Work Text:
“Remember to meet by the check-out lines before exiting the store so we can purchase everything together. I’m the one with the wallet and the car. No one is walking back to the house, and I don’t need anyone getting shoved into a police car today. I’m looking at you, Toji.”
The infamous assassin, scorned and feared by Jujutsu society, whose appointed moniker ‘The Sorcerer Killer’ gripped the handles of the shopping cart tighter, cementing the imprint of his hands in the handlebar in favor of the ‘World’s Strongest Sorcerer’ standing beside him.
Satoru had almost sounded capable of supervising this self-directed mission of theirs, but he just had to ruin it.
“Whatever could you mean?” Through his teeth, Toji feigned his ignorance without laying down to the younger man’s antics. “I’m not the one harboring a crim—”
“ —Crippling desire to get our butts in gear! Now let’s finish this supply run in record time.”
Satoru clapped his hands together, garnering an excited cheer from Tsumiki as she did the same. The reaction of her younger brother was far less enthusiastic, almost mocking, as Megumi mimicked his sister. He was busy tightening the strings of his hoodie, hiding himself too little, too late from the unneeded attention their group was receiving from the patrons forcing themselves past.
Unfortunately, Toji couldn’t do the same.
With a folded paper in one hand and an eager finger pointing off to where they wished to go, Tsumiki explained her plan.
“Gojo-san, Megumi and I are going to get the items on our list, ok?”
“Sounds good to me! We’ll meet back here soon. Be sure to steer clear of any strangers!”
No one is stranger than you, Gojo Satoru.
Toji kept the thought to himself as he silently shooed his kids away from the cart.
“We will!”
Tsumiki assured before taking Megumi’s hand and dragging him to where she wanted to go first. The two men waited until both kids had disappeared into the far aisle and were out of sight to begin their half of the mission. The supermarket wasn’t necessarily large, but the size was imposing enough that most adults would have shied way from allowing their kids to wander unsupervised. However, with Toji’s heightened hearing and Satoru’s detection of cursed energy, keeping track of the kids in spite of the accursed layout they were forced to navigate was a simple matter of tuning in whenever they felt something was wrong.
Splitting up the work between them also meant, in theory, the amount of time this trip would consume of their day would be halved. At the very least cut down by a third. The assassin would not get his hopes up.
Toji was yanked from his thoughts just as Satoru attempted to flick his forehead, reflexes forcing his body to lean out of the way just in time before contact could be made at the cost of shaking the cart and slamming its wheels against the tile beneath it.
Undeterred by the assassin’s glare, the sorcerer next to him proceeded with his scolding.
“What happened to avoiding the truth of your ‘private contract’ work? Megumi is already suspicious of your absent ass.”
“And Tsumiki would have taken it as a joke. Cover secured.” Toji dismissed. “You make it so easy to rile you up when you’re pretending to be responsible like this. It’s adorable. How can I stop myself?”
“Pretending? I am the definition of responsible.”
“Then where is your shopping list?”
Smug, Satoru tapped the side of his head.
“In here.”
“You don’t have one.”
“I just said—You know what? Get off your high horse, you hypocritical bastard. You don’t have one either.” The sorcerer stomped down the closest aisle, leaving Toji’s uncaring shrug to go unnoticed as attention was brought to the task at hand. “We just need to get the essentials and… improvise the rest. Milk. Eggs. Rice— Cereal! That’s what we need. Breakfast with minimal effort.”
One glance at the box in Satoru’s hand told Toji that what he had grabbed was more sugar and cereal.
“That’s disgusting.”
“And you have no taste. Pick another box if this offends you so much.”
By no means was Toji overly worried about his health. Not much thought went into thinking over what he consumed on a day-to-day basis, but unlike the sorcerer in front of him, neither he nor his kids could survive off of sugar alone. Imagining a potential trip to the dentist caused a grimace to form, just another thing he’d potentially end up having to ask Satoru to handle— God forbid pay for —though, if his diet of choice was the cause, there would be no guilt to come of it.
“Cornflakes? Seriously?”
“What?”
“You really are old.”
