6. Cuts You Up
This dream is different…
This dream is filled with sunlight and softness, with soothing shades of the most delicate and harmonious blue…
There is a window overlooking a tower containing a clock with jagged hands. Hands that slowly, slowly push the wheel of time forward. It drives the chariot carrying the sun closer to the ground. The wheels turn slowly, sliding downward, lower, sinking, sinking, even as his sense of anticipation climbs upwards, ever higher, with every passing hour.
Anticipation. Desire. A feeling so alive.
A love affair with the night and all that it brings.
As he waits for dusk and the deep violet gloaming, his brush slips across stretched canvas, gliding gently. The smell of oil and paint is thick on the air. A scent that is for him forever redolent of love and…
…loss.
But in this here and now, in this moment, he knows what it is to love and to be loved. This feeling envelops him, covers him like armor, like a talisman against tragedy. Except—
There is a sudden sound in the distance, far beyond his window. He turns his head. Away from the sight of the blue vase on the table. His feeling of anticipation and longing shifts and morphs into something else.
Dread.
Fear.
He wants to stop the hands that push time forward, away from this moment.
Away from love and happiness and warmth.
Away from him.
The terror of that sound, the pull, it's taking him away. Away from this place that he holds so dear—
If he could just stay—
Just stay—
But it's impossible—
Fate and time move him away. Always, always away from—
Beloved—
And then the sound, impossibly loud, deafening—
"HEY, WAKE UP!"
Gojo's eyes slowly cracked open and the room swayed, moving with the flickering light of multiple flames, with the incandescent glow of dozens of candles. Sukuna's face, upside down, frowned at him from across the way.
"You fell asleep. I told you to keep your eyes open."
"But in the original painting the dreamer's eyes were closed," Gojo argued groggily.
"Tch. I don't care. I want yours open. They're your best feature and I intend to make use of them."
I Intend to make use of them.
Gojo thought it sounded more like he was going to pluck them out and put them in an installation…
"I was really hoping to catch some Z's; I can't remember the last time I had a decent sleep," Gojo complained, yawning. He stretched lazily, shifting his position. At some point his head had slipped further off the bed, giving him an even more tilted, inverted view.
"You're too far down now. It's all wrong," said Sukuna. He stopped scratching on the pad and tossed his charcoal down. Then he came around the easel and without waiting or asking permission he—
"Hey, what are you do—"
—grabbed Gojo by both ankles and dragged him back across the bed, arranging him like so much furniture.
"What the hell?" Gojo yelled at him. Sukuna simply ignored his angry look and went back to his easel. He took up his charcoal again like nothing had happened.
"You really suck as an individual, you know that?" Gojo said petulantly. "And you ruined a really nice dream I was having. I was in this neat looking dormer room with a really beautiful view, and I was painting a still life of a vase—"
The scratching sounds abruptly stopped. "What kind of vase?" Sukuna asked. There was an odd suspicious tone to the question, a slight but distinct alteration to his usual deep and melodic timbre.
It irritated Gojo that he even noticed such a change.
Because that meant he was paying far too much attention to the sound of Sukuna's usual speaking voice.
Gojo's eyes fluttered rapidly as he struggled to keep from drifting off again. "What did you say?"
Who knew the simple act of keeping his eyes open would prove to be such a chore?
"The vase?" Sukuna prompted. "What kind was it?"
"I don't know," Gojo answered sleepily. "Blue maybe?"
"Like the one you put in Infinite Void?"
Gojo was surprised by how interested Sukuna suddenly seemed in talking about fucking pottery of all things. He had stopped sketching and was leaning around his easel, staring at him with a weirdly intense expression.
All because of a vase.
Gojo shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe. Could've been a Delft blue one—"
"—you know Delft is an actual place, not just the name of a color—"
"—yey, so what? Why are you so keen on talking about pottery all of a sudden?"
"I'm not in particular." The sound of charcoal on paper started up again. "I was…never mind."
The sound of scratching and slashing continued.
"You know, I did feel kind of bad about destroying that vase," Gojo admitted. "I paid all that money for it on all impulse, because when I saw it, it made me feel all…kind of warm and happy inside. Even though it was just a stupid piece of pottery—"
"—well, it was a happy time."
"—when I was making Infinite Void? Yey, I was really happy then—"
"—no, Delft. Four centuries ago."
"—what? What are you talking about?"
The sound of charcoal on paper halted once more. Sukuna was leaning around his easel again and he was staring at Gojo with the oddest expression on his face. The usual half smirk was gone. It was more like the strange look he'd given him when he saw Gojo dressed in the elaborate silk robe back at his studio.
