Archive of Our Own

For the next hour, Shoko ignores everything. She ignores the dead body laid carefully down in the trunk of the car. She ignores her manager's worried look in the rearview mirror when she gets into the backseat. She ignores the silent prickle of the invisible spirits prickling at the back of her neck for the duration of the ride, she ignores Yaga calling after her when she returns to campus as she turns down the hallway to the dorms, and she ignores the way her hands tremble the entire time. 

Back in her room, Shoko leans her back against the locked door of her room. If she hides in here long enough, Gojo and Getou will come and drag her to dinner. If she doesn't go to their rooms, they'll be in their beds. If she doesn't look at the moving silhouettes that have suddenly appeared in her periphery, they won't be real. 

Right?

The Gojo that can't be pokes at her shoulder with ceramic, doll-jointed fingers, and the Getou that's not bends down a little to try and look at her face with its hands on its knees. Shoko covers her eyes with her palms, because this hurts and she can't stand to look at the creatures they've turned into. 

“You two were supposed to be untouchable,” she whispers into her wrists. “Sorcerers die all the time, but you two were so strong, and you— you were supposed to be the ones I could get to grow up with. I was supposed to be able to keep you.” 

The ghosts shift in her periphery to look at each other. 

“If anything, I'm supposed to be the one who dies,” she continues, dropping her hands to stare at the floor. “Out of the three of us, I'm the one who can't fight. I'm the one who's not allowed on solo jobs, I'm the healer, I'm the one who—” A heavy, shaky exhale drags itself out of her lungs, followed by a desperate gasping inhale. “I'm the one who was supposed to make sure you stayed alive.” 

Gojo and Getou are dead. There's no ignoring that. She saw their bloodless bodies, touched their pallid skin, kissed their cold foreheads as she gave them her final goodbyes. And yet, their shapes stand in front of her now — shifting around uncertainly as if they're genuinely worried about her. 

They seem to have a wordless conversation over Shoko's head based entirely on eye contact (or maybe body language, actually, since one of them has no eyes and the other one has too many). Once they come to a consensus, they turn their own backs to the door and slide down the wall onto the ground on either side of Shoko's legs. Not-Getou pats the ground at her feet, and Not-Gojo tugs at the hem of her sleeve. Sit down with us, they seem to be asking her. 

Despite Shoko's repeated protests, Gojo and Getou both always liked sidling up on either side of her like they were making a human sandwich. She's not even small, they're just huge; they tower over everything, even her, as if their larger-than-life power had to show itself in even their bone structure. She used to hate being squished between these two behemoths, but now… Well, now they're dead, and while it's only been a few days since she saw them last alive, she feels like she hasn't been affectionately smushed by them in months. There's a gaping black hole in her chest where the boys used to be, and, real or not, they're offering the affection now. She hates it. She wants to kick them. She wants to smash in that stupid ceramic face, set the shadow on fire, wants to run and run and scream and kill something. 

But she also misses them with a startling ferocity, and her resolve to stay distant from these two creatures crumbles at their invitation. 

Shoko drops, curling into a ball and burying her face in her elbows while her hands curl up and over her face to the back of her head. One chilly arm slides gently over her shoulders while another reaches across her body to rest on her knee. A third hand, this one almost uncomfortably warm, curls over the first arm and wraps around her back, and its own second rests on her other leg. A face that feels like a hot teacup bumps into the side of her head, and the cold fingers on her upper back shift so they can fiddle with her hair. A pair of warm legs tilt into hers, and a pair of cold ones do the same on her other side. They hold her carefully, cradling, and hell— Shoko shatters. 

She's never been a crier, but she's never grieved like this, either, and against her will, her breath comes out in short little bursts while warm salt streams uncomfortably from her eyes. 

The cold hand in her hair cards carefully over her scalp, and the warm one between her shoulder blades slides down to soothingly rub over her back. They're comforting her. Gojo and Getou never did that before. 

“Damn it.” 

