Chapter Text
The shock of seeing each other face-to-face after so long, and yet well before Suguru's planned time is almost enough to erase the shock of being surrounded by a picturesque alpine landscape, cold enough to briefly sting his lungs, the snow line in spitting distance--
"What in all hell did you do Satoru?!" he demands reflexively.
"It wasn't me!" the bane of his existence answers, just as reflexively. The worst part is, it isn't a laughing protest, it isn't a tease, it's genuine, and Suguru can still tell, and it's genuine, and someone managed to transport the pair of them, two special grade sorcerers, somewhere else. Without either of them being able to do anything about it.
He can see Satoru realising it at the same time he does, and he can feel his erstwhile best friend meeting his eyes through the ridiculous bandages he has wrapped around his face. Together, without a word, they call a truce, and turn to stand back-to-back, for a breathless moment as if nothing between them ever changed. Suguru has curses ready to hand, three first grade, dozens of second. He can feel the build and flex of Satoru's cursed energy--
"Not an illusion," Satoru murmurs. "Not that I can see. And nobody else but us."
"It doesn't feel like a domain either," Suguru agrees. Left unsaid is that if it had been a domain, whoever had used it would have struck them with the sure-hit as soon as they 'landed', in that split-second of confusion--it would have been the best, maybe the only time to hit Satoru. (Suguru, with his curses still safely stowed away, is slightly more vulnerable in the moment, and is under no illusions about who is easier to hit, especially these days.)
Seconds pass. And more.
A sound like a chirping seagull comes from above, and Suguru is treated to the sight of an immense bird of prey, golden brown, soaring by.
"Wow," Satoru breathes. "That thing's wings are wider than we are tall, Suguru! It's huge! Look at it! Wow!" He beams, a genuine smile, bright enough to hit Suguru right in the heart.
"Nature is amazing." Suguru can't quite gauge the length of that wingspan himself, but he trusts Satoru on this one. They watch the bird until it rides a wind current around to the other side of a nearby peak, and then sigh, shoulders relaxing in synch.
"Brute force?" Satoru asks.
"Brute force," Suguru agrees, calling forth his cursed spirits. They each pick a target--peaks and scarps abound--and go to it.
Twenty minutes later, Suguru is lightheaded with the low oxygen, the scarp is a valley, two peaks are notably shorter, and nothing has really changed.
"Well, fuck," he mutters.
"Definitely not an illusion or a domain," Satoru agrees. He tips his head back, gazing past the bandages on his face, off into the endless void of space. Not for the first time, Suguru wonders what exactly it is he sees, and not for the first time he knows that he can never know. Nobody can.
"...does your phone have signal?" Suguru wonders abruptly, reaching just as suddenly for his own. The bane of his existence curses, and does the same. They hold their phones up together--Suguru's lockscreen is a picture of his girls, Satoru's of a Zen'in-looking boy drenched like a rat and glaring murder at whoever is holding the camera. Neither of them have a single bar of signal.
"They're adorable," Satoru murmurs.
"Yours looks like a drowned rat."
"He tried very hard to kill me after that!" Satoru cackles. "It was adorable. Well. We have about two hours until the sun goes down-" he would know "-so we should probably head downhill. I'd just teleport us back home," he adds nonchalantly. "But Suguru, we're not in Kansas anymore."
"What."
"ET phone home?"
"What."
"The stars aren't right." This is of course accompanied by a deliberately off-kilter grin.
"Gojo Satoru that is the creepiest thing you have ever said." Satoru laughs again, not entirely pleasant, his 'hiding from feelings' laugh, and he slings an arm around Suguru's shoulders.
The sensation of Satoru's infinity expanding and slipping around him is a shock, and he just. He just stares.
"We're not on Earth anymore. Maybe it was just time-travel. But I don't think the stars change that much... unless we're really really far back, I mean, but 'isekai' is my best guess right now, and my guess is definitely the best guess."
Suguru rolls his eyes, but doesn't fight when Satoru pulls him along. It is getting colder, he had noticed it, before Satoru wrapped him in infinity, and held the cold away.
