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Suguru flinches.
Just once.
He’d been reaching for Satoru’s shoulder after a mission. A simple grab, a reassurance that they made it through this, too.
(Of course they did. Not a scratch on either of them, even their hair was unruffled.)
His hand hovers indecisively; then he pulls it back.
Satoru blinks at him, tilts his head down so his eyes are sharp over his sunglasses. “Suguru?” he questions. He sounds worried. Stepping forward, Suguru mirrors him with a step back. “Are you okay?” he asks, stilling.
He sounds so concerned. Suguru’s chest hurts like he ate a particularly foul curse.
“I just - you have Infinity on, right?”
Satoru blinks at him; his eyes are suffocating when they reappear. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I -” don’t want to be repelled by you, I don’t want to try to touch and be denied, I don’t want you slipping farther and farther from me, the strongest, beyond my reach - I don’t want -
“Whatever you’re worrying about,” Satoru says, stepping forward, “stop.” Then he hugs Suguru. Like it’s just that easy.
Suguru never flinches away again, so maybe it is.
Suguru tests his luck after that. He’d thought that Satoru was strategically turning Infinity off when they had to touch in battle, when they lean into each other after long missions; he slowly finds that he can touch Satoru whenever he wants.
He doesn’t know what to make of that.
(He doesn’t go as far as to abuse this knowledge, per se. But if he ends up touching Satoru more often than he isn’t - well. Neither of them are complaining.)
Suguru doesn’t realize what it means for a long time.
Satoru stands closer. He leans into Suguru’s space as much as Suguru leans into his. Sometimes, they feel like one entity.
Riko’s death was hard on both of them.
He thought Satoru was dead. Satoru thought he was dead.
He appreciates the proximity. (craves it, needs it, couldn’t live without it, doesn’t know what he would do-) It's obvious Satoru does too. So they stand closer, on missions, at the school, going out. Side-by-side, front-to-back, whatever keeps them together.
Throwing each other and curling around each other as they’re fighting, perfectly in-sync, as always.
They try to send Satoru on solo missions, and he outright refuses. Suguru, for all of his sense of nobility, can’t seem to protest.
He doesn’t want to be alone.
He doesn't want to be alone more than he doesn’t want people to die.
And that makes him horrible, probably, but the warmth of Satoru at his side makes all the horrible things just a bit better.
So they only take missions together, and every single elder has to grit their teeth and bear it, because what are they going to do?
They’re the strongest, after all.
The only compromise they receive is sending Satoru and him on the toughest, most grueling missions. It’s fine.
Suguru leaves these missions without a scratch, and chalks it up to being with Satoru. Because really, while they’re the strongest - Satoru is the strongest. He just refuses to leave Suguru behind.
So of course he’s safe, protected by Satoru’s warmth, and Satoru is safe from the exhaustion of never-ending solo missions. It works. Of course it does.
They’re the strongest, after all.
Satoru complains once that every mission they get is so taxing, “I wish we could get a nice second-grade, every now and then. Have some time to get snacks in the city after.”
Suguru just smiles indulgently at him. “Wouldn’t be like this if you weren’t so clingy,” he teases.
“Haven’t come here in a while,” Shoko says. Her cigarette is unlit, dangling lazily from her mouth. The morgue always smells like smoke, but no one begrudges her.
“Sorry,” Suguru says, because he is. Shoko has a different path than him and Satoru; it makes it hard to get together. But he’s here with a case of beer and Satoru is just outside the door, ordering takeout; he’s determined they’ll have a nice night. “I’ve been-”
“Busy, I know,” she says. Smirks a little. “But that’s not what I meant.” Her eyes wander purposefully over to the operating table, the place Suguru has found himself on so often he’s memorized the ceiling above it.
Huh. He really hasn’t been injured recently.
It makes sense. He only goes on missions with Satoru. Even when it’s the worst available, they leave without a scratch.
Well. They are the strongest.
Suguru feels like he’s missing something. It’s a common feeling with Shoko. Instead of answering he holds up the beer, inclining his head in invitation.
She smiles at him, tired but content.
