When We Were Dreaming
Summary: This story is about that awkward moment when two insanely powerful individuals realize they have technically grown up together despite their births being a millennia apart and one was practically born to be the other's enemy. Needless to say, NO ONE was expecting THIS. The Fates really liked their games, it seemed.
Ryou had left him at his house that day and went out to do the things that he had to, while Satoru had explored the small home for a while before he found Ryou's futon and went to sleep, waking back up in the real world with thoughts that he would contemplate for years and years without any real direction. He kept his promise and only occasionally visited Ryou during the day, even more rarely entering the village. When he did seek out Ryou, he'd most often find him with Uraume-san, sometimes with Kenjaku there, too, and extremely rarely with just Kenjaku. In the next five years, he made two new pseudo-friends in them, more so the respectful Uraume than the rude Kenjaku whom he preferred to annoy. Ryou was definitely closer to Uraume, who often cooked for him, therefore Satoru got to try some of their food and it was delicious, if not something Satoru would usually eat.
His friendship with Ryou remained as strong as ever, perhaps even stronger after that first daytime visit. Ever since Ryou had so casually picked him up and carried him around on his shoulders, even as Satoru stretched in height and started gaining his own lean muscles as early puberty hit him, the older teen - and then young adult - would just snatch him up and carry him around at the randomest of times. They'd be hiking through the woods and Ryou would come up behind him, put his hands under his knees and behind his shoulders and heave him up into his arms, calling him light as a feather and a princess, much to Satoru's annoyance. Other times, when their banter would get a bit heated, Ryou would resolve the argument by bending his knees a little and throwing Satoru over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and Satoru would just ... Let him, even if he banged his fists against his back in halfhearted protest.
They'd definitely gotten a bit more touchy-feely over the next few years. Satoru had not realized just how ... touch starved he'd been his whole life until Ryou would casually sling an arm around his shoulders, grab his wrist, hold his hand, ruffle his hair, flick his forehead, boop his nose, pinch his cheek or tickle him. That day had broken a barrier that neither of them had realized existed between them. They'd never been touch shy, per se, but they'd never touched as casually before, either, until that day. They'd lean on each other or lightly punch and slap each other in jest, maybe grab each other, but the most contact they'd always had was either during spars or when they decided to cuddle up for a nap together.
Satoru loved it; soaked it all up like a sponge and Ryou was the one who'd first started this trend, so clearly he didn't mind. So Satoru would occasionally go as far as fall into his lap and sit there like he was a child, ignoring how shocked any onlookers would look if they did this in the village, enjoying how Ryou seemed to automatically wrap his arms around his waist. Satoru liked running his fingers through Ryou's hair; it was almost as soft as his own, a bit coarser due to him using substandard products to wash it, no doubt. Ryou was also so comfortably warm, it made Satoru want to nap all the time, even though he knows he can't, because he'll wake up in the real world if he does.
They still spar. They still study together. They still explore the forest and hunt down stray curses. Satoru still has fox ears and six white tails over 90% of the time. Ryou is still his best friend, his favorite and most important person, even if he's just a dream.
No one in the real world knew of his dreams. No one in the real world could challenge him.
When he was fourteen, the last of his blood relatives died, either from age - in the case of that one remaining elder - or in action, exorcising curses. He was Clan Head not two days later, the most influential person in their secret society. Several months later, as he turned fifteen, he was already part of Jujutsu Tech in Tokyo. And he made two new friends. Well, no, it took them some time to become friendly, let alone friends.
Geto Suguru and Ieiri Shoko didn't think much of Satoru when they first met: an arrogant, rich, big clan kid, entitled and overestimated. Then they saw him in action and called him a show off just because he'd saved them from a missranked first grade curse with a blow of pure cursed energy, no technique or anything, while they'd been struggling with the second grade curses. Whereas Ryou would be impressed and then try to do something just as amazing, these two turned their noses up at him and turned their backs on him, which was extremely rude and completely uncalled for.
Satoru thought, at first, that they might have been intimidated, so he'd pulled out all the stops to make them at least a little bit more at ease: he unleashed his full charm, he often offered to treat them to coffee and snacks, offered to train together, advice, companionship when he saw them sitting alone. He was always turned down. It took weeks for one of them to willingly approach him for anything, and it had happened the first time Satoru had been a bit too tired to constantly keep up Infinity and accidentally got a cut. Geto approached first, not to ridicule the 'golden boy' for being hurt, but to check if he was alright and Ieiri came soon after. She healed him, being the expert in reversed curse techniques that she was. He thanked them and, somehow, that was the tipping point.
