji’s reach. “Why did you do it?”

Yuuji scowls at him, wishing the other man dead a thousand times over. He tries to snag the check again, failing. He huffs out, “Do what?”

“Rat me out,” Sukuna hisses coldly, the first display of honest emotion Yuuji has seen from him in a long time, because there’s something dangerously close to pain in that vicious gaze. “I want you to tell me why you fucked me over.”

A ripping sensation slices through Yuuji’s insides, like a knife being twisted around. His throat closes up and the words vanish in thin air. He tries to speak, but he can’t, he can’t talk about it, he doesn’t talk about it, never even told his grandfather everything-

“Fucking look at me when I ask you a question,” Sukuna snaps. “You want to pay for that judgmental bastard’s funeral, don’t you? You owe me this much.”

I owe you nothing.

Pain clashes with unease. Yuuji glares at him hatefully. “Don’t you talk about him like that. He saved my life. He’s a better man than either of us will ever be.”

A bitter smile shapes Sukuna’s face, hearing those words. His eyes go dark, shuttered. “Oh. I see. He saved you from me, that’s how you like to paint it in your do-good little skull? He always was coming between us, saying his poisonous trash about me to you.”

“He wasn’t wrong about any of it,” Yuuji says coldly, not liking where this is headed.

“Even as a corpse, he still drives a big fat wedge right in the middle of us.” Sukuna comes closer to Yuuji, looking down his nose at him, eyes traveling too intimately across his face. “You can say all you like that he was right, but you always came back. You were happy with how things were.”

Was he? Was he really? It might have been the chemicals talking.

Just like that, the awful little box chained and locked up inside the darkest recess of Yuuji’s brain rolls out of its hidden alcove. He places the key in the lock and twists it hatefully, revealing the thing he’s always tried to pretend he doesn’t remember.

“Happy? Funny, that’s not how I remember it.” There were good times, and they were always so close, he doesn't want to acknowledge how close, but that isn’t the point here.

Tilting his head with mocking, leaning closer to get face to face, barely an inch between their noses, Sukuna says, “Entertain me with how you remember it. What caused you to turn on me? After all I did for you?”

It’s not an entertaining story and they both know it. “Do you remember that party?” Yuuji’s voice goes low, almost vanishing in thin air. It feels like he’s drowning and maybe he wants to drown, sunk to the bottom of some sea. His stomach churns like a storm.

His cousin barks out a cruel laugh, still so close. “There were so many, Yuuji.”

A rictus of dying emotion tries to shape Yuuji’s face and his eyes feel hot. He blinks them, looking away briefly, grinding his teeth together. He digs his fingernails into the palm of his hand, trying to draw blood, seeking to hurt. “You know what I’m talking about. I know you know, because I remember how you reacted after. That was the start of the end. The only reason it wasn’t the end was because I couldn’t stop. Not like you could. And you didn’t try to stop me; you enabled.”

Tension creeps into every line of Sukuna’s body, even as his eyes go half-mast with cold calculation. Trying to hide whatever he’s really feeling behind all his cruelty and his fierce intimidation. He takes a step back. “It was one of Jogo’s parties,” he admits in a hateful tone, spitting out the words grudgingly. His memory, perfect.  

In his mind, Yuuji is looking into the beat-up little box, looking at the memory, wishing it wasn’t his. He can almost smell the stench of weed and cigarette smoke in his nose, the haze in the apartment. He can see the coke being cut on Jogo’s kitchen table as he walks past. “I still remember that shitty awful room of his. I remember what you did. And how I hated myself after.” Every word feels like a weight is attached to it, dragging on his tongue, tearing it. “I wasn’t okay with it, but I trusted you. And by the time I could think about it, I wanted to bury it with more so I wouldn’t have to feel so sick about myself and what we did.” Yuuji swallows thickly, feeling nausea growing. He’s going to be ill. It feels like he’s pulling his guts out, putting them on display. “…and when I was thinking clearly…after the ‘thoughts and prayers’ place, as you call it…the only way I could think of making it stop…was to cut you out of my life.” Yuuji’s digs his fingernails in harder, feeling the hot sting of blood welling up, dripping to the floor. “And you know what? That felt like carving out an infected, rotten organ with a dull blade. And it felt great. Every moment of ripping you out felt more orgasmic than I ever felt shooting up.”

For once, Sukuna’s arrogant mouth goes silent.

The room is quiet aside from the loud, measured ticking of the grandfather clock and Yuuji’s harsh, uneven breathing.

“Well,” Sukuna finally says roughly, an edge of something far worse than bitterness in his voice. “I’m glad that’s in the open. Fuck.” He slaps the check down on Yuuji’s kitchen table.

Sukuna walks out the front door, slamming it, and Yuuji waits a respectable amount of time before he punches the wall, screaming until his throat feels raw.

He’s late to training with Megumi and Nobara; he has to scrub the blood off the damaged wall.

~~

“This needs to stop, boy.” His grandfather’s voice is rough, his typical gruffness fueled by something worse than anger. Disappointment has a wretched taste. “You need to stop.”

Irritated, Yuuji rips his arm out of his grandfather’s grasp. Rolls his sleeve down to hide the damning proof. “I don’t know how. Maybe I don’t want to.”

“You do. You’re a good boy, this poison isn’t going to fix your problems, he’s twisting you up in a noose you won’t escape-”

An irrational sort of rage, fueled by shame and despair and guilt, fills Yuuji. “It’s not about him!”

“It is. He’s a damaged young man. More broken than you. And he wants to bring you down to his level, because that makes him feel whole.” His grandfather’s eyes, usually so stern, go sorrowful. “I’m going to get us out of this town, Yuuji. But when I do, it’s a clean slate.”