Like he'd seen a ghost.
With eyes full of contempt and rage—
Changing like the moon sinking below the clouds—
Into mourning and—
Loss—
"Do you know what happened to Delft?" Sukuna asked him.
"No? Why? Is it in the news or something?"
"I'm not talking about now. I'm talking about back then. They called it the Delft Thunderclap."
"So what, you're giving history lessons now or—" Gojo stopped talking. He suddenly remembered having a dream—
—no, not a dream—
A memory—
Of a sudden sound—
In the distance—
Deafening, intense. Then a rumbling—
The world, everything, collapsing—
Gojo's ears were ringing. He was vaguely aware of Sukuna speaking, his voice like a far off melody, low and sonorous.
"…thirty tons of gunpowder exploded and leveled everything. It killed several of the artists from the guild there, including that apprentice of Rembrandt's who painted that little yellow bird. And it also…well, let's just say the before and after paintings are rather striking—"
Gojo scrambled into a sitting position, a sudden wooziness causing the whole room to spin alarmingly. "I don't feel so good," he blurted. "I think I need to get up for a minute—"
"—hey, you still have half an hour—"
"—go fuck yourself! You're not my boss!" Gojo said before regaining his feet and striding off towards the screen depicting Bosch's Hell.
Falling—
Crumbling—
Roaring—
He was nearly hyperventilating by the time he reached the screen. He couldn't account for his sudden panicked reaction at all. The last half hour had been surprisingly uneventful (well, other than the bizarre argument over his underwear and Sukuna rearranging him like a shop mannequin whenever it suited him). But for some odd reason all this talk of a stupid vase and its namesake city had him nauseous and completely on edge.
And then there was the mention of Rembrandt.
Which shouldn't put anyone on edge but—
There was that one fucking painting of his The Night Watch which always, for some inexplicable reason, gave Gojo the creeps. And it really shouldn't have. It wasn't like The Nightmare or Bosch's Hell. There were no frightening demons or devils in it. No monsters.
No, it was just a group of men carrying torches and weapons in the dark…
Gojo's hands were visibly shaking by the time he located his jacket, flung over the top of the screen where he'd left it. He reached into the pocket and pulled out a bottle of Xanax. He shook some pills out into his palm and popped them in his mouth.
He closed his eyes and waited for chemically induced relief.
"Oi!" Sukuna's voice boomed from his easel. "Are you going to keep fucking around over there? Or are we going to continue—"
"—give me a fucking minute!" Gojo yelled back.
So much for their half hour of civil conversation. Guess he should have known that it wouldn't last. That conflict would eventually rear its ugly head.
Because Ryomen Sukuna was a fucking weirdo who didn't respect boundaries. And who also licked canvases and confiscated underwear and kept talking about the strangest topics…
Gojo closed his eyes and leaned his head against a section of hell, one depicting a man who was strung upside down and being flayed alive. An odd looking creature wearing an apron was peeling him from top to bottom like a human banana. Staring at this up close did nothing to help with his nausea.
After a moment he turned and drifted back towards the cluster of candles, the only source of light inside the room—
In the distance, there are pinpoints of light, marking the blaze of torches—
Growing ever closer—
Through the field—
Closer still—
Closer—
And then—
Darkness—
The ground was shaking. Violently. Back and forth.
His head was wobbling and everything was moving.
Everything.
No, not everything—
Just him.
Someone was shaking him. There was a hand against his cheek, pushing against his head.
"Mmm, stop." He groped for the unseen hand and tugged it away from his face. His eyes slid open, and he looked blearily at the hand he had trapped with his own. It was so close, mere centimeters away. He watched as it slowly drifted into sharper focus. Black nail polish. Black tattoos.
"The fuck?" he whispered hoarsely.
"You passed out." That voice again, rich like melted butter. Not only could he hear it, right by his ear, but he could actually feel it, the vibration. And that's when he had the realization that he was leaning against another person, warm and solid and—
He started flailing, only to have both arms trapped as Sukuna held him fast against him. They were both on the floor and Gojo was trying desperately to remember what had happened beforehand.
"Stop thrashing around! I don't know what kind of shit you're on but it's doing you no favors—"
"—let go goddam it—"
"—this might be the first time I get to see you actually off yourself, that would be a change—"
"—you're being way too familiar, you fucking asshole! And I…and…I…" Gojo's windmilling slowly ebbed and he eventually gave up fighting. He sagged (albeit unwillingly) back into Sukuna's embrace. The large dose of Xanax he'd taken had easily overpowered his short lived adrenaline rush, beating it into quiet submission. To the point that his body was now being infuriatingly uncooperative, with his legs refusing to obey him at all.