Curses aren't people. As far as anyone knows, they don't have souls, and they almost never have sentience, but vengeful spirits… For centuries, sorcerers have debated whether vengeful cursed spirits are actually the people they come from, or if they're only the negative energy. There are countless theories on both sides of the argument, dozens upon dozens of writings over if vengeful spirits were functionally ghosts or if they were nothing more than someone's dying misery and rage given form. 

These things holding Shoko can't seem to talk. They don't fight like they used to. They even move differently, all marionette-jank and smoky smoothness and they're goddamn uncanny. Are these things actually her friends? Are they really the people she remembers, or are they just echoes, afterimages going through familiar motions? Are they comforting her because they're spirits that she brought into existence, doing what she wants them to, or are they doing it because they are who they used to be, and because they legitimately want her to feel better? 

…Shit, and this makes Shoko such a bad person, but… Does any of that even matter to her? Whether or not it really is them inside these unfamiliar shapes, does that make a difference from an outside perspective? If she pretends hard enough, will that make them real? Can she selfishly choose to act like they are who the bodies in the morgue used to be? Getou and Gojo were the sort of sorcerers that only appeared once every few hundred years, and if anyone could will their own identities into the echoes they left behind, it'd probably be them. Can she let herself think that they did? 

I will find whoever did this to you, she'd told their bodies in the morgue. Wake up, she'd quietly begged inside her own mind. Come back to me. 

Although, then… if— if this is them, then it's her fault. She pulled them back through the veil, and now, because of her, they can't move on. Shit. 

There's no answer here that doesn't make Shoko cry more, no choice she can make that doesn't result in her shaking harder and dampening her skirt with her own tears. 

“You were supposed to be untouchable,” she repeats hollowly. “I— You were supposed to be able to survive all the crap our jobs throw at us— I was supposed to get to keep you. You both told me you'd always come back safe, that you couldn't— wouldn't die on me because you were the strongest there was. I trusted that, like an idiot, and now look at you. Look at me.”

Both figures squeeze gently and tip their heads against the sides of hers. 

Ieiri Shoko falls asleep like that, curled up in a ball on the floor and crying in the arms of these two things shaped like her dead friends. 

-

The first thing Shoko registers is the gentle knocking.

Taptaptaptap. 

The second thing she registers is that her eyes are puffy and sore. Her head is throbbing. She feels awful. 

She tries to roll to the side, and realizes, thirdly, that she's in a bed. Why is she in bed? She was just on the floor with— 

The fourth thing she processes is that moving is harder than it should be. There's a human-shaped thing on either side of her, one warm arm and one cold one slung over opposite ends of her body. Right. Her classmates are dead and there's somehow two things that resemble them sticking to her like glue. They must have moved her to the bed when she fell asleep crying. They're still here, draped over her atop the sheets, a pale body warming her back and a dark one curled over her front. 

“Shoko-senpai?” Shoko hears a quiet voice call through the door. 

At the voice, Not-Gojo's burning hands cling to her shirt needily, and Not-Getou's vantablack form starts steaming with wispy bits of shadow. Shoko's skin prickles with unease. What the fuck? 

Shoko sits upright, dislodging their clinging arms, and climbs over Not-Getou’s body to get out of the bed. Both figures sit up and make as if to come with her, but she jerks one hand up in a startled but determined 'halt' motion. They stop. 

No, Shoko mouths at them, heart thumping with something akin to fear. She points at the bed. Stay. 

The things in her bed obey, but as she walks towards the door, their faces follow her with uncanny synchronization, like cats tracking the red dot from a laser pointer. Black shadow still steams, and blue eyes burn like fire. It's goddamn creepy. 

Shoko wipes her face and moves to open the door, but she keeps the opening slim enough that her bed is hidden to whoever is outside. 

The ‘whoever’ is apparently her underclassmen. They both look wrecked. Haibara's eyes are unfocused and spacey, his hands knotted anxiously together in front of his ribs. “Hey, Shoko-senpai,” he whispers. He's looking at the wall beside her head. 