Tough shit, he’d have to get Yuuji clean, too. There’s not enough shit in this world to get Yuuji clean.

…but he does. Because that’s what grandfathers do.

Yuuji deposits his filthy money in at the bank, watching his balance jump substantially.

Shortly after, he makes his calls, pays the funeral home, the cemetery, buys the nicer coffin with the fancy silver handles, and has the gravestone delivered.

Making all the final arrangements drains him of all his energy, leaving him to feel hollow inside. A pumpkin with all its insides scooped right out. He spends the night alone, staring at a wall, drinking, because alcohol is the safest drug he can possibly allow himself imagine.

...because he can imagine a lot of drugs intimately, and he feels dangerously close to becoming who he doesn’t want to be. It’s a physical, herculean effort to keep himself in check.

His grandfather’s wake is set for the weekend. Yuuji just has to get through this. He can make it. He’s trying to do his exercises, the ones his therapist from long ago told him would help with stress to keep him from relapsing.

One day at a time, each and every night unable to sleep without feeling like someone is standing on his chest.

I just want to escape it.

You know how, a traitorous voice whispers. It could just be once.

He goes to the fridge and gets a bowl of ice, submerging his hands until they burn with searing agony. Until that’s all he can think about, because for Yuuji, it's never just once.

~

It’s three in the morning and he still can’t sleep, so he opens up his computer, searching for old copies of voicemails that he simply couldn’t let go of. Hidden away, hoping he would one day forget them. He hasn’t.

There’s a few. Some older than others.

He clicks the oldest, from fourteen years past, Sukuna’s voice a little lighter than it is now. Younger. “You’re late bonehead. Are you waiting for a sign from God? Well, this is it.” Yuuji snorts, mouth quirking of its own accord.

There’s eight saved, and he clicks at random. “Heard the old man couldn’t pay the bills this month and you’re shit outta luck on the heat. It’s fucking cold, come stay at my place. But not him, fuck him-” Yuuji stops that one.

Click. “The drop is at ten. Be there or be square and on my shit list.”

Yuuji hovers the mouse over the last item in the folder. It’s dated nine years ago, the most recent one. The one he’s been avoiding. The only one that really matters. Yuuji presses play, sitting in the dark.

“Hey.” The voice sounds emotionally worn, a strange key for Sukuna. It fills the darkened room, as if he’s there with him “Yuuji. Come on. Stop with the cold shoulder routine. You missed out on the hot rod we sniped last week; getting the plates redone and the registration fixed as we speak at Mahito’s. You could have been the one to drive the shit out of it, shithead. Anyway, Jogo’s already forgotten how you ran out of his party like a total cunt. Gave me shit all week about that, by the way. Just fucking call me.” Sukuna’s voice sounds annoyed, but under the annoyance, there’s something else that tastes like worry. “I’m going to come by the apartment if you don’t. Can you imagine the aneurysm that would give the old man? You don’t want that, c’mon.” There’s a pause in the ridiculously long voicemail that comes dangerously close to begging. He can almost pick up the sound of Sukuna sighing, the way he breathes. He was probably smoking a cigarette, inhaling hard, exhaling harder. “Look. We don’t have to talk about…what happened…unless you want to talk about it. I mean, we can talk about it. I’ll even talk about that bogus tv show you like. I just want to see you.” His voice cracks, and lord he’s got no idea that Yuuji will save this recording for years and play it on his worst nights. He probably would have never said any of it if he knew. 

It's the only reminder Yuuji has that his cousin has human feelings and under all his criminality, has cracks in his armor too. A minor reminder that maybe his cousin was just as affected by what happened and what they did, more than he ever let on.

~

By the time Yuuji finally passes out in the early hours, he dreams.

{you’re not afraid of needles, are you?}

The way it presses into his skin, slides into his vein, emitting poison disguised as heaven.

~

Chapter Text

The bank calls, because of course they do.

The nasally voice on the other end of the phone line drones on like a hive of bees. “We’ve been examining your income to debt ratios now that the mortgage has passed solely to you from you grandfather. We have concerns.”

Oh, they have concerns? Welcome to the pity party, Yuuji only has concerns to deal with. Once he puts out one fire, he finds himself with yet another to put out in a mad dash. He feels like an absurd little cartoon bunny, running around soundlessly as fires keep appearing as he tosses useless buckets of water on each one.

In all the other morbid chaos of trying to orchestrate his grandfather’s burial, Yuuji neglected to consider what else might just pop up.

“Look, how do you even know about this?” Yuuji feels a cold sweat breaking out along his spine, an ode of awful brewing within. The elephant sitting on his chest grows heavier, pressing him down, crushing him.

He can’t escape the pressure; there is no escape. It makes him want to crumble under its weight.

“…you had to submit the death certificate to take control of his bank accounts, Sir. You did so a week ago?”

Blinking, Yuuji mentally curses. Of course, right. He needed to pay outstanding bills and take ownership of his grandfather’s assets. Which…included the house. And the loan.

“With the deceased out of the picture, you have lost a substantial amount of income that once went towards payment of the mortgage…we need to discuss…”

The wall that Yuuji is staring at seems to wiggle like some morphing, melting thing.

Fucking hell.

Nobara is celebrating her birthday, bad timing, so naturally, they are all dragged out to various bars to satisfy her need to garner male attention and be the Queen Bee of the town. Yuuji manages to put on a convincing mask for the occasion, just for her.

He’s good at masks; good at hiding all the rot that lies underneath.