Over the next month, they trained together, did missions together as a proper team, studied together the general subjects still taught at Jujutsu Tech, with Satoru acting as a tutor since he'd had an advanced education since he was young. They no longer turned down the things he offered, but they also insisted on treating him to things, too. Suguru took him to the movies for the first time while Shoko had introduced him to ice cream!
They were both shocked by how limited his experiences outside of jujutsu and education were. They set out to change that, even if he couldn't bond with them over everything they did. Smoking and drinking didn't feel right. He didn't like it. They didn't force him and more often than not put out their cigarettes when he was with them. They took him to amusement parks, taught him to break the rules - Yaga-sensei sure hated them for that - showed him how to ride a bike and drive a car - Shoko's a bit of a delinquent - and many more crazy teenager shit. In turn, he helped them get stronger, but they tried to help there, too.
Only Suguru's and his techniques couldn't be more different while basic control was definitely Satoru's stronger suit, but they trained together as often as they could. Shoko, on the other hand, had something that she could teach both of them, if only she weren't so shit at explaining things.
They were fun. He liked them. He liked their senpais from Kyoto, too: Utahime and Mei Mei. Utahime ought to learn to loosen up a little, though.
He never told them about his first and dearest friend, but the reversed couldn't be more different. He just told Ryou that they were other spirits that he'd met. Yokai, even. He'd definitely called Suguru an oni in the beginning, because he'd been an ass to Satoru, and since he'd introduced him as an oni, an oni he remained. Ryou had been so worried about him, at first, but the more he heard about Satoru's new friends, the more he seemed to relax.
He never got jealous when Satoru would ramble for a couple of hours about the crazy shit they did during his daylight - real - life. If anything, he seemed to be happy Satoru wasn't as lonely anymore.
"But I've never been lonely, as long as I have you," Satoru had confessed, confused by why the other would ever doubt that, but Ryou had said that, while that was true, there was no way Satoru wasn't lonely when Ryou couldn't be with him. Satoru didn't think so, but as he turned sixteen and became a second year student at Jujutsu Tech, he thinks perhaps Ryou could have been right.
When he was officially declared a special grade sorcerer, their night time visits took the brunt of it, as Satoru started going to sleep later and later or waking up earlier than ever before for missions. Ryou was often left waiting for hours before he could show up, or he wouldn't show up at all and Ryou would go back home in the early morning without ever having seen him. The next time Satoru could go visit him, he'd apologize more sincerely than he's ever done in his life, to anyone, but Ryou would just give him an understanding smile and provide an excuse Satoru both hated and was thankful for.
"'I figured you were trying to find a way home. No way even someone as strong as you can stay in a world they don't belong in for so long without facing some sort of consequences. You've been looking really tired as of late, Satoru. Don't sweat it. We don't have to see each other every day! Besides, how many times have I left you hanging because I had to go on a mission, hmm? See, nothing to worry about!"
Except there was a lot to worry about, as those words revibrated through Satoru the same way Ryou's musing of If you were human did, back when he was ten years old, because, the older he got, the more responsibilities that piled up in his life and on his shoulders like a weight preparing him for the ultimate challenge, the ultimate task he was born for, the more he realized he can't live in both words. He can either live in that imaginary world with Ryou, where he was nothing and no one but Ryou's friend, where he didn't have to interact with people unless he wanted to, where he could hide away from the world with the flimsy excuse of limbs and features he didn't usually have, or he can live in the real world, where he was needed, desperately, to stave off the influx of curses his own birth had brought about.
(Some mistakenly think it was his birth that made the curses appear more often, stronger, smarter. Satoru, though, knows that the curses had always been there. They were just hiding, or more subtle in their activities, something that he'll be proven right about when he's twenty eight. Curses had been at a steady decline since the time of Ryoumen Sukuna, the King of Curses and his sealing in his twenty Fingers, but so have been the jujutsu sorcerers. They became a secret society. Traditionalists led their world, bringing much grief along the way that no one acknowledged until, one day, a seventeen year old Satoru would decide he'll stand up against that system and make it change, make those foolish elders quake in their socks and take as much power and decisions away from them as he can. A system that won't rob anyone of their childhood the way he, technically, was, had it not been for those strange, precious dreams and the equal he had made up for himself so he wouldn't be lonely.)
At the moment that realization hit him, he wasn't sure which world he would chose. Which he would damn.
One he would feel guilty for choosing. He would mourn losing it, too.
In the end, it wasn't a decision he got to make. The universe seemingly decided for him.