Shoko blinks harshly at the bright yellow of the hallway light, but she steps out of the room and shuts the door behind her with a careful and quiet click. “What—” She stops when her voice cracks, and she coughs a little to clear the roughness away. “What do you need?” 

To the right of him, Nanami has a plastic bag filled with konbini food tucked into one arm, his other hand stuffed in his pocket. His hair is a disheveled mess, and he looks angry. Not irritated. Angry. “We heard what happened,” he murmurs quietly, looking at the floor. 

Haibara sniffs, hollow-eyed and dull-voiced. “Nanami wanted to leave you alone, but Yaga-sensei said we should bring you something to eat.” 

“Ha. ‘Course he did.” Shoko feels her heart twist, and a weak, wet smile forms on her face. “Worrywart.” 

“Well, it is pretty late,” Nanami admits. “It's technically morning, I think. The two of us got back an hour ago.” 

It hasn't even been a full day.

Shoko closes her eyes tightly, and gives a weak smile when she opens them. “I'm not hungry.” 

It's a small lie, but the thought of eating anything right now makes her feel sick. 

Nanami gives her a strange look, something between worried and judgy. “Take it anyway. I doubt you'll be coming out of there any time soon, especially not for something as mundane as breakfast, and it's better to have something on hand than not.” 

Shoko gives up quickly, too low on energy to argue. “Okay,” she accepts quietly, taking the bag from Nanami. 

He nods at her, and then turns to slowly and gently tug a still stunned-looking Haibara back down the hallway. 

-

When Shoko re-enters her room, the ghosts in her bed haven't moved. Not-Gojo is illuminated by the moonlight peeking through her curtains, making it seem like he's glowing. Beside him, Not-Getou does almost the opposite, still steaming black smoke that suffocates all the light it touches. They're still staring. 

Shoko swallows harshly. Neither of these entities have real facial expressions, but she gets the sense that they're angry. “What's the matter now?” she asks uncomfortably.

In sync, too smoothly to be human motions, they each reach out the hand farthest from each other towards her, palms turned inwards and fingers spread as if preparing to shoot energy beams at her or something. If not for the lack of cursed energy shifting in the air, she might have actually thought it was a precursor to an attack, but as it is, the way they tightly grip each other's fingers with their other hands, she thinks it might be more of an urgent beckoning come back to bed motion, like a toddler making grabby hands. 

“Hang on,” Shoko mutters, turning away towards her desk so she can set down the bag of food. 

The air ripples behind her with the sound of a fluttering bird wing. When she jerks towards the noise, the spot where the bed and window should be are gone. There's still dim light filling the rest of the room in her periphery, but there's suddenly a huge pillar of blackness in front of her, a dark wall with no surfaces that devours light as if someone took a pair of scissors and cut away a piece of reality. Shoko stumbles backwards against the desk, and the blackness moves, and then— Cold. 

The feel of a chilly hand on her shoulder startles her a little, but also settles her nerves. Oh. The world isn't breaking, it's just Not-Getou. He's somehow moved the space of five huge footsteps within a fraction of a second, and his weird void form is just blotting out what's behind him. His utter lack of textures is still disorienting, and the speed with which he appeared was uncanny. Shoko forces several long, rough exhales through her nose. 

The darkness moves again, and her blood jumps, but he's just taking the bag from her hand with his own free one. Shoko lets it go without protest, and he slips it over his wrist before gently resting that hand on her shoulder too. 

Just as soon as she's prepared herself for another weird hug, she feels the sensation of falling. Her heart jumps into her throat, and something is behind her knees, and her gravity shifts, and… Then, somehow, she's sitting back between them on the bed, slightly closer to the headboard than they are so they're sitting in a little triangle formation. He— This— This jackass teleported to her just to— to hurry her up. Shoko laughs incredulously, trying to calm her rapid heartbeat, and thinks, Clingy much? 