There's no path; even if there had been, it would have been destroyed by their antics attempts to break what had turned out to be not an illusion or domain at all. Still, they're on a mountain, and 'downhill' isn't a hard direction to find; before long, they're down out of the high mountain winds, and under the shelter of first scrub pines, and then the taller and sturdier evergreens that usually make up the high elevation trees.
Being under the trees makes it unfortunately darker, but Suguru has just the curse for that; a little semi-third grade that looks like an angler fish with dessicated human hands for fins. The important part is the lantern, of course, hanging over their shoulders, and lighting the way through the ever-darker, ever-denser forest.
Which probably means that it's at least one-third his own fault when the... thing attacks them. (The bulk of it still sitting on the damned Six Eyes for not seeing the thing coming fucking really Satoru?)
It's the size of a tree, and covered in hard chitin, and it is definitively not a curse; Suguru would know. The instinctive dodge away from a swiping limb--it looks razor-sharp, almost like a mantis' arm--takes him out of the warm embrace of Satoru's infinity, and into the range to be liberally splattered with blood, guts, and other things, as their coordinated attacks splatter the thing all over the woods.
"--we are definitely not in Kansas, anymore," Satoru says gleefully. Suguru just glares at him through a mask of ichor. Satoru clicks his tongue, and starts wiping Suguru's face with a handkerchief pulled from his pocket. "We're not far from a stream," he says, a bit of a peace offering. "We can get you cleaned up before this all sets. And next time, stay close if you don't want to get covered in monster guts."
Suguru trips him, and he takes it, going down cackling.
“Lead the way,” he says, offering Satoru a hand back up after a moment.
“Yeah,” his friend agrees, pulling Suguru close, and back into infinity again, like he never left in the first place.
“This is new,” he comments quietly, after a little bit.
“I just figured it out recently,” Satoru admits, not pretending to misunderstand. “I have to like someone a lot for it to work though.”
The implications of that are louder than a scream.
“Oh.”
Satoru’s grin is bright as the stars in a wilderness sky, and ten times as genuine.
And then they’re at the stream, a break in the trees that lets them see the sky. It’s still bright enough that Suguru can only see one star, and the sky is streaked with purple-and-orange clouds…
“Ah, it’s nice, isn’t it?” Satoru asks. “You can almost imagine that we’re on some kind of weird holiday.”
“Almost,” Suguru finds himself agreeing.
Working together, they manage to get most of the mess off of him, leaving him damp, but not drenched, and not cold either, thanks to sticking close to Satoru and his infinity.
The sky has gone deep indigo by the time they’re done, stars already cleaner and brighter than he has ever seen them before. They are also completely foreign—there is not a single constellation that he recognises, and he understands suddenly what has has Satoru distracted. If he. Has been seeing this the whole time.
"It's kinda like that, isn't," Satoru murmurs. "Looking at an alien sky like this... Do you think we're the first? You and me?"
"I doubt it," Suguru replies. "Whatever sent us here--brought us here?--has no doubt seen it too."
"Unless they haven't, and we just got yeeted into a random alien place."
"You mean, if whoever or whatever it was just wanted us out of the way, and didn't care where we ended up."
"You said it, not me." Satoru sighs, and stares up at the sky. Suguru does the same.
"Something that wanted us both out of the way implies a third faction," he says quietly.
"Yeah," Satoru agrees. "I don't like it, Suguru."
"Neither do I," Suguru agrees. "Whatever it is though, when we get back..."
"It gets to eat both our wrath," Satoru finishes.
"...Yeah," Suguru agrees. And that's the truce, right there in words, and not just something implied between them. "The whole 'getting us home' thing is mostly on you though."
"Yeah, yeah. Unless there's some dimensional warping space-time bullshit curse on this side of whatever, it's me. Ugh." If there had been anything softer than rocks and cold water around, Suguru is sure that Satoru would have flopped on it. "Okay, okay, let's find a nice tree to sleep in, up and away from whatever might want to try--and fail--to eat us, get some sleep, blah, blah blah, we find the asshole who did this, flatten it, and go home to our kids."
"Wow, that was almost a coherent plan, Satoru. I'm impressed!"
"You should be, I'm a very impressive person."