Satoru barges in then, going directly to Suguru’s side like the few minutes alone were unbearable. He careens into him hard enough Suguru is knocked off balance, but he’s caught just as easily. Satoru’s arms are tight around his waist, ensuring he stays upright.
Shoko looks on, fondly exasperated.
Satoru is rambling about what he got - a bit of everything but extra of your favorites and every dessert on the menu - and shoving his face into Suguru’s hair - come on, leave it down, just this once - and Suguru is truly happy, here. He huffs a bit as Satoru presses his cold nose to Suguru's neck. "Stop that," he says without heat, "you're ridiculous."
He’s even happier later, as they gorge themselves on food and beer. The movies are so bad they’re good, the floor is littered with wrappers and empty bottles, and the screen lights up Satoru’s hair like candyfloss.
He leans into Satoru, Satoru leans into him, and eventually Satoru, ever the lightweight, falls asleep in his lap. He cards his fingers through his hair, tugging lightly like he knows he likes.
Shoko smirks at him as Satoru’s gentle snores fill the room. He’s certainly missing something; he just smiles back.
They’re up against their first special-grade in forever, and it’s - it’s suffocating, the cursed energy in the air, Suguru wants to fall, wants to die, but he won’t - he’ll protect Satoru, he’ll protect everyone, he’s -
“Stay here,” Satoru says, steel in his voice. Suguru had been about to leap to a different position, easier to guard Satoru’s back from up high, but Satoru’s command stops him in his tracks.
“Huh?” is his stupid reply, wasting valuable time. He needs to move, this isn’t time for Satoru’s whims, what the fuck.
But when he crouches to lunge up, he finds a strong arm around his middle, stopping him. “What the fuck are you doing!?” he yells, effectively stuck if he doesn’t want to break Satoru’s concentration by breaking his fucking arm, the asshole.
“You need to be near me for this.” That’s it, that’s all the explanation he gets. He’s pressed to Satoru, facing down the scariest curse they’ve seen in months, unable to move and he’s-
And then the world explodes.
It’s muffled, like he’s underwater, but the visuals are there, everything expanding and contracting like some horrible sci-fi movie. Everything, the curse, the walls, the floor and the ceiling - it all explodes outwards.
Then, just as fast, it starts flying inwards, towards them, and Satoru is just standing there and of course he has Infinity but Suguru certainly fucking doesn’t but Satoru would never risk his life not ever, not ever-
The whole building crunches into a solid sphere inches from his face.
Of course. That’s why Satoru had pulled him in.
Everything had been flying at them so fast he panicked.
Satoru would never endanger him. It’s outside the realm of possibility.
“Sorry,” Satoru says, as the keening of the special-grade echoes around them. Not dead, but certainly hurt. The stones around them creak, ominously. Somewhere, there’s a sickening crunch, and another long drawn-out screech. “It would be too taxing to make sure I crushed it and not you.”
Suguru splutters.
“What,” he says, too out of breath to phrase it like a question. The walls creak again and he presses farther into Satoru, a stark opposite to how he was trying to get away a moment ago.
“I’m the strongest,” he says, tucking his chin over Suguru’s shoulder, “but even that has limits.
There’s another screech.
“It should be weak enough now that we can finish it off,” Satoru says, and everything suddenly drops from around him. Suguru is still dangling from the arm around his waist - which, what the fuck, he’s just realizing how uncomfortable that is - so he gets a nauseating view of the ‘ground’ falling away into rubble.
The special-grade is writhing and screeching, shrill in the empty space. Satoru flings him up into the air effortlessly, calling out a flippant, “Watch my back!” Suguru flips and twists, locating where Satoru expects him to land.
He ends up perfectly on his feet, the thin ledge he’s balanced on still standing, despite the carnage.
Satoru falls directly in front of the curse, smiling. His hair is glowing around his face, the dust and sunlight making it look like a halo.
But that’s not what Suguru should be focusing on.
Satoru is ducking in and swerving out, chipping away at the special grade. He has it under control.
Other curses are moving in, seduced by the power and carnage flooding the air. Suguru takes care of each and every one; none of them get within a few feet of Satoru.
