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"You're still here, Satoru?" Suguru turns to the doorway, the languid flex of corded muscle in his neck and at his shoulder blades making Satoru's heart dip low in his ribs, broiling in the heat of his core. Even more than that, the water beading his nape, the vulnerability in the crane of his neck, the way the dark hair fans to wisp loose and limp about his head and eyeline; this Suguru is the same, this Suguru is his. Tortured, still, burning, still, but one he can touch. No mind the wolf's grin, the sly flutter of his crimped eyes.
"Let me," Satoru offers, words torn from the wound parting his throat--still sealed around Toji's blade like a wanton mouth, blood-slick. He wants to touch. Suguru says nothing, gaze flat as he turns it back to the wall before tipping his head back, the torrent drumming against his skull, splattering heat and color against his eyelids.
In the downpour, Satoru takes his place, fingers like the embrace of wind as they comb through Suguru's hair. Gently, gently, the creature before him made skittish with vulnerability; Satoru can see Suguru's mouth twitching, he must want to level the playing field, to shatter the illusion he's lending the other with the baring of his throat. Both of them knee-deep in the mud of their pragmatics, flinging filth-soaked hands heavenward in the aether of their ideals. Suguru, without the benefit of Limitless to keep his forearms dry, is all too eager to smear the dirty weight of truth between them.
As Satoru presses himself against Suguru, carefully aligning the swell of his spine to the curve of his own to shut the tap and reach for the shampoo, Suguru opens his mouth, eyes still shut. "I miss you," he says, tone even, candy floss soft to dissolve in the moist air.
Satoru freezes, stomach clenching with the tension that strikes him, a tightness that starts at the backs of his ankles until it sets his jaw twitching--pain, it hurts. Shampoo oozes over his fingers, the sudden hit of osmanthus stinging his nose. For a brief second, he envisions sobbing, envisions dipping to kiss pleading kisses to the juncture of Suguru's neck and shoulder as he cards gentle fingers through his hair. He envisions a homecoming, their edges melting into we once again.
"Suguru, you bastard, you know--" He yanks at the end of his hair with a tight fist that make his eyelids lift in surprise, tugging Suguru impossibly closer--he's sure their atoms are crossing, overlapping, discrete matter occupying the same space for a moment--the arch of his neck inhuman. Like a hanged man.
"I don't understand," he says, distant gaze set skyward, eyes rimmed with a gummy red, "Won't you just stay with me?" His voice still melty, but clear. Always, he has spoken softly, but frankly. Between the words, his lips flutter soundlessly, a desperate mania twisting the corners of his mouth despite the stillness behind his iris.
Satoru works a hand through Satoru's hair, starting a lather at his roots, the other still wrapped loosely in the ends. Anything to get Suguru to shut his eyes. It'll break something in him, to see him cry. To be split open on a longing for Satoru he rarely betrays.
(Suguru in their second year, hair clotted with blood, temple pressed to Satoru's shoulder, breathing exhaustion through each shudder, letting Satoru lead him to the shower room. Baring his body for him without complaint, but without total compliance--Satoru has never seen him like this before, regardless of the hands hastily thrust in his boxers, the hormone slicked kisses, the long, slowfast hours of nothing but the honeyed wine of each other--a light in the claret of his eyes. Understand this. Know what I am giving you.)
"We could--those, they're nothing, you know, if I just had--" A stream of lather runs past his ears, sudsing down the slope of his brow and he blinks absently, mouth jittering in a muted fanaticism as Satoru yanks his head about, "you'd be happy--"
(Satoru wordlessly stuttering at the swell of his chest, the handsome line of his throat and the inviting shadows at his navel, watching them tint with the stream of bloodied water spilling from Suguru's crown as he works the strands between his fingers. He flicks aside viscera with an exaggerated grimace, and Suguru turns to him with a fond nudge of the shoulder to capture the pull of his lips in his own.)
"Suguru, that's enough." Satoru gives a rake of his nails, firm enough to be threatening. It only makes Suguru shiver and go ragdoll limp in his arms, features gone fluid with a desire that makes Satoru feel sick. His heart is still burning in the nitrate flame licking the hollows of his abdomen, roasting fat and frying sinew in the floral notes of shampoo.
("I love you," Satoru whispers into his mouth, tugging at his soapy hair with a gentle urgency, hands itching to quell the fervor of his heart. Suguru, bright red, only gives a small nod, pulling Satoru flush desperately.)
"No… you're--you're not seeing," Suguru says, head lolling. Satoru brings the claw through his hair, tugging free knots with the crook of his fingers, keeping the touch brisk and rough. His face twists, a disgusted frustration, without anger and without hope, "Those goddamn--!"
"Suguru!" he barks. This, too, breaks something in him. All of Suguru is festering, soul spilling over with rot, the rot of a garden that was Satoru's to tend. "You already know."
"This isn't my fault," Suguru whispers, quiet against the pounding of Satoru's heart, still gushing in his throat. With purpose, he clots the wound. There is no place for words in the violence between them, despite how desperately they burble to the surface, despite how the intuition of his ego tells him that surely, surely, there is some cure, some word he can speak to lift the impossible anvil that's settled in the beloved valley of his shoulder blades, to clear the hatred curling in the topography of his brain.
Satoru reaches forward and turns the tap, lets the rush of water hit Suguru head-on. It's a mercy.