It also didn't help that fighting Sukuna was like fighting a brick wall.
He was being too familiar—
This was all too familiar—
These arms around him—
Just like this—
So familiar—
The wild flickering of the candles appeared like bursting sunspots in his still too hazy vision. He tried to focus on something, anything other than Sukuna's body pressed against his back or the muscled arms that were holding him upright or the warm breath he could feel right on the shell of his ear. Despite the chemically induced numbness that was keeping his body under physical lock and key, his mind was panicking, racing.
Too close, his mind insisted.
Too vulnerable, too exposed, too—
—trapped.
Emotions he was unused to feeling.
He felt hands moving down his sides, touching him in a slow exploratory manner that was alarmingly intimate. A tingling, electric sensation slid across his spine like a warning sign.
"Hey, stop touching me—"
"—I'm going to pull you up now," Sukuna said directly into his ear. "If you'll stop fucking fidgeting and cooperate—"
"—I can't stand up right now, my legs won't move!" Gojo admitted, his heart racing in direct reaction to Sukuna's invasive touch. But this concern became secondary, basically moot, because when he looked down…
…he finally noticed…
…the blood that was dotting the front of the white robe he was wearing. There was an obvious tear in the fabric right above his left knee and jagged flecks of red were clustered around it like delicate embroidered flowers. Flowers that were blooming, growing.
His left leg was bleeding, completely unfelt and unnoticed by him.
Gojo started panicking all over again. "Why am I bleeding?" he asked in a strained, discomfited voice.
Sukuna's chest vibrated against him as he spoke, "When you collapsed you took the clothes rack down with you and you got sliced by a wire hanger."
It was a perfectly logical explanation and yet—
And yet—
Liar! Gojo's mind screamed at him from some far off corner. Some innate instinct, still bent on survival, whispered a warning:
Do not trust…
You cannot…
Even though the accusation had no basis, no backing.
"Oh well, I guess there's nothing for it, if you're not going to help," Sukuna said as he stood up and hooked Gojo beneath the arms. He started dragging him backwards towards the light. Gojo's face paled in alarm as he noticed the drops of blood he left behind on the floor, staining the dark wood like ink blots poured from a well.
Sukuna pulled him back over to The Nightmare bed and unceremoniously dumped him on top of the mattress. Gojo pushed himself into a seated position and immediately went to inspect the damage to his leg, only to have Sukuna grab his hand and practically shout in his face:
"Leave it!"
Gojo froze, wide eyed. "What?"
"I said leave it," Sukuna repeated. Then he declared:
"It's exactly what the picture needs. Red on white. Blood." He dropped Gojo's hand but remained by the bed. Sukuna's eyes looked feverish, almost manic in the light of the dancing candle flames. Gojo knew if he went for his leg again, if he tried to stop the bleeding, then Sukuna would just grab him. He was waiting to pounce like a lion perched on a limb.
And Gojo was like a wounded gazelle, bleeding on the ground.
And like a gazelle, he remained frozen under the watchful eye of a determined predator.
Gojo didn't even flinch when Sukuna reached for his knees, pulling his legs out straight and smoothing the gauzy cotton material down his body.
All the better to defile and stain it with blood…
When Gojo didn't fight or protest this, Sukuna just stood there, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and staring down at him. Then he said, almost conversationally, "How do you feel about symmetry?"
Gojo dragged his eyes away from all the blood stains and just stared up at Sukuna as if he'd lost his mind. "What?"
"Symmetry," Sukuna reiterated. "I know the Greeks were quite partial to it, but me, well, I'm not particularly wedded to the concept. What do you think?"
Gojo's eyes shifted back down to his legs. A suspicious thought flitted through his mind then. And not only suspicious, but also extremely irrational. Possibly insane even, but—
—but then he remembered this was Sukuna he was dealing with. A man who was a supposed psychopath. And Gojo's shoulders began to shake with silent laughter. Laughter that was also both a little irrational and insane. Then Gojo said softly, marveling:
"You want to cut the right one too."
The widest, wickedest smile emerged on Sukuna's face. His delight was apparent as he wagged a black tipped finger down at Gojo.
"See…you understand it all perfectly! You get exactly what is needed, what the composition requires." A slight pause. Then that deep and eerily sensual voice said:
"I knew you and I were going to do great things together."
To be continued…