By the sixth bar, further and further from the center of town, further than they ever usually go, Gojo and Megumi are chasing their beers with shots of tequila and Yuuji imagines nothing good is going to happen tonight. Nothing good ever happens after midnight, as the saying goes. Or something shitty like that.

Nobara chooses him as her dance partner at some point in time, but everything is a little hot and fuzzy now in this sleazy place. He thinks it’s because she enjoys pushing him around with that grin on her lips, dark eyes flashing playfully.

If he’s honest -which he’s fucking not- he’d admit that he doesn’t mind. Maybe he even likes it. Okay, they both know he does; she knows he gets hard when she pins him down on the mat.

Yuuji is the kind of guy who will always be there for a friend, jump into any fray to defend his pals, but he’s not the domineering one in his pack of wolves. He doesn’t get off pushing people around, but Nobara does.

She likes to push and he doesn’t mind being pushed.

They’ve always walked a very close line between friends and more-than-friends. It’s always worked for them in that no-strings attached way.

Their noses brush as they grind to the song and she laughs, going on her tip-toes and-

“Get your tongue off my piercing, you nasty skank,” Yuuji growls without any heat behind it. She leans back and snorts fondly, alcohol hazy in her gaze. She’s having a blast. 

“You’re adorable when you get feisty,” Nobara tells him, fingers digging into his back as she keeps him close. “Like a cat that got water dumped on it.”

“Ughhh,” he groans, rolling his eyes. “Bitch. At least shove your tongue down my throat like a normal slut next time.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Nobara replies cheerily, face glowing with alcohol and delight. She’s got her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her head tilted backwards as she stares up at the flashing lights, the ones dancing across her face.

They do a few more songs before she excuses herself to the ladies room.

Yuuji uses it as a method of momentary escape, he needs to go out back to get air, wanting a brief respite from the pounding music and the mosh of people surrounding him, the people living their best lives while he feels like he’s drowning in quicksand.

Everyone seems so warm and alive, but all he feels is cold inside.

He wants to inhale the night air, but the dank back patio of this particular raunchy bar is full of people smoking like chimneys. Fuck.

“Look who it is. Hey there, jailbait. You seem lost.”

Feeling his jaw twitch, Yuuji clenches his hands into fists, struggling to keep his emotions crushed down. This is unbelievable. The universe must be actively trying to send him over the edge.

Yuuji turns at the familiar voice, looking at the darker brick alcove tucked behind the building. Smoke swirls around Yuuji’s cousin, as if he’s the king of hell, surrounded by his hellish ovens. Which, are just a bunch of people smoking hard on their cigarettes. And joints, judging by the smell. The scent of it tickles Yuuji’s nose. Someone laughs, a chick with hard eyes and scanty clothing. Yuuji scowls at Sukuna, who is leaning against the brick. “Don’t call me that.”

“Do you hear him?” He asks his lackeys with a laugh, all hard-ass in his leather jacket. “Don’t call me that,” Sukuna mimics cruelly, eyes bright and amused.

“It’s not even accurate, you dick! I’m old!” He’s almost twenty-nine, seriously. He looks at the group, thanking his lucky stars that he doesn’t see Jogo or Mahito amongst them. That would have just made this a thousand times worse.

“Is this Yuuji? The one you mentioned?” The woman with the dangerously low-cut shirt speaks, smoke emitting from between her red lips. She eyeballs Yuuji up and down in a way that can’t be appropriate. She wants to undress him with her teeth. “He is cute. Like a puppy.” Her dark eyes drift to Yuuji’s eyebrow piercing, biting her lower lip lustily. “I love those on men. So hot.”

Scowling, Yuuji says flatly, “Not happening, lady.”

His cousin snorts and then blows smoke in Yuuji’s face. His voice is deep, full of unkind intent. “Is that because of the girl you’re with? She your fuckpiece?” There’s calculation in his face, trying to pick Yuuji apart. That hint of overbearing asshole, a nasty look drifting in his crimson eyes like a raincloud.

Yuuji, if he had a beer in hand, probably would have taken an angry sip from it. “Ah. Kugisaki? I’m not her type.” It’s a blatant lie.

“I don’t know,” Sukuna says dryly. He lights up again, the flame chasing away shadows on his face, adding to his dangerous aura. The fire reflects briefly in his pupils, dancing off his silver rings. “That’s not what I saw.” Oh, it isn’t? What was he doing, watching Yuuji dance with her? “But, maybe she’s not into what you like.” He reaches out a single hand, cigarette balanced between his fingers, and places his palm at the base of Yuuji’s neck, thumb and pointer finger framing his throat meaningfully.

Nearly twitching out of his own skin, Yuuji swipes the hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

A dazed-looking guy in their group giggles obnoxiously, the glaze in his eyes eerily familiar. He leans forward and offers Yuuji his joint. A flash of ice in his veins propels Yuuji backwards sharply, because he can’t, even if his mind craves the slow empty again in any way possible, he can’t step through that door, not even one so benign. He’s the sort that can’t stop, can’t pull back once a taste of any high has been had and that’s not his fault, it’s Sukuna’s. “I don’t do any of that anymore.” I can’t do that.

“I don’t do any of that anymore,” Sukuna parrots in a mocking falsetto. “Do you even hear yourself? Fuck. Don’t embarrass me. It’s just a blunt.”

Yuuji catches himself inhaling the smoky air deep, all that mix of second-hand smoke filling his lungs. His mouth waters and he wants. His fingers tremble with something. Without even thinking about it, he absently rubs the inside of his forearm, thinking about a different sort of high, something he doesn’t remember, can’t remember, shouldn’t remember-

Sukuna wrinkles his nose at Yuuji knowingly. “See? Someone like you can never can quite quit. Not when they’ve gone as far as you’ve gone.”