"I'm only impressed because your ability to make a coherent plan is so shitty to begin with."
Satoru gives him a rude gesture, and Suguru finds himself laughing. After a moment, Satoru joins him. They lean on each other, and just laugh, and this time when Something comes out of the shrubbery to try and eat them, Suguru is relaxed enough to let Satoru’s infinity take it.
It’s the same kind of Whatever as before, he idly notes, and lets one of his bigger curses out to swallow it whole. The tactic is perfect, the Thing has no defence against the roiling acid-filled gut of a curse born from eating disorders, and its struggles distort the curse for only moments before subsiding.
“Satoru.”
“I’m looking. …no, I don’t see any more. It was just those two, unless they can teleport or something.” They both grimace at that. “I can keep infinity up completely unconciously though. Probably even over both of us. We should be safe to sleep. Probably.”
“I’ll put out a couple of sentries,” Suguru offers. “It’ll be better than keeping watch ourselves.”
“Good idea. You can make one of them act as an alarm clock too. Or, hey, hey, Suguru, do you have one that could make a good bed?”
It is a ridiculous question, but Suguru considers it, and shakes his head.
“Anything big and soft enough is also incredibly unsuitable in some way,” he says. “It was a good idea though. I guess we’re back to ‘up a tree’.” They both look then at the thick trunks and broad limbs of the evergreens around them. Vast, standing eighty metres tall at least, he thinks… A primordial forest, utterly unspoiled by the touch of man. Until now.
“Let’s try that one.” Satoru’s suggestion comes out of nowhere, breaking Suguru’s train of thought. The tree he’s pointing to isn’t the tallest around, but it has a flattish-looking branch around twenty metres up, and Suguru has to agree.
“It looks good.”
When they get up there, nothing else has taken up residence, and it turns out that if they snuggle up against the trunk, they actually have a nice view, and if Suguru wraps a couple of his outer layers around the both of them, even if, with infinity, they don’t need it, it’s even almost cozy. Suguru sets a handful of sentries around, including the one that had previously eaten the monster; Satoru thanks him.
In the dark, there's a rustle of plastic, and then the smell of something sweet, and then half of a squished melonpan is shoved unceremoniously into his face.
"Be grateful, this is the best snack I have on me."
"I am." He is; the melonpan is almost more touching than Satoru's infinity wrapped around him like a greedy, protective octopus.
“Good.” Satoru snuggles closer, and presses his inexplicably cold nose into Suguru’s neck, and then, to all appearances, drops right to sleep. Suguru follows him quickly, the smell of hair gel (new) and cologne (familiar) in his nose.
As expected, his ‘alarm curse’ was unnecessary; the awkward position and hunger do its job for it.
“So it wasn’t just some dream,” Satoru muses, tipping his head back to the sky. “You know, shitty circumstances aside, I’m kinda glad it wasn’t.”
“Don’t get sappy now,” Suguru teases him.
“Me? Sappy? I’ll have you know I haven’t cried watching The Lion King in an entire year!”
“Now that’s a lie.”
“Okay, okay, I haven’t watched it in an entire year. Life’s been too busy to rewatch old movies.” He sighs, and pouts, and flops heavily against Suguru. “I provided dinner,” he says, apropos of nothing. “You have anything in all those layers for breakfast?”
“It’s not as good as your contribution, but yes.” What Suguru has is a single packet of now-crushed senbei. They both make a face at the sight.
“We could try fishing,” Satoru suggests.
“Do you think there’s anything big enough to eat in that tiny stream?”
They both peer over the side of the tree limb, and after a moment, Satoru shakes his head.
“I don’t see anything,” he admits. “Let’s eat your crumbs, and head downstream. I have some hard candies we can have for lunch.”
“Is this… another decent plan? Who are you and what have you done with Gojo Satoru?”
Satoru shoves him, and Suguru snickers, and they divide the crumbs of senbei between them.
“This is pathetic,” Suguru complains. “We’re pathetic.”
“We’re city boys Suguru, we didn’t get eaten by bears OR giant alien crab monsters in the night, so I think we’re still the best.”
