Work Text:
The first thing Satoru registers is the smell of honey and clove. His other thoughts filter in shortly after that; the responsibility of saving Yuji, his carelessness at being trapped in the prison realm, but they all pale in comparison to how viscerally his body reacts to that scent.
His shoulders tense as he turns to face the smell, braced for a fight. He isn’t sure what he expects, but it isn’t Suguru Geto next to their old highschool.
Black hair tied messily in a manbun. The same manbun Satoru would purposely dismantle whenever they had a moment alone. Suguru stands before him, and it is Suguru this time. Satoru’s heart would know him anywhere. He’s dressed in their old highschool uniform, and he looks like he did back when they were in school: carefree, calm, his face yet untouched by the cruelty of the world. He wears a smile that Satoru hasn’t seen since Haibara passed, and his eyes are kind.
“Took you long enough,” Suguru says, and there’s a humor in his voice that Satoru hasn’t heard in years. His heart sings at the sound, soars when Suguru’s hand reaches out for his. “C’mon, Shoko’s waiting for us. I won’t have you be the reason we’re late.”
He isn’t sure why he does it, but Satoru pushes him against the wall. He searches Suguru’s face for any imperfection, any sign that it might not really be him. When he doesn’t find what he’s searching for, he goes limp against Suguru.
Hoarse, guttural sobs erupt from his throat, bubbling through his lips until they land against Suguru’s nape. Suguru, for his part, is content to hold Satoru against him as he empties out years of anguish.
Only when Satoru’s sobs have quieted to soft hiccups does Suguru make the move to disentangle them. Only a touch, though, just enough so that Suguru’s eyes can meet his.
Gently, as if trying not to spook a horse, Suguru gently pushes the hair out of his eyes. The gesture is painstakingly tender, too tender for a man like Satoru.
“Are you alright?” Suguru asks quietly, smoothing back the locks of unruly white hair that have freed themselves during his breakdown. “You usually only cry after we hang out with Shoko.”
Satoru tries to laugh, but the last vestiges of his cries turn it into a wet cough. “Don’t be mean, Suguru.” He says, elbowing him playfully. “I just…missed you, is all.”
“Missed me?” Suguru asks. “You’re so dramatic, Satoru. You saw me yesterday. And the day before that. You’ll see me tomorrow. You see me so often I’m shocked you don’t wish I was dead.”
Just because he can (just because this might be the only time he’ll ever be able to return here, to this place, where Suguru loves him and he loves Suguru), Satoru kisses him. It’s partly because he can, but mostly because he knows that he’ll have to return to a universe where he can’t.
When he kisses him, it’s like everything and nothing at all. It’s a fire, settling low in his gut and spreading to his chest, his groin, his hands, laying claim to the very fiber of his being. It’s the water that extinguishes that fire, that chills every cell in his body.
It’s a trick. A dirty, underhanded trick played by whoever possessed the real Suguru’s body. Satoru knows this, but when Suguru’s hair curls around his finger just like it used to and his mouth slots against his just so—he doesn’t know if he can find it in himself to care.
Suguru. Suguru. Suguru.
His name echoes in Satoru’s head like a mantra, a prayer, as if somehow his pleading will keep him here, with his Suguru. Before he became the strongest, before he became a weapon, before everything went so utterly to shit.
There’s a part of Satoru that never wants to leave this place. He supposes that’s the horror of it all. Each kiss against Suguru’s soft, pliant mouth has Satoru forgetting his responsibilities, his duty as the strongest, and each time he remembers them is more terrible than the last.
“We could just stay like this,” Suguru says softly once they’ve parted lips long enough to speak. “It’s not the first time we ditched plans with Shoko to make out all day.”
Satoru’s jaw clenches. He should disentangle himself from this mess of limbs and refocus his energy into escaping. It wouldn’t take much, not for the strongest sorcerer their society has ever known.
Suguru kisses him to quiet the turmoil churning low in his gut, and Satoru meets him with all the fervor of someone who wants to stay.