The rustle of plastic moves her attention to where he sits. He's holding the plastic bag open for Not-Gojo to dig through. He pulls out what looks like two of four Squirt cans and offers one to each of them. Shoko takes one, confused, while Not-Getou holds up a hand in an I'll pass motion. Not-Gojo shrugs, and pops open his own can. He lifts it to his face, but then stops. He blinks all six eyes, pulls the can away from his mouth, and stares at it. For a second, Shoko doesn't understand. 

Then she does. There is no mouth. He can't drink the soda. She fights the horrifying, hysterical urge to laugh. 

Not-Getou hunches over with the sound of rustling wind, and after a second, Shoko realizes he's laughing. Not-Gojo makes a weird sound of his own, like the groaning hum of a fridge, and he passes Shoko the open drink before irritably folding his arms and glaring at Getou. Absently, Shoko notices that his eyes aren't glowing as brightly anymore, and that Getou's void-black silhouette is no longer steaming wisps of darkness. 

Getou laughs harder, the noise of air rippling through a car window increasing in volume as he folds over more. Satoru gives him the middle finger, his fridge-noise changing in pitch to more resemble the buzz of an electric fan, and then points at the spot where Getou himself should have a mouth, as if to say, You don't have one either! 

Getou’s wind noise resembles a wheeze, and he sits up a little, holding up a hand in a give me a second gesture. He struggles to regain composure with weird, panting breaths, and they don't sound like human noises, but his shuddering body language is plenty telling. When he's mostly gotten ahold of himself, he props himself up with one hand and points at his face with the other. 

Ohoho, no, Shoko thinks as a gigantic seam cracks across his face where his mouth should be. No thank you. A huge, horrifying mouth blooms open like a flower, jaw lowering as a monstrous maw unfurls upwards into a gaping hole that encompasses most of where his face should be. Just like the one on his wolf form, the interior of his mouth is dark purple, dark as blood, and a deeply uncomfortable number of slightly too-sharp teeth line the edges like some sort of fucked up orca. A notable difference in the two versions of this, though, is that this is almost more of a face-sized pit than just a too-big mouth. So far, it's the only part of him Shoko's seen with any textures. 

Not-Gojo curiously leans forwards towards the danger hole without any fear, and Not-Getou stays still as one ceramic finger hooks into the area where his lower pitch-black lip meets purple gums. There's a second, tinier set of teeth in that little pocket space, and Not-Gojo drags Not-Getou’s lip downwards so he can press his finger against one. He pushes at the upper lip, too, to reveal more hidden teeth, and then he pulls away and makes little claw motions with his hands, imitating a monster going, raaah. 

Not-Getou folds one knee up and props his elbow atop it, and it's weird to see the silhouette of it without any outlines to show which limbs are where. She can only tell what he's doing because he's still three-dimensional, which means that a slight perspective shift lets her see the wall behind him through the gap between his bicep and hip. Not-Getou rests his head on his hand (Shoko thinks, anyway, because the singular blob of blackness is actually really hard to interpret), and, apparently conceding to Not-Gojo’s nonverbal request, he snaps the second set of teeth out, longer and sharper than the already monstrous first set. Now with two layers of enormous piranha teeth, it almost looks like the mouth of an especially upsetting lamprey.

Yup, nope, it's violently inhuman. Absolutely horrifying. Shoko hates it. 

Not-Gojo makes a warbling coo of interest and starts feeling at Not-Getou’s extra teeth with his fingers, the odd clicking sound of china meeting teeth-bone making Shoko's skin crawl. 

Shoko looks down at her own hands, flesh and blood and skin. These things aren't people. Humans don't have ceramic bodies. They don't have retractable teeth. They don't hum like bright classroom ceiling lights, or have chasm-darkness for skin instead of surfaces where light should bounce off of them, or shape-shifting powers, or— 

Or what? Shoko's brain whispers. Glowing eyes? The ability to eat spirits? The power to heal? 

Shut the hell up, Shoko tells herself, fingers twitching around the cold soda can. 