They eat what passes for breakfast, and Satoru tosses him a hard candy to suck on right away after; turns out he has more than two, so they’ll have something better than senbei crumbs.
They follow the stream downhill, and it does slowly widen, and deepen--still not more than knee deep, and nothing big enough to be worth the effort of trying to fish it out, clean it, cook it, and eat it.
Actually.
Fuck.
Suguru does not know how to clean a fish.
"Satoru."
"Hm?" Satoru's a little distracted, looking at everything, concentrating on keeping an eye out for monsters--or bears--but something about the way his shoulders sit tell Suguru where the bulk of his attention is for the moment: him. It's flattering. It's still flattering.
"Do you know how to gut and clean a fish?" he asks. "Because I don't."
Satoru raises a finger. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Makes this little woeful noise.
"Still think we're the best?" Suguru asks.
"...mussels are freshwater. Lemme see if I can find some of those."
Minutes later, it seems that Satoru cannot, in fact, find some mussels. Or snails, frogs, or anything else that might be edible.
"Oh, but guess what?" Satoru asks, as they round a sharp bend in the stream. They're out of the forest, for the moment, moving through hilly alpine meadows, and mixed scrub, although occasional glimpses have revealed more forest on the lower slopes.
"What?" Suguru asks indulgently.
"We are not alone~" Satoru intones, pointing across the stream. Suguru looks.
It's a man. A perfectly human-looking man.
The man across the stream stares at them. They stare back, or at least Suguru does; he has never seen a man dressed like that outside of some movies or fantasy manga. Carefully patched russet tunic, grey-green leggings with leather patches on the knees, worn shiny. A long leather belt, looped around itself, and short felted… boots? With leather soles, all wrapped with cord. He has a pair of buckets and a pole, and he is staring at them.
“Hey. Hey, hey, Suguru. Is that… a peasant?” The bane of Suguru’s existence sounds incredulously gleeful.
Suguru preemptively grabs Satoru’s collar (still baffled confused arghlebarghle full of mixed feelings that he is allowed to), but it’s too late, the man is already shouting something that sounds… Russian? He thinks? He's heard Russian, and it sounds sort of like this. Something incomprehensible, regardless, dropping his buckets, and running for the hills.
The bane of Suguru’s existence pouts. With his entire body.
“Aw, I wanted to talk to the peasant,” he pouts.
“Your face scared him off,” Suguru says without missing a beat.
“Your face scared him off.”
“Ironically, I’m the least strange-looking of the two of us, so it was definitely your face.”
“Never mind that, look, Suguru, that was a person, which means there are people, which means there’s food. Maybe even coffee. So try to be nice and not scary, and I’ll do the same, and some nice old granny will probably want to feed us up!” Satoru rubs his hands together cheerfully.
They’re just monkeys, we should just take what we want, Suguru doesn’t say, and not just because of his detente with Satoru. He doesn’t know that they’re monkeys; that man could well have fled from the strength if his and Satoru’s cursed energy, and not their appearance. There are literal monsters out there; it would make sense the people who live here, peasant or not, would be sorcerers. Or at least sensitive to power.
As it turns out, his first assumption—monkeys—was correct. They are waiting with literal torches and pitchforks when he and Satoru arrive, and he has no qualms about the little curse he leaves behind (they aren’t worth waster anything big on) before Satoru sticks out his tongue and teleports them away.
“Leaving that curse was rude,” Satoru says, even as he hands Suguru a purloined loaf of bread.
“And stealing isn’t?”
“They waved pitchforks at us, Suguru! And torches!”
“My point exactly! I didn’t even kill any of them, you should be pleased.”
Satoru reaches out and pats him on the shoulder.
“Good job reigning in your homocidal impulses,” he says. Suguru is positive that he is being mocked. Affectionately, but mocked.
“Fuck you,” he says.
“Not in the middle monster-ridden nowhere, thanks.”
Abruptly, they both start laughing. Again. It feels good; Suguru has missed him, missed this easy rapport. Even if it’s only a rickety rope bridge over the gap between them right now… It’s nice.
…turns out Euro-monkey peasant bread is pretty nice too, when you’ve had as little as they have in the last few days.