He was sixteen years old, a second year student at Jujutsu Tech in Tokyo, a special grade sorcerer and widely acknowledged as the strongest among his rank, sparse as they are. He and Suguru got assigned on a mission of great importance, were asked for specifically by Master Tengen himself. Satoru had been suspicious of the mission since he'd heard the name of the immortal sorcerer. The Gojo clan knew Master Tengen wasn't the most fond of them, not through any actions of their own, but because there is a mysterious connection between Master Tengen's powers and Six Eyes. Master Tengen is always uneasy when Six Eyes walks the Earth. The mission itself is to escort Tengen's newest vessel, Amanai Riko, and her 'erasure', as Yaga-sensei - soon to be the principal - had said. Satoru didn't like that, either.
The Merger, to him, sounded like a death penalty without the death part, wrapped up in pretty words and flowery purposes. Perhaps Ryou's more cynical view of the world has rubbed off on his younger self and stayed with him in moments of true importance and seriousness, but Satoru has also never been a fool.
So he promises Suguru that they will fight for her future, if she wants it. The choice is hers, as it should be. She's not like Satoru, who was born to bear the weight of the world, knew it from time immemorial, even if he's yet to truly feel the weight of that responsibility. Amanai is just a child meant to be some ghost's host. She wasn't prepared the way he'd been.
Perhaps Satoru just wanted to make sure no one else ever goes through what he did.
Perhaps this was his first act of rebellion against a corrupt, outdated system, to make the world better for future generations.
Either way, upon meeting the spunky, sassy girl, even if she irritated him, his resolve to save her only hardened. And as fun as it was to get fawned over girls who have no idea who they were drooling after, as fun as it was to mess with curse users and show them the difference between their power levels, as fun as it was to go on a mission that belonged in a spy action movie more than in real life when they were saving Kurio, as fun as messing around on the beach was and introducing Amanai to all the foods she's never tried before or sea creatures she's never poked just for the hell of it, as fun as going kayaking and to the aquarium was, the choice was up to her and he'd never hear it from her own lips. He'd read it in her heart, in her soul. Six Eyes see everything. He'd heard it from Suguru, when it was all over and Satoru came down from his high, when he was human again.
But he never heard it from her, because she'd been killed.
He'd been a fool, keeping Infinity on at all times for the whole of two days they had been with Amanai before the Merger, he'd tired himself out and then he'd let his guard down once they'd entered Jujutsu Tech grounds and he received a sword to the back for his trouble. He'd sent Suguru and Kuroi to escort Amanai to Master Tengen, or just to safety, as he faced the man who defied the norm, the man with zero cursed energy whom he'd all but forgotten. It's been years. He'd forgotten how it felt to bear witness to a void in the flow of cursed energy and the natural energy that comes from the world.
He'd paid for it.
A slashed throat, a knife to the head, just above his left eye, and a threat to his friends as he slowly died.
His eyes closed and the world disappeared.
When he opened them again, he was in the familiar shrine that he'd been calling home since the dreams started. He didn't stay. He didn't know if eternal slumber would grant him to live here with Ryou, but he didn't want to risk it. He didn't want to disappear without saying goodbye. Ryou deserved better, even if the man was only imaginary.
It was daytime, but Satoru didn't care. He snuck into Ryou's house, half expecting it to be empty. For some reason, he couldn't really see or feel beyond what was right in front of him. He felt ... more human than he ever has. Not weak, but he felt almost blind. To not see the world how he'd always seen it since he was born was disconcerting, but he didn't care to be frightened right now.
He had to see his friend, his most precious person. He had to hug him one last time, to be held by him, to touch him and smell him and just get lost in his embrace one more time. Just one more time, before it was all over.
Ryou was home. He nearly took Satoru's head off, had Six Eyes and Limitless not flared back into their rightful place again, stopping Ryou's slashing technique. The pink haired man was immediately on him, clearly distressed by something. Satoru realized he was crying. Ryou asked, again and again, what was wrong, if he was hurt, was there something he could do, how can he help, but Satoru only clung to him, burying his face into the folds of the older's yukata.
"I love you," the words came unbidden, from the very depths of Satoru's soul, a truth he'd never realized was there, hiding in his heart until the possibility of never expressing it became an all to possible reality. But it was an incomplete truth. "I think I have for a very long time." Because yes, Satoru has loved Ryou for many, many years, probably since all the way back when he was four. But now? Now he's in love with him and he's not sure when that started. When he was six and faced something he couldn't understand for the first time, the same something that killed him now, ten years later? When he was eight and scraped his knees for the first time and Ryou patched him up? When he was ten and Ryou touched him for the first time like he was just another person and not some piece of divinity, even though Ryou still definitely believed him to be a genuine kitsune? When he was twelve and saw some of the villagers kissing and had asked Ryou what they were doing, why and what it meant? Or any moment in between their first meeting and now, when he was dying if not already dead, in this dream that he fears will fade too soon, that he'll never again be held by his first friend, his best friend, someone he cares about more than he cares to put into words.