At one point he has to jump down, landing neatly on a third grade’s skull to block a first grade, its bloody teeth gnashing like it would eat Satoru whole. He sends out a nauseating amount of curses and follows it up with some good ol’ punches, and when he turns to Satoru, still wearing down the special-grade, he grins.
Satoru, who had been looking at him with concern, grins back.
They’re the strongest, after all.
It’s over. Suguru is dusty, swiping at the blood sluggishly bleeding from his cheek with a soot-black hand. It’s the only injury he has, coinciding with Satoru finishing off the special grade with an amount of cursed energy that made his teeth chatter.
“You - you’re hurt,” Satoru says, as he makes his way over to him. He’s swaying, unsteady. It had been hard-fought, and Suguru can only hope he was more of a help than a hindrance.
“Happens,” is Suguru’s reply, because it does. Or - doesn’t it? Not in a while, he supposes. Strange, like the rest of the day. It’s almost certainly the battle messing with his senses.
Satoru stumbles up to him and half-tackles, half-collapses on him. They fall, but they don’t hit the ground.
He carries Satoru as they fly back, stingray steady and reliable as always under them. Satoru is mostly conscious, and he knew the man was tactile, but he can’t seem to stop touching Suguru’s face right now.
He avoids the cut like the plague, never straying close enough to make it so much as sting.
“I’m sorry you got hurt,” he says, eventually. There’s exhaustion in his words. Tokyo is flying beneath them, sparkling lights that mirror the stars Suguru knows exist. They had been so much brighter in his hometown.
Suguru looks at where the city lights reflect off Satoru’s eyes and has no doubt as to which he prefers.
“It happens,” is Suguru’s reply, again. This is the life of a jujutsu sorcerer.
Satoru snuggles deeper into his arms, tucking his face into Suguru’s side. “It shouldn’t,” he mumbles, “not to you.” His hand has drifted from Suguru’s face to his neck, thumb over his pulse point.
Suguru doesn’t think too hard on those words. With Tokyo miles below them, he feels weightless. “Don’t worry so much,” he says, mind already elsewhere. “It’s annoying.”
Neither of them are truly hurt, of course. Satoru drags him to the infirmary anyway, for some reason. Beyond Shoko poking at his cheek and saying, ‘sleep’, there’s no medical attention. “You’re infuriating,” he tells Satoru, flicking him on the forehead when Shoko has given them a bemused ‘all clear’. Satoru pouts at him.
They collapse on Suguru’s bed, because Satoru’s been sleeping there since… well. He’s been sleeping there a while. He curls around Suguru, nuzzles into his cheek. The one without the cut. He takes a breath like he’s going to say something, then exhales silently.
“You’re such a sap,” Suguru says, fondly.
Satoru hides his face in Suguru’s neck.
He starts to think something might be off when Satoru starts working himself raw. He’d always taken a lackadaisical approach to training, going through the motions more than anything. If anyone ever called him out on it, he’d just smile that infuriating smile and say, “But I’m the strongest.”
Satoru, at his core, is an asshole.
He’s also a lazy asshole, so the uptick in training is sort of worrying, but when Suguru asks he just shrugs. “Never hurts to be stronger.”
So.
Okay then.
He’s really considering the fact that something’s off when Satoru stops following him everywhere like a duckling.
They still spend the vast majority of their time together, but now when Suguru untangles himself in the morning and announces, “I’m getting breakfast,” Satoru just grunts.
Suguru waits for the inevitable, “Let me get ready,” but it never comes.
“Satoru?” he prompts.
The mass of blankets wiggles. Faintly, a voice emerges, “Headache.” Suguru sits and blinks dumbly down at him. Satoru has been doubled over from migraines, clawing at his hair and nonverbal, and still dragged himself after Suguru.
Much to his chagrin.
He’d turned around that morning and gone hungry instead, Satoru’s body curled around him in bed, his hands clutching Suguru’s shirt.
After a moment, one blue eye appears from the blanket's depths. “Go,” he says, voice sleep-groggy. “You need to eat.”
Well then.
He goes, and tries not to feel bereft.
He’s certain something is off when Shoko throws a paper ball at him, disinterestedly, and it never reaches his forehead.