Her brain does not obey. Maybe they're not human, but they still behave like the people they used to be, don't they? 

No, Shoko tells her brain. She squeezes her eyes shut and tilts her head forwards, hiding her face behind her hair. They don't. They act like curses. Like monsters. They got angry because I got out of bed to answer my damn door. 

They stayed put though, she argues back at herself. I told them to stay, and they did. 

They were still angry. It scared me. Why did Getou— Why did that thing whisk me away back to the bed? They basically haven't let go of me since I got here. 

What happened last time they split from each other? Shoko’s mind asks, and it hits her like a goddamn slap. 

That's not fair. 

They were killed is what happened. They died separated, alone, and afraid and worried for each other. 

The soda can dents slightly in Shoko’s grip. She's too controlled to crush it, but her fingers squeeze just enough for the little plunk noise to be noticed by the boys. Fine. But they were worried about each other, not me. They're only like this because I'm the one who brought them back. 

Are they? Shoko’s brain whispers. They were worried for each other because they were the ones fighting. I did sorta vow to find their killer in exchange for their return. They didn't come back upon my talking to him, but the second their murderer threatened me, they were tearing him to bits. 

Shoko has nothing to really argue that with. Still, she thinks, They still move like predatory animals. The way they track me— 

Why did Getou take the bag of food? Shoko's brain asks. 

Ah. Shoko stares down at the soda in her hand. He knew I was putting it down, and he wanted me to eat. He brought the food with him when he whisked me back to the bed. 

Shoko's brain goes quiet, and her chest hurts. She takes a sip of the cool drink, and it tastes like evenings at the arcade, like screwing around on the running track and playing card games on the floor. A tear slips from her eye and plips onto her hand, and another rolls down her face and into her mouth. She'd thought she finished her crying for the day.

Shoko startles back to the present when Maybe-Getou gently takes the drink from her hand. All six of Maybe-Gojo’s eyes are slightly brighter than before, and he gently wipes one warm, stone finger under her eye. Both of them are looking right at her, postures displaying keen attention. 

This close, now that she's letting herself look at him, the area around Maybe-Gojo’s eyes seem a little more malleable than the rest of him. His eyebrows are crinkled together with what would look like worry on anyone else, and the tops of his cheeks scrunch his extra eyes with his pinched gaze. He makes another strange electric humming noise, and it sounds like a concerned dog checking on its upset human, which… maybe he kind of is.

Shoko sniffs. Rubs her face. Swallows hard, and tries to give him a wobbly smile. “I'm alright.” 

Maybe-Getou pokes her in the temple with a chilly finger from his free hand. The shape of his head shakes, and he pokes her again, chastising. 

“I'll be fine,” Shoko corrects with an eyeroll. “Since when are you my mom?” 

The sound of dancing flames comes from his void face, and he reaches out to brush some of her hair behind her ear where he then cradles her jaw and leans forward. For a second, she panics, thinks he's going to fucking kiss her, but he doesn't, just taps his chilly forehead against hers and thumbs softly at her cheek with his void-black fingers. They're a strange texture, cold and almost tingly and not at all like skin, but still solid. It feels like Getou. 

More tears seep from Shoko's eyes and she squeezes them shut to try and stop the flow. It doesn't work. Dammit. The gentleness of the gesture is just making her cry more. She's the healer; she can't afford this selfish sadness. She still has to be a sorcerer and function like a person and go to class tomorrow, and she can't do that if she keeps breaking down. She needs to force all her sorrow into a box or something, lock it away until it suffocates. 

The boys don't seem keen on letting Shoko detach herself again, though. A warm hand that's smooth and firm like china slides itself into hers, and Shoko chokes on her own tongue because they're teaming up on me, these assholes. It's not fair. 

“Stop,” she protests weakly, pulling away from them both. “You're making this harder. I don't even know if you're real.” 