That comment earned Toji the right to chuck the box of cornflakes at the back of Satoru’s head, effortlessly bouncing off the infinite barrier the young man kept active, only to land in the basket of their cart.
Huh. Perhaps he could make a game of this.
“Dairy is this way. And the freezers are after that… I think.”
Satoru ignored the attempted assault, peeking down the next aisle with delight as he found the coolers he was looking for. Grabbing the milk, eggs and other basic refrigerated good came surprisingly easy to the sorcerer. Then again, the posted signage made it impossible to miss, which made the feat far less impressive. Especially when their list of essentials quickly ran out, leaving the two adults to meal plan mid-operation.
Both adults eyed the contents of their cart.
“We have… breakfast covered.”
Toji raised his eyebrow.
“Cereal? Seven days a week?”
“Once we grab bread, toast is an option. We can go to that bakery on the weekend for donuts— bagels if you’re there and want to be boring. If we buy some oranges, that rounds out the meal, and it doubles as a snack!” It was not an awful idea, but there was something to be said when ordering takeout was one of Satoru’s first solutions to their impromptu meal planning.
Takeout was actually the sorcerer’s solution no matter the time of day. He never had to cook for himself when living with the rest of this clan, and the cooking skills he picked up are practically nonexistent if simple options such as forming a sandwich were left out of the equation. As painful as it was to admit, Toji wasn’t doing much better either. Overpriced hotel room service and the leftovers in the fridge of whatever one-night stand he’d shacked up with had carried him through many hard times. The most he could boast his knowledge of how to use a frying pan without burning the house down, and even then he rarely bothered to make anything he couldn’t just grab on the go. Between the two of them, there was little hope, but hope nonetheless.
“What about lunches?”
“Their school provides lunches at a small fee each day. Weekdays are covered. We’ll just wing it on the weekends.” As in, whoever was around will have to bullshit a meal on the spot.
“Is that the same plan for dinner as well? Because it's crap.” Toji perused the contents of the freezer in front of him, grabbing a bag of frozen vegetables as something he assumed they should have, rather than something they particularly needed.
“Nope! Check these out!” Pulling his head out of the fridge, Toji squinted his eyes at the frozen dinners in Satoru’s hands. “Microwavable. All different varieties. And look! This one has chicken nuggets shaped like little dinosaurs. Megumi will love that.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
“Get six of those individual ones. I’ll grab a couple of the larger meal kits. Friday can be takeout the night.” Toji’s response received no objection.
The two worked fast to stack the frozen meals haphazardly in their cart and clear out of this section for good. It was only after Toji and Satoru turned the next corner did the assassin spot the box of popsicles poorly tucked underneath the rest of their frozen meals. Satoru was paying for this trip, so it wasn’t Toji’s place to judge what the sorcerer snuck into their cart, but when they were forced to make a quick detour through the candy aisle, he couldn’t remain silent.
“We don’t need three bags of candy on top of what you already have. Put them back.”
“You’re right. I need three bags of candy. But I’m willing to share if you say please.” Satoru was a grown-ass man, and yet he somehow thought that curling his lip and pouting was going to get him his way. Exposing his big, freakish eyes. Fluttering those eyebrows for good measure…
Fuck.
It was disgustingly cute.
“One bag.”
“Yay! I’ll take it.”
Satoru sauntered into Toji’s personal space, chucking the bag into the basket before placing his hands over the assassin’s still gripping tight onto the handlebar. Their positions devolved into an entwined hug as Satoru mischievously worked his hands up Toji’s arms and down his chest, the younger man’s weight now fully supported by Toji as they stood awkwardly in the middle of the aisle.
“Thank you, daddy.”
“If this is all it takes to get you going…” The assassin murmured, growing increasingly aware of the looks the two were receiving. “Come on, we have to hit produce on the way back to the front. Grab those oranges and whatever else is up there.”
“You just had to ruin it.”
“Anything for you, sweetie.” Unapologetic, Toji pried Satoru off him with a sympathetic pat on the back before walking off, knowing full well the younger man wouldn’t let him out of his sights for long.