It bounces off of an invisible barrier about an inch in front of him, and he blinks stupidly.
Shoko blinks right back at him, then buries her face in her hands. “That idiot,” she drawls.
Suguru can’t help but agree.
He goes back to his room, where Satoru is predictably huddled under a mountain of blankets. “How long have you been using Infinity on me?” he asks. No point beating around the bush.
One eye peeks out, having the audacity to glare. “People I trust should be able to touch you,” is all he says.
Suguru lets out a bark of a laugh, because really, people Satoru trusts? All three of them?
What about people Suguru trusts?
“Oh god, this is why you were always hanging off me, huh?” And fuck, Suguru had held hope that it was something different, something more. He knows Gojo cares about him, but he’d thought all the touching and holding and - he thought it was leading to something more. Not just making sure the only person who can keep up with him doesn’t keel over.
The eye disappears back into the blankets. Well then. “I know it's aggravating to be around me all the time, so I’ve been working on increasing the range.”
Suguru blinks. That was… not what he was expecting.
“Satoru?”
He unearths his head fully. “I’m not sorry for protecting you,” he says. Glares.
And jeez, Suguru hasn’t noticed because Satoru has barely struggled out of his blanket mound in days, training notwithstanding, but he looks awful.
Suguru blinks.
“I’m the strongest,” Satoru spits, like the fact has personally offended him. He’s never said it like that before. “I’m supposed to be able to protect you.”
Suguru blinks again. “You do realize no one has ever been able to use Infinity on another person.” Satoru just stares mulishly. “Right?” His voice cracks a bit on that.
“I’m the strongest,” Satoru insists, growling. "We’re the strongest,” he’s saying it forcefully, self-loathingly. “And you still got hurt.”
Suguru actually cocks his head, trying to think of the last time he was injured. His hand comes up to brush at his cheek and Satoru’s glare increases tenfold, looking at the near-invisible scar there. “I got a cut. On my cheek.”
Satoru frowns more. Nods.
“I…” he doesn’t really know where to go from there. Doesn’t think that expounding on the many, varied, painful injuries he’d gotten in the past would help.
Satoru had been there for some of them. He knows.
He changes tactics. “Why would it be aggravating to be around you all the time?”
Satoru flops down, and his voice is muffled when he replies, “That’s just who I am.” He heaves a great sigh. “We both know it.” After a bit of shuffling, he’s glaring at Suguru again, “Doesn't mean I’m gonna let you get yourself killed if I’m not around.”
“What do you mean we both know it? I like being around you.” Love being around you, he doesn’t say. There was a point when he would’ve, maybe. Before he realized Satoru draped himself all over Suguru so he wouldn’t trip on his own feet and die, or something.
“You don’t have to lie,” Satoru huffs.
“Why would I lie?”
“I dunno, to spare my feelings? Not like you’re in the habit of it, but there’s a first time for everything.” Suguru has to brace himself to not take a step back at the words.
“What?”
Satoru huffs. “Do you want a list of what you think of me? I have one. ‘Infuriating’, ‘annoying’, ‘clingy’, ‘insufferable’, ‘ridiculous’.” Suguru actually does take a step back at those words. “It’s fine,” Satoru says, eventually. “It’s all fine. I don’t mind. As long as you’re safe.”
Suguru sits. Stares.
Satoru seems to have decided this conversation is over, because he huffs and rolls over, back to Suguru.
There’s a long moment where Suguru just looks at the lump of blankets Satoru inhabits. On his bed, he might add.
Then he strides purposefully across the room, unfolds the blanket from where it was bunched under Satoru, (what do you think you’re - ) and slides in neatly behind him.
Satoru is tense in his arms. Suguru isn’t normally the big spoon, but it’s been known to happen; he knows where to rest his hands to tuck Satoru firmly against him.
“You are infuriating,” he says, whispering directly into Satoru’s ear. He struggles, but Suguru pins his arms easily. It’s obvious Satoru’s heart isn’t in it. “And annoying, and clingy.” Satoru grunts, renewing his efforts to escape, but Suguru nuzzles into the side of his neck and he stills instantly. “You’re definitely ridiculous,” he continues, rubbing his nose into the soft hairs at the top of Satoru’s spine.