That’s like having a bucket of ice-cold water thrown over him. The words are cruel, but then again, Sukuna always has been sociopathic in nature; no surprises there. The alcohol in Yuuji’s veins almost vanishes entirely, sobriety hitting him like a ton of rocks. He shouldn’t be in this corner of the bar’s back patio. He feels upset and ashamed of himself, out of control. He’s slipping. Cracking like glass under pressure, bit by bit, ready to shatter everywhere in a messy spray. “Fuck you, Sukuna.”

Yuuji makes to storm away, but a tattooed hand reaches up and gently touches the delicate balls of silver glittering on Yuuji’s brow. “Remember who gave this to you?” Sukuna’s rings glitter in the dim lighting.

Strangely, Yuuji can’t breathe, feels like he needs permission to inhale. His heart feels like it’s stampeding down the street and he feels so small, so incredibly powerless under that intense gaze. Full of knowing and dark experience. “Yes. Every. Damn. Day.”

Sukuna doesn’t smirk as expected, doesn’t mock him for his answer, doesn’t say I told you so. He’s so serious that it’s almost absurd and Yuuji has to get out of here, can’t be near him without wanting to slice them both into pieces, into a bloody mess, to toss them both into an unmarked grave, to have their bloody scraps set ablaze.

“Tell that skank of yours to keep her tongue off my work,” Sukuna says flatly, almost vacant of any emotion. Eyes like wastelands.

“I did.” It’s true.

His cousin makes a soft noise of disgust in the back of his throat, turning his head to look away from Yuuji, his canines glinting in the dim lighting. He inhales from his cigarette in one fluid motion, staring off at nowhere.

Taking the dismissal for what it is, Yuuji leaves the area, rushing back into the main section of the bar, running into his crew. Gojo is swaying and singing something, Megumi looking hazy as hell, but Nobara is looking around behind Yuuji, to see what he just ran from, sees the wild look in his eyes.

She squints hard.

“Isn’t that your cousin out there with those burnouts?” Nobara asks him loudly to be heard over the bass, disbelief shaping her face. “He’s out of prison? Since when?”

“Oh.” Yuuji wishes he felt nothing, wants to drift away and never be. “He got out two years ago.” It’s not like he told anyone about that.

She stares at him, concerned. She doesn’t know everything, but she knows enough.

“I only saw him recently,” Yuuji offers with a shrug, as if that will make her feel any better. “For the…for…the funer-”

“You don’t have to say it,” she shouts over the sound of the music, voice hoarse from shouting all night. “Just. Be careful. You’re in a fragile emotional state right now. I don’t want you to-”

She’s literally the only person able to get away with calling him fragile and she’s about to tell him not to fall off the wagon-

Megumi joins them, interrupting their tense conversation to sniff Yuuji in a terribly drunk way. His face twists with disgust. “Damn, did you just fall into an ashtray out there?”

Relieved to avoid an unpleasant conversation, Yuuji wraps him in a headlock. “Anything to annoy you, Fushiguro.” He gives him a knuckle sandwich, all while Nobara tries to convince them to follow her to their next destination.

He calls Sukuna’s tattoo parlor to inform him about the time and date of the funeral service. Feels like it’s something he should do, considering Sukuna is paying for it and he still owes him for that-

“I’m surprised you’re telling me this,” his cousin tells him coolly. “Figured you didn’t want Grampy’s nice old lady friends to see his felon grandson casting a shadow on his gravestone.”

“Don’t be surprised. I don’t want you there, but he was your grandfather, too.” Yuuji isn’t heartless, even if Sukuna is.

A short sound of dry amusement. “Well, I wouldn’t be going for him. Idiot. You’re going to be a wreck.”

As if he cares.

Yuuji hangs up the phone and slowly counts backward from ten. He fills the bathtub with ice and sinks himself in it until he’s too cold to feel a thing.

It should be a relief when the day finally comes.

It’s not. It’s worse.

It’s a crusted wound that’s been forcefully ripped open, revealing the bloody mess underneath. The oozing, pus-ridden underside where all things go to rot where no one else can see…revealed to the fresh air. Worms and maggots, wriggling in all the rotting corruption, a festering reek of decay.

Yuuji feels like he’s the one about to die all over again. Every emotion that hit him the day his grandfather passed comes rushing back in full force, dragging claws into his flesh, making him raw. Like salt and brine in his already putrefied wounds.

Just seeing him lying there in that casket is enough to suffocate Yuuji, a fist buried in his chest. The edges of his vision are fuzzy and black, as if he’s watching his own life from some really bad camcorder.

Much of their community has gathered at the service, such as Grandpa’s friends from the garden club and the community center. He might have been a hardass, but at least he was still known for being an active man in their town.

Sukuna slinks into the service at some point like a snake, dressed nicely in a midnight suit and shirt, paired with a crimson tie. The black shirt is buttoned up all the way to mostly hide his neck tattoos, the ones he got after prison. He’s got his hands casually stuffed deep in his pockets, hiding those tattoos as well. Can’t do much about the face tats though, but he’s wearing his big aviators inside the funeral home- as if that will obscure some of it. He definitely gets a few looks when he sits his ass down next to Yuuji in the front row.

They don’t look at each other.

Yuuji inhales shakily, trying to remain outwardly serene. Grandpa hated tattoos. Well, Grandpa also hated Sukuna, so there’s that too.

When the time comes for his part in the service, Yuuji steps up to the podium to say his final words. Everyone going silent. Yuuji stares outwards, but the crowd has become faceless; he can’t seem focus on anyone. He’s too busy fighting down the storm inside of his chest. The paper in his hands shakes.