"Satoru-"
"I'm in love with you," he says again, because it's freeing. It feels right. The words slip off his tongue so easily, as though he'd always been meant to say them. To say them to Ryou. "I know I'm young. But this isn't some halfhearted feeling. It won't pass. And I know you probably think me a fool-"
"Never," denies Ryou vehemently, a hand coming up to guide Satoru's face away from his chest. Cupping his cheek, directing his gaze upwards. Six Eyes that hold the sky, the world, infinity, meet eyes as red as blood, enchanting in their own way. The eyes that Satoru likes the most. "I've read so many stories about kitsune and yet I still somehow aren't prepared for this," says the older male with a chuckle, but those red eyes are twinkling warmly. The Gojo feels like he's in a trance. In a dream. A dream within a dream. Was this what dying felt like? "I've been in love with you for years, Satoru, but I was never sure if I had a right to be. I thought you only saw me as a friend, and I'd rather have you as just a friend than not have you in my life at all." Tears streamed down Satoru's cheeks without his permission. Ryou brought both his hands up to wipe them away. "Seems like you found a way home, huh? So you'll be leaving my life anyway." The words were bittersweet, yet not angry or resentful.
Ryou sounded both happy and sad. Happy that Satoru could 'go home' and be safe in whatever imaginary land of the gods Ryou had conjured up in his botched up belief, but sad that Satoru was leaving him, that their time together was coming to an end.
"I don't know if I can come back," Satoru admitted, because he didn't know what death was, what it felt like. Do people still dream in death? "I don't want to go if it means leaving you." Another admission that only hurt them both. Another nail to the coffin that holds their happiness, the potential of their future together.
"Should I go with you? Can we do that, instead?" Asks Ryou, sounding like he knew the answer before Satoru could say no, even if it's for completely other reasons. If Satoru was to die, then he doesn't want Ryou to die, too, even if Ryou was just a dream, not a real person, just someone he'd conjured up in his own loneliness. He'd seen enough death as a Gojo. As Six Eyes. As a jujutsu sorcerer. Ryou smiles, like he understands, and maybe he does.
He leans down and Satoru's breath hitches when lips meet his own. He's never done this before. He'd only seen it on TV or magazines or other people doing it. He'd never even imagined trying it himself. But if he's ever going to do it with someone, he knows he would want to do it with Ryou,so he lets it happen. He clings to Ryou and does his best to kiss back. Thankfully, he's always been a quick learner.
When they part, Ryou already has him in his arms and is taking him further into the house, to the bedroom. Satoru knows what will happen. He doesn't resist. Doesn't push Ryou away. He welcomes it. Welcomes his big, gentle hands. Welcomes the liberation from his clothes. Their clothes. They both marvel at how the fur of his six tails feel against their naked flesh. How their naked flesh feels when they touch.
Satoru is tall, taller than everyone else he's met, even if he's still only sixteen. He's maybe half an inch shorter than Ryou, but Ryou is broader in the way only men can be. Satoru is yet to reach that stage in his growth. It makes him feel tiny. Ryou makes him feel so young and tiny, like Ryou could scoop him up, tuck him into the folds of his yukata and protect him from the world, as though Gojo Satoru needs any protection at all. Gojo would let him. He knows Ryou is strong.
He clings to Ryou as they kiss, touch, caress. He clings harder when they start moving. It hurts and yet it feels like ecstasy. It leaves him dazed and yet he's never felt anything as intensely as he feels this. He sees stars behind his eyelids when he closes his eyes, and for the first time, it has nothing to do with Six Eyes.
He's not scared for one second. How could he be, when it was Ryou? Instead, he feels safer than he's ever been. He clings and gasps and shakes. He thinks he may have done a number on Ryou's back. Did he accidentally transform his nails into fox claws? He hopes not. It's never happened before and he doesn't want to hurt Ryou. Ryou, who's so gentle and kind and considerate towards him. Ryou, who's showering him in praise and compliments and kisses and love. Ryou, who's never taken his eyes off of his face, studying Satoru with the same intensity Satoru tries to study him, to etch his features into his mind so that not even death could steal his image from his memories.
Satoru doesn't want it to end. Not this, not their visits, not his life.
But something is building up and he can't cling to it like he's clinging to Ryou, so he lets go and this feels even better than ecstasy. This feels like freedom, like skywalking, like levitating.