Satoru huffs, and he feels goosebumps raise on the back of his neck.
“But Satoru,” he says, pitching his voice low. “Insufferable? I’ll suffer you gladly. Being around you? Having you infuriating me, annoying me, clinging to me? That’s not suffering at all.”
He squeezes the paralyzed man in his arms.
“When you started pulling away I thought I did something wrong,” he whispers.
Now Satoru moves, flipping over in his arms and grabbing at him. His eyes look wild. “You haven’t done a thing wrong,” he breathes, right up in Suguru’s face.
His eyes are hypnotizing. Suguru can’t look away.
“So stop avoiding me,” Suguru demands. Pleads, maybe. “Stop running yourself ragged doing something that should be impossible and continue annoying the shit out of me with your ridiculous, clingy self.”
Satoru huffs. “I can’t always be with you, I need to learn -”
“Fuck that. We were always together before, nothing needs to change.”
“Suguru-”
“You don’t want me to be hurt, right?”
Satoru presses his lips together before giving him one sharp nod.
“Well,” Suguru continues, “the funny thing is that I don’t want you hurt either. And it’s obvious that this stupid thing you’re doing is hurting you.”
“I need - we can’t be glued together every time we fight. It’s impractical.”
Satoru’s eyes are so large, this close. Something he could get irrevocably lost in. He does, for a moment, brain shutting down. “We can practice,” he finally decides, “for short periods of time, yeah? In a fight, if you have to do this, I’ll let you.”
Satoru finally closes his eyes, ducking into Suguru’s shoulder. “What do you mean, you’ll let me? You can’t stop me.”
Suguru huffs a laugh into his hair. “Yeah, I know.” Satoru’s grin against his shoulder is far too proud. “So we’ll practice, under controlled conditions, and you’ll stop being so paranoid that the second I leave your sight you’re activating your extremely energy-consuming technique in an impossible way.”
“You could just not leave my sight.” Suguru feels him pout as he says it, lower lip pushing into his shoulder.
“Not possible,” Suguru replies.
“Is so.”
“Showers?”
“Like I haven’t seen you naked,” Satoru scoffs. “We almost always shower at the same time anyway. If something attacked, I would know and be by you in a second.”
He hums to hide the embarrassment flooding his brain.
“What if you wanted to have some, y’know…” Suguru’s brain short-circuits then.
Satoru blinks up at him, smiling like he knows. “What if I wanted to have some what?”
“Nevermind,” Suguru says, hiding his blush by sticking his face into Satoru’s hair.
“What, Suguru,” he asks, drawing his name out like it’s something dirty.
“Drop it,” he snaps. He’s about to apologize for his tone but Satoru just chuckles into his hair.
“Whatever you say,” Satoru says, snuggling against him like they could be pressed further together. He still sounds smug. The tenderness of his actions undermines it.
They doze for a while. Satoru is obviously exhausted, and just as obviously desperate for Suguru to stay. His hands clench intermittently in his shirt, across his back, around his neck. Sort of like a cat, kneading their chosen human.
It’s in the early hours of the morning that he opens his eyes and finds Satoru’s icy gaze locked on him.
“Do you know why the elders agreed to us taking every mission together?”
Suguru turns his head, not quite a shake. He doesn’t want to dislodge Satoru’s fingers from where they’re carding through his hair.
Satoru smiles. Looks up at him from beneath his lashes. “I told them that if anything ever happened to you, I’d kill them all.”
His breath catches in his throat.
Satoru’s eyes are always dangerous. It’s a given. But right now they’re downright lethal. Cold. Something that’s been left outside all winter. “I would,” he says softly, like down feathers between them. “If anything ever happened to you, I would raze the whole world. Starting with them.”
Satoru snuffles into him, then. Sighs, like he’s going back to bed. “I’m the strongest.” It’s not a prideful thing, not a taunt or a chant, just a simple statement. “Only because I have something to be strong for. I’m only the strongest because of you. Don’t leave me.”
His arms tighten around Suguru.
“You can’t leave me.”
Suguru clutches back at him and promises something he can’t, really. Only in his mind he says, I won’t.