Looking down at the words he wrote, Yuuji blinks hard, bringing his handwriting into focus. Every word he says is a fight to stay sane, to not crumble into a sobbing wreck. “My Grandfather was a man with a tough exterior and an even tougher heart. He didn’t believe in nonsense and he absolutely didn’t put up with my teenage garbage years.” That garners a few sad, fond smiles from the crowd that Yuuji can’t see. “He was the father I never had. Stepped up and took full responsibility for me when he didn’t have to. He worked hard every day of his life, trying to make my life better. I c-can never re-repay his…everything.”

Yuuji stops as his voice wavers dangerously. Crushes his pain down again, trying to pretend it isn’t real. He reads through the next page, barely hearing people blowing their noses. He thought he would be relieved when he got to the final paragraph, but the words strike his heart like a back-alley stabbing.

“…but most of all, he was the man that held me up when I couldn’t hold myself up anymore. He believed in me, when I didn’t believe in myself. He saved me from…m-myself. Thank you, Grandpa, for being my rock.” He bows his head at the finish of his speech, pressing his fingers into his eye sockets, trying to hold back the feelings eating him.

The safety net in his life is gone.

He feels stuck in place, at least until someone gets up and wraps a comforting arm around his shoulders, walking him back to his seat. Yuuji barely even hears the rest of the service, can’t even focus on the words.

He tells himself that he’s too numb to cry, he’s cried himself out already for an entire two weeks. Yuuji feels so cold, as if he’s a corpse too.

After the service, the coffin is taken to the cemetery, where the final burial rites are spoken, his grandfather lowered into the ground, never to be seen again.

It really is a lovely affair, but Yuuji can’t quite find a way to stay in the reality of it all. He’s drifting away, further from reality. There’s a hole in his chest, a sucking, gaping wound that won’t be filled. Without his grandfather, how is he supposed to-

Yuuji feels like he’s a thousand feet under the sea, everyone sounds so far away as they come up to him, offering their condolences. He can’t feel them hug him or shake his hand. In fact, he barely feels his friends coming up to him, wrapping their arms around him, whispering words of condolences for the final time.

He barely hears Sukuna settling things up with the ground keepers.

The noise in his head is overpowering. A strange ringing, a droning, a pounding in his skull, erasing all thought and common sense. For a moment, he is almost sightless, simply existing in a chamber of raging sound.

His fingers tremble at his sides. He’s alone with himself forevermore now and that isn’t safe. Yuuji isn’t safe, he isn’t strong, he is weak-

“Alright, let’s get you out of here.” A large hand settles on the nape of his neck, jolting Yuuji out of his own mind.

He blinks. It’s raining, his hair is soaked, his clothes, and he never even noticed. Looking around at the cemetery, Yuuji realizes they are alone now; everyone is gone. He must have lost time, spacing inside his own mental hell.

“What are you still doing here?” Yuuji asks numbly, staring at the wet grass, briefly imagining digging his fingers into the soil, ripping and tearing until there is a place for him to lie down.

Stepping in front of him, Sukuna fills his vision, tilting his head to try and catch Yuuji’s vacant gaze from behind those stupid unnecessary aviators. There is literally no sun out. “I may be an asshole, but even I know when you can’t be left alone. C’mon. You’re like a drowned rat and we only paid for one plot here today, brat.” The dry humor evades Yuuji.

“Should have bought a second one,” Yuuji murmurs dully.

His cousin carefully places Yuuji in the passenger seat of his car on the outskirts of the cemetery. The engine starts and they pull away from the curb. It all feels surreal.

“Where are we going?” Yuuji asks impassively, feeling broken inside, his very being in the coffin with his grandfather, six feet deep. He should probably care about this, but he doesn’t. He’s sinking in sludge.

“I’m taking you home,” Sukuna replies as if that’s obvious. “So, you can mope in peace. Or whatever it is you do. You probably crochet-”

“No. Don’t take me there.” Yuuji doesn’t want to be there, not with all of Grandpa’s things. Not with all the memories. He can’t handle it, can’t think about it. “Take me to your place.”

Sukuna stiffens and Yuuji can see out of the corner of his eye the way Sukuna looks at him sharply.

Emotionless, Yuuji says, “You’re not deaf.”

Wordlessly, Sukuna jerks the wheel and steers the car down another street, drives further and further away until the cracks in the asphalt become more ruined the further they go. The houses grow darker, the yards less kept. The old picket fences are decayed and rotted, broken in all yards. Dumpsters burn on the corners.

Yuuji doesn’t care anymore.

They end up at Sukuna’s place, back in the town Yuuji left far behind long ago.

It makes him think of a snake cursed to eat its own tail.

~

Yuuji sits neatly on the floor in the main room, feeling like a shell crushed in a nightmare. His stare feels blank as he counts the cracks in the wall. His cousin is watching him from the doorway, brow furrowed. “Why did you want to come here?”

Shaking his head, Yuuji doesn’t answer. Can’t answer, he can’t bring himself to say. He stares at the messy, dimly lit room, the black curtains, the black couch, the empty bottles of alcohol and last nights takeout. He wants to disappear the way his grandfather did.

His hands are shaking violently. He feels so cold, so empty. He’s dying inside. He’s so alone.

“I mean, I know.” Sukuna speaks from far away. “I know you. And, normally, I’d say, whatever, it’s your life. But today, of all days? So much for that holier than thou bullshit of yours.”