Scurried footsteps caught up with him by the time Toji breached the produce section with his cart, eyes honed in on the fruit display near the front for the oranges they had discussed earlier. Satoru easily skipped ahead to acquire them, avoiding the vegetables like the plague.
However, his retrieval mission was interrupted by a middle-aged woman with over-stylized hair and what had to be cheap knock-offs of high-end jewelry swiping the last bag of oranges before Satoru could make contact.
“Oops. Sorry. Looks like I got the last one.” The woman wasn’t sorry. Her tone of voice said it all.
That bitch.
Toji rolled up with the cart just in time to look the lady over once more, thoroughly assessing the situation and waiting until they were alone to whisper into Satoru’s ear.
“She’s only halfway through her list. We can time it right so that we check out at the same. If you distract the kids, I’ll confront her in the parking lot and make sure her body isn’t found.”
“Tempting…” Satoru let out a hum as he titled his head back into Toji’s chest. “Sadly, I chose paragon in this life, so murdering civilians is off the table. No matter how suffocating that perfume was.”
“Satoru, you're sleeping with me. That’s renegade behavior if I ever saw it.”
“A noble sacrifice for the greater good.” Rekindling the energy from before, Satoru's lips brushed against the bottom of Toji’s chin, who, with a little persuasion, was more than willing to return the favor.
“Someone give this man a medal.” Toji breathed between kisses, indulging in the moment until, shockingly, it was Satoru who pulled away just before they could take it one step further. “Tease.”
“Returning the favor. Now, let’s go meet up with the kiddos before someone reports them as being abandoned.”
Satoru tugged on the edge of the cart, beckoning Toji to follow him as they navigated through the front lines until a familiar head of sea-urchin hair poked through the crowd. Tsumiki was naturally close by, waving an excited arm their way once eye contact was established. Instead of a hand basket, there was now a small cart between them, filled with a wide array of boxes, cans, spices, and a few cooking utensils that they didn’t have at the house. Upon inspection, it was clear that their haul was thoroughly thought out, putting what the two men had gathered to shame.
“We’re over here!” Tsumiki called out, smiling with pride as Satoru curiously poked through their things. “I hope we didn’t get too much. But a lot of the stuff we got can be used for multiple dishes and the spices will last us quite a while.”
“That’s more than ok— It’s perfect! You’re planning ahead.” An embarrassed laugh broke out through Satoru’s smile, the sorcerer’s placement in front of their cart doing nothing to hide the mediocre collection in their cart. “And look at that, you got a hold of a bag of oranges before they ran out.”
While the two spoke, Megumi slipped by to sneak a peek at their cart.
“You said you were getting the essentials.” His son pointed at the large bag of candy in view, silently judging the both of them while Toji received the brunt of his stare.
“If we want Satoru to pay for our food, they’re essential.”
“And the frozen dinners?” Megumi refused to let him catch a break. “That’s way too many.”
“Tsumiki can’t cook every night.” Toji argued back. “And some of them have dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. Don’t complain.”
“At least Tsumiki will think they’re cute.”
Satoru held up a hand to get everyone’s attention.
“All we have left to do is check out, and we are finally free of this place for the next two-three weeks. Go team!” The relief of such a declaration was short-lived, as all four of them scanned the check-out lines, horrified to find they had all grown in length during their brief conversation. “You know, is it really stealing if I just leave a stack of bills on the service counter?”
Toji shrugged, leading to the both of them receiving glares from the kids. With a determined huff, Tsumiki shoved her cart forward and took a spot in line, forcing everyone else to do the same no matter how long this was going to take.
They only had to do this roughly twice a month. And while it wasn’t the perfect fun-filled family outing most families partook in, it was one of the few times everyone’s schedules matched up to allow the four of them to be together.
“Thanks,” Toji grumbled, having spun around to rest his back and elbows against the cart. “For doing this.”
“Least I could do.” Satoru leaned against the opposing end of the cart’s basket, their combined weight preventing the shopping cart from rolling out underneath them. “It needed to be done. And it’s a nice change of pace from the usual work business.”
“That I can agree with.”
And maybe, Toji thought, they should do this more often.