Satoru doesn't know when he falls asleep, but he does. And he awakens and it's morning but he's not in the real world. He's still in his dream. He almost cries, because that means he can stay here. He can stay with Ryou. Even if it means he's dead, he finds he doesn't care.
His senses are stifled again, but he figures it's not important anymore. Surely someone else will be able to carry the weight of the world. Surely somewhere out there, someone else with Gojo blood will ensure the Six Eyes walk the Earth again. Suguru and Shoko will get over his death. They may need some time, but they'll be fine.
Maybe the world doesn't need The Strongest.
He rolls over in the sheets and pillows gathered on the futon. Ryou must have put them there, made a veritable nest for him, of all things. That fretter. He'll have to tease him about it when he comes back. After he takes another nap.
But before he can, he hears footsteps right around the corner, right outside of the door, and he smiles, thinking maybe he can tease Ryou now and then go back to sleep. Either way is fine with him. He can relax now, be content, let life go by as it pleases. Or, well, the afterlife? Who cares. Not Satoru. Nothing can hurt him in death and even if something could, it, most certainly, won't be Ryou.
But when a hand suddenly wraps around his throat, he realizes this might not be true. The 'nothing being able to hurt him in death' part, because this hand definitely wasn't Ryou's. It smelled weird, like brain matter and vomit that couldn't be cleaned off no matter how many times one washes their hands - both are a very distinct smell that, as sorcerers, Satoru and his classmates have, unfortunately, encountered far too often - and the calluses are all wrong on these fingers, on this palm. Satoru's eyes snap open, his ears pin back to his head and he snarls up at the mongrel who would dare to touch him-
It's Kenjaku. Ryou's less liked friend and teammate. A fellow jujutsu sorcerer. His dark eyes are cold and calculative, sharp, as they stare down at Satoru, the hand on his throat squeezing with more strength, cutting off his air supply.
There is no Infinity.
Satoru is still exhausted, still sleep-baffled to call on his cursed energy. Disoriented.
He was going to die again, is the realization he gained before he even saw the glint of a knife. A familiar knife. A cursed tool, the first to get through Infinity, to mar Satoru's flesh even when he's fully on guard. The Inverted Spear of Heaven.
"You know, I always knew there was something different about you, but I never realized Ryoumen had managed to get himself a blessing from the heavens above," commented Kenjaku, squeezing at Satoru's throat even harder. "You're magnificent. Beautiful. Divine. It's such a shame to kill you, you know? I almost don't want to. But, you see, I have to." The black haired man leaned in until his breath ghosted over Satoru's bluing lips, ignoring his glare and the growl that vibrated from deep within his chest. "Because I know you're the reason Ryoumen mellowed out. You're the reason why he's suddenly trying to be kind to the monkeys that sneer at us sorcerers, that look at us with suspicion despite us risking our lives to keep their's safe. Uraume doesn't care either way. Ryoumen is the center of their world, since he saved them from being executed as an oni. Uraume isn't even all that important, honestly. They're just a bonus to Ryoumen. It's Ryoumen that's important. It's always been him. He's what I need to overthrow this system, to put those pathetic monkeys into their place. He was once ready to go through with a plan like mine, if the system didn't change, if things don't get better. I've made so many plans that include his raw strength, his immeasurable talent for jujutsu. But then he suddenly started talking about bettering the system instead of destroying it and I knew it had to do with you. Only, I thought you were just a human, therefore he wasn't willing to let harm come to you. Now that I know your secret, making it look like the villagers also found out and that's why they killed you instead of empty superstitions is way easier. I bet Ryoumen's rage will be glorious."
"Ryou ... will never ..." He says around the constriction of his airways.
Kenjaku laughs. It's cruel. The Sorcerer Killer had looked more psychotic, but this guy sounded like a curse. "Oh, you really have no idea how humans work, do you? When a human loves, they lose all reason. Truly, love is the greatest, most twisted curse of all. Well, it's not as if that's something you have to worry about. You won't be around to see it happen. Time to go to sleep, Toru."
Satoru saw the blade rising, ascending and then descending and he reacted, pulling on all of his cursed energy so roughly and intelligently that he's actually a bit disgusted with himself, but Kejaku's hand tears itself from his throat when Infinity flares back to life, surrounding him as if for the first time. The older man is thrown off of him, but he loses his grip on his weapon as if in an anime or cartoon and it spins once, twice in the air before it starts falling, blade first, towards his throat.
The last thing he remembers before everything goes black is sending one last blast of cursed energy towards Kenjaku's forehead, intent on taking him down with him.
Then there's nothing ...