Yeah, well, Yuuji is past the point of reason and sanity. All he’s got is a black void in his mind, whispering terrible things to him on repeat. “I didn’t come here to listen to you lecture me about something you don’t even have,” Yuuji utters quietly, eyes drifting across the space.

After a few tense moments, his cousin goes to crouch in front of the safe he’s got hidden under the counter, obscured by some fake panel he’s put in place. There’s the sound of buttons being pressed for a combination. “…and what’s that?”

Yuuji thinks it’s obvious. “A soul.”

Sukuna snorts, muttering under his breath, snapping open the safe. He rummages about in it. He stands when he finds what he’s looking for.

With a long-suffering sort of sigh, Sukuna sits down next to him on the floor, tossing a small black zipper bag on the dirty coffee table in front of them. He leans back against the couch behind them, loosening the wine-red tie at his throat, unbuttoning his black shirt, revealing the midnight swirls beneath. He’s handsome, even while disheveled. Always has been. “What a fuckin’ day.”

The bag sits there on the table and Yuuji’s vision narrows in on it with terrifying precision. His entire world, becoming a tunnel. He can’t tell if it’s going to be his salvation or damnation. With shaking hands and an empty chest, Yuuji reaches for the bag and unzips it, flipping it open. He’s not surprised by what he sees. Fuck, he’s almost relieved.

He should be repulsed, but he doesn’t want to be anymore.

Just breathing in this room means he’s destroyed everything his grandfather ever did to save him, all the time in rehab, and Yuuji is too weak, he’s going to burn for this-

His insides crack into a million pieces of glass, shattering.

Yuuji whines miserably and puts his forehead on the table, because he’s falling, he’s falling and he’s not going to stop this time. He digs his fingers into his scalp, wanting to rip it off, hating himself. Now, his grandfather is truly turning in his grave, but Yuuji simply isn’t strong enough to save himself.

He’s cracked and broken, always has been. His grandfather was the only thing keeping him glued together these past nine years. Now, he’s gone and he’s never coming back.

No one is coming to save Yuuji from himself. Not here, not in this room.

“So,” Sukuna says blandly, unbuttoning more of his black shirt, the cuffs next, slowly becoming the drug lord he’s always been once again instead of one hidden by a nice suit. His aviators are finally up on his head, revealing his eyes. “Here we are again.”

“I hate you,” Yuuji murmurs under his breath, still grinding his forehead into the coffee table, soaking in the discomfort. His fingernails now dig into the surface edges painfully. He imagines ripping each nail off, bit by bloody bit, raw and ragged nail beds, as if that will save him from taking this final horrible step in burning down his life.

“We’ve been here before. Like fucking deja’vu.” Sukuna’s voice heavy with an emotion that Yuuji can’t begin to fathom. He sounds emotionally drained, bitter. On the verge of their history repeating itself. “Always with the fuck you, until it turns into I love you.”

Yuuji clenches his jaw and refuses to respond. It’s not like they both don’t remember this.

He takes off Yuuji’s soaked suit coat, rolls up his sleeve. Sukuna ties the tourniquet on Yuuji’s arm with precise skill and practice and Yuuji watches with an empty gaze. It’s like killing himself. Maybe he is. “I don’t want to feel anymore,” he whispers. Loss, grief, and loneliness press down on him from all angles, making the world seem so bleak. “I’m so tired of it. I’m just tired.”

He’s like a tree that can’t stand up anymore.

“I know.” Those dark, serious red eyes crawl inside his skull, making a home there. “Is this what you want?” He runs his fingertip over the inside of Yuuji’s forearm, over the old track marks that never quite healed.

Sukuna once said his skin was perfect; it isn’t. Yuuji is flawed.

It’s going to show up on a drug test. He won’t be able to compete for a while. It might even ruin everything he’s done for himself up until this point. It might ruin his friendships. His passions. The life his grandfather tried to help him succeed in.

It’s never just once for Yuuji.

It’s never just once. He’s incapable.

“Just fucking shut up already,” Yuuji grits out, self-loathing rising up like a sea creature from the deep. Consuming him utterly until there’s nothing left but the overwhelming urge for self-destruction. He doesn’t want to be in charge; he wants something else to take the wheel.  

Sukuna scoffs and shakes his head. Then, he sighs. “Little shit.” He preps, eventually filling the syringe, flicking it, eyeballing it carefully as Yuuji feels himself practically hyperventilating with an overwhelming desperation. He wants to run away screaming; he also wants to throw himself to the floor and beg and pray for oblivion.

He would do anything for it; he used to do anything for it.

The needle gets placed against his skin.

“Oh, God.” Yuuji says in a choked sob, everything is crashing down in flames, this is all his fault. He needs to stop this.

“Tell me no, Yuuji.” Sukuna says curtly, hesitating for a second in time, giving him an out. 

That’s what I want you to tell me, Yuuji thinks hatefully. But that’s not how his cousin works. His cousin enables destruction. “Fucking do it already.”

A rough exhale from between those cruel lips.

There’s a pinch as the needle slides under his skin, the way Sukuna has always been under it. It’s so careful, the way he slips it in, pushing the poison into Yuuji’s veins. Grief burns away in flames erupting under his flesh, in his veins, that familiar searing agony that he embraces like an old friend. Then, everything goes euphoric in a way that Yuuji hasn’t felt in so long and shit, fuck, dammit, he’s missed this feeling-

Sweeping euphoria. Utter detachment from reality. His humanity gone; pain left far away on earth. He’s flying away from it all. He’s in heaven, saved from all his grief. Only the needle knows what it is to truly provide ecstasy. Only the angel known as H knows how to save him from agony.