They'd both tried to reach for Shoko when she'd retreated, but her second sentence makes them both stop. Shoko shouldn't feel bad, but she does, because the real versions of them would be offended. Hurt, maybe, on the inside. These things seem so inhuman and so like her friends at the same time, behaviors oscillating rapidly between those of malicious curses and those that could only belong to her dead classmates. In the event that they are real, they'd want her to elaborate. 

So, even with raw eyes and a wobbly voice, Shoko sniffs, looks at the blankets, and explains, “I can't tell if you're just echoes. What inside joke do we have that a curse connected to my soul couldn't find for itself by fishing through my head? How do you prove to me that you guys are still who you used to be?” 

A warm ceramic hand reaches for Shoko's again, ridged joints odd against her skin. Reluctantly, she lets the pale, too-smooth fingers fold into hers this time, and the hand squeezes softly in gratitude. In her peripheral vision, she observes the other doll hand reach over to poke the black blob of cold on Shoko's other side and point at her bedside desk. Maybe-Getou nods and starts rifling through the top drawer and comes back with a felt-tip pen, which he holds out by the cap. Maybe-Gojo tugs the pen out of its cap, and then, in Shoko’s palm, he... he draws a fucking penis. 

This fucking— 

Getou smacks Gojo upside the back of the head. He ignores the bird that Gojo flips him, and takes the pen so he can scribble on Shoko's wrist himself, Can mindless curses write? Or snark? 

“Some special grades can talk,” Shoko whispers, “but they're not really people.” The words feel condemning on her lips, but she has to say them anyway. 

Maybe-Gojo takes the pen back, and writes on Shoko's other arm, If we were just comforting copies and nothing more, wouldn't we also be able to do that by speaking with words? He flips her hand over so he can continue writing on her wrist: Why would we still have fun annoying each other? 

Shoko sniffs and wipes her face on her sleeve. She hates this. 

He adds, I know I feel real. Isn't that enough? 

Shoko doesn't know. Shouldn't it be? But then, does he feel anything, or is he just emulating what he would say if he were here, emulating what she wants him to say? (It's still Gojo's handwriting.)

Maybe-Getou picks up Shoko’s other hand, takes the pen, and adds, You weren't expecting us to have moved you to your bed. We chose to do that ourselves.  

He's right. Shoko’s chest hurts. There's still too many holes in their arguments, but there's holes in hers, too, and she's really not sure a curse would put this much effort into making a human feel better. 

Still. “I hate this.” 

Gojo steals the pen again and scribbles on one of her forearms, So do I. I have no mouth and I must snack. 

An ugly snort rips out of Shoko's nose without her permission. Getou wheezes. 

Gojo's stupid, uncanny bug eyes sparkle, and if he had a mouth, Shoko'd bet money he'd be grinning with it. He pushes her and Getou gently back down onto the bed so he can situate himself on the side of the bed closest to the door, with Getou cornered into the wall and Shoko smushed in the middle. 

“This bed is for one person, not three,” Shoko whispers, a few more uncomfortable warm tears leaking out from behind her eyelashes as her dead classmates dogpile her. They're too damn big. 

Getou wipes her tears away again and then pulls both her and Gojo closer, as if to say, Who cares? We can make it work. 

Silence ticks by for who knows how many minutes, and Shoko's brain spirals. What is she gonna tell Yaga? Can she tell him? This sort of thing breaks so many rules it's not even funny, and if she doesn't get executed or imprisoned for making what are essentially invisible weapons, then the boys are gonna get exorcised. Or someone's gonna try, anyway, and that won't go well for anybody either. And what about Haibara and Nanami? What's she supposed to—

Two noises start up in harmony with each other, a sort of hissing ‘fffffff’ and a buzzing ‘nnnnnnn,’ two uncanny predator noises mixing into each other to make the world's most paradoxical weighted blanket. It's not like a voice, or like a song, and it's nowhere near human, but the low, gentle vibration that rumbles through Shoko's body is somehow comforting, like a pair of gigantic lions are purring on either side of her. It's calming, and it lulls her to sleep. 

We can make it work.