He tilts forward and sways, feeling lax and hungry in a strange whirl of elation. His forehead falls onto Sukuna’s broad shoulder and he inhales softly. His skin feels flushed and warm. Everything feels so-

All his despair is gone as if it never existed. This is all he’s ever wanted; all he’s ever needed. The only embrace he’s ever truly wanted to die for.

A heavy, orgasmic feeling builds low in his gut, tingling in his mind. Yuuji feels his mouth sag open and he pants against the skin of Sukuna’s throat, the speedball zipping through his veins. He wants to disappear, he needs to feel real, and these feelings collide. Sukuna still knows his favorite mix, his favorite dose. Of course, he does.

“Sukuna…” he murmurs weakly, fingers seeking him. Seeking to disappear into those familiar arms. Fuck, he loves him for delivering him from his pain, from his miserable existence. He’s brought Yuuji to the altar that has always sent Yuuji to his knees. He presses his tongue to Sukuna’s jugular, feeling that rapid pulse beating there.

The older man makes a strangled noise, tormented, pulling Yuuji closer. Yuuji’s dazed touch travels down his chest, feeling every ridge of muscle, remembering, aching to feel what he shouldn’t, but he’s in no state to care about how morally wrong it is.

Just like the first time.

“Oh, hey. Baby.” Sukuna rasps hoarsely against his ear, nuzzling him in a way that sends buzzes of sensation along Yuuji’s skin. “It’s been so long.” Yuuji’s breathing shifts hard and low, the mix of cocaine and heroin at odds with each other. “’I’ve missed you.”

{You’ve missed me, but maybe I missed flying more}

The world is racing by, but the heaviness in his bones makes it feels strangely slow at the same time. Yuuji sighs as Sukuna slowly presses him down onto his back. It feels unreal, the way Yuuji prefers, no attachment to the real world anymore.

Nothing, aside from Sukuna.

As prophesied, the fuck you’s are gone, replaced by the reverently whispered I love you’s that the chemicals create on Yuuji’s clumsy tongue, the taste in the back of his throat, the beat of his chaotic heart. Sukuna has always weathered the emotional whiplash, but he likes the way Yuuji breathes it into his skin, mouth wet and hot. Teeth, soft and careful, too relaxed to do much damage.

It’s a haze, as if Yuuji is trying to peer through oil. He feels Sukuna’s skin under his fingertips, a faint sensation that pales compared to flying. Sukuna is panting heavily in his ear, hips shifting. Alive and lucid, never been one to succumb to the siren song of the needle.

Yuuji always hated him for that. The way Sukuna didn’t need it.

…but that never mattered much, so long as Sukuna gave him what he wanted, in the end, so far down the rabbit hole.

Dreamily, Yuuji grabs his broad hand, covered in tattoos, and slides it up to his throat, to a familiar place. Where it’s been so many times in his darkest memories, in the dreams he’s always suppressed.

Sukuna grins as his fingers settle into place, squeezing carefully, and then Yuuji drifts.

{Painless}

~~~~

~~~~

Yuuji’s nineteen, hazy from the beer he’s been drinking, still laughing at whatever mean joke Sukuna just made at their host’s expense. Fuck, it’s probably Jogo’s bedroom or some shit that they’re in and he barely hears Sukuna lock the door. Not that it matters, he’s just happy to tag along with his cousin, thrilled to be included.

Sukuna stands by the bedside table and empties his pockets, tossing his drug-money stuffed wallet, keys, and a capped needle on top of it. He glances over at Yuuji, who is watching Sukuna with that drunk hero worship of his. Sukuna grins crookedly, seeing the expression on Yuuji’s face. “Having fun, brat?”

“Y-yeah,” Yuuji embarrassingly hiccups in the middle of his answer. He sways a bit on his feet, hoping he doesn’t seem like a bitch, tipsy from alcohol. He doesn’t ever want to embarrass Sukuna in front of all his badass friends; Sukuna might not let him hang anymore if he does. “This party is pretty sick. Thanks for -hiccup- bringing me.”

His cousin never brings him out with his pals for these sorta things, Yuuji has always just been his goddam tag-a-long for years, never quite included. Just used for small fry stuff, like stealing things or watching out for him when he’s making a deal in the streets. Maybe now that’s changing? Yuuji is hopeful.

Those razorblade eyes watch him carefully, weighing some decision that Yuuji cannot decipher in his current state of mind. “Want to have more fun?” Sukuna asks him with an odd look in his eyes. “Just you and me?”

Yuuji nods eagerly; he would do anything for Sukuna.

Except, when Yuuji is standing next to his cousin, standing by the bed, and Sukuna has a spoon and a needle-

A red flag goes up in his head.

“Wait, what, what are you doing with that?” Yuuji’s voice goes loud with shock as he lunges backwards anxiously.

Smoking some reefer is one thing, but this-

Quickly, Sukuna wraps a comforting, controlling arm around his shoulders, trying to ease him down from his sudden unease. Sukuna whispers in his ear, warm, too warm, too close, saying, “shh, shh, do you want us to get caught? It’s fine. We’re fine. You trust me, don’t you? This is what really good friends do.” He tilts his head to the side, mockingly. “Or are you too afraid to hang?”

Scowling, Yuuji hisses, “I’m not afraid.” Maybe he should have been.

It’s a shame really, because Yuuji does trust him. He trusts him so much that he allows Sukuna to seat him on the edge of the ratty, unmade bed, watches him tie the tourniquet, watches the way he flicks the needle and cooks the spoon. The way he sets the needle to Yuuji’s skin and pushes the plunger, just a bit. He’s so good at it that it doesn’t even hurt the way Yuuji thought it would.

“Embrace the Church of H and weep,” Sukuna drawls, sliding the needle out.

God, the way everything drifts away. There’s a brief burn in his flesh that takes his breath, but soon that fades into beauty. An ecstasy that he can’t even put words to. All his cares, replaced by a dreamy sensation, otherworldly. Nothing can compare. When he blinks, he sighs embarrassingly, enjoying the high that’s overtaking him, watching Sukuna from heated eyes as he flicks the needle again and applies it to his own arm.

It's like sex. It’s better than sex. It’s euphoric and heavenly, like an orgasm by itself, but in his veins.

Yuuji doesn’t remember much after that, it’s blurry and hazy with that dreaminess, but a part of him remembers a hot burn deep in his groin, the feeling of yes yes yes, fuck, yes-

When he comes to, he feels disorientated and painfully human. It’s almost painful how real he feels, as if he was spat out of heaven and tossed rudely into a world of misery on a bed of nails. Yuuji’s in a bed that isn’t his and he rubs his eyes, feeling like he’s got the worst anxiety in his veins, heart fluttering unevenly. He would rather be floating again. Yuuji rolls over and stares in confusion.

His cousin is beside him, face lax. Drowsy still. “What’s wrong?” Sukuna murmurs, voice corroded like a rusty nail. Yuuji can see all of his tattoos. All. Of. Them.

Sukuna runs a lazy hand down Yuuji’s chest, intimate. Skin against skin. He offers Yuuji a slight grin, not the usual I’ll-Cut-You-If-You-Don’t-Pay-Now grin, but something softer and equally terrifying.

Panic and shame set in, a strange paranoia racing through Yuuji’s chest. His clothes are -never mind that- he didn’t, he didn’t plan on this, and, and with his cousin-

He thinks they might have done something. Something wrong. They’ve always been close, but never, nothing like, nonono-

There’s a mark on Sukuna’s throat in the shape of teeth.

Brow shifting, seeing the panic on Yuuji’s face, Sukuna says, “Yuuji, calm that shit. You’re just coming down hard, lay back-”

“I don’t want to,” Yuuji says waspishly, voice carrying a high note of fear. What’s he done? His mouth is dry. Panic spins, his chest feels like it’s about to split open. Nausea wells up like a wave and its got to crash down at some point. “You fucking…what…this didn’t happen, this was a mistake-”

Sukuna’s brow furrows.

Yuuji scrambles, feeling like his insides are burning at the same time that his skin feels clammy like a fish. He’s going to be sick. This is so much worse than shooting that wonderful, terrible garbage into his veins. Of all the terrible things he’s done with and for his cousin, this is the one that makes him feel like he’ll never be able to face his grandfather ever again. Or even himself.

Bits and pieces of memories touch his mind, like a burning slip of film. He knows they kissed, tangled in the sheets. He remembers what it felt like with Sukuna’s hand over his heart, under his shirt.

“Don’t be a bitch about it,” Sukuna says a little more harshly, sitting up on the bed, unashamed of his state of shirtlessness. His jeans are unzipped, slung precariously low, nothing underneath. Sukuna runs a hand down his face, muscles flexing. That severe undercut hairstyle of his, disheveled. “You were…you seemed…what’s even happening right now?”

Good fucking question, but far too late.

Yuuji unlocks the door and bolts, the sounds of the party hit him again, they’re all still at it, the air filled with smoke and laughter, people in different states of awareness all around him. He hears his cousin shouting his name from the bedroom.  

Jogo is lounging on the couch smoking a bong, blowing out a massive puff of smoke, coughing as he says, “Hey, hey where the fuck are you going, dude?”

“Kiddo looks pale as a ghost,” Mahito sing songs, sprawled on the floor as Yuuji hops over him.

When he flings the front door open and hurls himself outside, Yuuji hacks up his guts over the porch railing, right into the worn-down weed-infested garden. He still feels ill, even when his stomach can’t give anymore.

Yuuji doesn’t stop running until he gets home, sweat dripping down his spine, past all the homeless, beyond the street kids, skipping by the clutches of the girls in their heels and their claws open for cash. Past all the dirty needles in the gutter, the old used condoms. He darts up the apartment stairs and fumbles with the lock three times before he finally gets it.

“Yuuji? Is that you?” His grandfather calls from where he was sleeping in his favorite chair, looking up sharply as Yuuji flies by, making a crazed beeline for the bathroom. “Boy, where have you been? This isn’t a hotel, you can’t just come and go as you please, getting into trouble-”

Yuuji slams the door and rips open the shower curtain and turns the water on hot, stepping right in, clothes and all. It takes him a few minutes of standing there in shock before he has the presence of mind to disrobe.

Eventually, his knees give out and he sinks down to the floor in his shower, head in his hands, because he can’t scrub himself clean. His veins feel polluted and he feels disgusted with his body, ashamed and wrong and he’ll never be okay again.

He curses himself for letting Sukuna stick that junk in his arm.

In his mind’s eye, he can see his own fingers dreamily tracing across the swirling tattoos low on Sukuna’s abdomen. The jut of his hipbone. The feeling of euphoria, only enhanced by the sensation of being touched by someone he adores- fucking shit, what’s wrong with him, fuck fuck fuck-

Yuuji digs his fingernails into his scalp, groaning sickly as the water begins to turn cold as it rains down on him.

He doesn’t know why they did what they did. He doesn’t know if he wanted it. He doesn’t even know if he liked it, but a part of him fears that he did.

He doesn’t want to remember this.

Yuuji tells himself he won’t remember it.

But he does.

And he shoots up again three weeks later, because it feels so much better than what he’s feeling now.

~
END
~