Heaven Underground - Chapter 6 - isledgrey - 呪術廻戦 (2024)

Chapter Text

“Angel, you’ve got about five minutes before I walk out this door!”

“C-comin’!”

Megumi scrambles, nearly falling over himself in an effort to hastily put on his socks. In its rare occurrence, Sukuna’s firm tone, even from afar, clambers around him in a cold sweat. He thinks back to the day of the initial boar sighting, remembering all too well the torture he felt in thinking he had pushed Sukuna into an ire.

The fear wasn’t in the potential that he’d hurt Megumi but that he would love him less.

So he moves on light feet, bounding from the dresser to the bed, back to the dresser again in search of the small-hoop earrings—an accessory secondary to his now second skin of gauze—that would top off his outfit. Today, he’s back to his usual attire of daisy dukes and a cropped shirt; his countryside uniform.

It had somehow been just five days since they met and just another week more before Toji was set to return from wherever it was he had gone. With all that happened so far it was hard for Megumi to believe here on the ranch with Sukuna isn’t where he was always meant to be.

Born again under Sukuna's guidance, Megumi was transformed and yet still. Sukuna’s home—this ranch, in all its splendor, was only the cradle of the kingdom; a greater extension of His doing. Sought and now found, it was becoming second-nature for Megumi to live aligned to Sukuna’s principles.

Even in potential alarum, the blessings corollary to his obedience made him feel something like a Disney princess of his own; happily f*cked, spoiled, and fed from top to bottom. From the beginning, the days were only showing him the beauty of living for the present and the world to come thereafter; in all pushing back his own Lamentations to fade into a far away memory.

“Please don’t leave yet!”

He stops in front of the bathroom’s mirror, otiosely combing his fingers through his hair to flatten the parts that never bother to stay down, before speeding over to the sound of Sukuna’s boots cutting across the hardwood with enough zeal he could fly.

“I’m here—m’sorry!” He beelines for Sukuna’s hand.

Over the grey-cottoned expanse of his shoulder, Sukuna looks down into Megumi’s blinking eyes. It’s a little embarrassing for Megumi to be out of breath from such a short spurt of movement but Sukuna’s expression, unjudging and peaceful, quashes it. In some unspoken indulgence he allows himself, he leans down to give Megumi a kiss.

“Forgettin’ somethin’?”

Megumi whirs, an internal buzzing monologue of uhhh . He blinks, squeezing Sukuna’s hand. “Um..”

“Your boots.” Sukuna supplies calmly.

Megumi lets out a soft gasp, dropping quickly into a crouch before flopping down completely to his ass as he slips his boots on. Sukuna continues to look down at him, mollycoddling.

“Did you take your medicine?” He runs his hand through his dark locks in a slow rake, voice even again.

Megumi thinks of the coming of Sukuna’s hand to his head like the culmination of a Dumb Supper or a comet shooting across the sky, he sheds his resignation that Sukuna was agitated with him and instead, is sweetened into thinking Sukuna looked at him with nothing but Ordained intent.

He springs back up to his feet, reaching to rejoin their grasps. “I did!”

“Good.”

Megumi pouts then, as they step out onto the porch, watching Sukuna pull the door close to lock it. “You wouldn’t actually leave me though, right?”

Sukuna breathes easy, the huff of a soft chuckle. “Thought I already told you this.”

Megumi sheepishly leans into Sukuna more, bringing his other hand to hold Sukuna’s within a clasp—a Megumi sandwich.

Sukuna snaps the lock into place, turning them around to begin walking toward the yard. “There'll be no grass growin’ under our feet these next few days, darlin’.”

It’s not an extension of an explanation to the question but a clear indication to move onto another subject.

Maybe he’s trying to cheer me up.

Easily distracted by Sukuna’s praise anyway, Megumi brightens. “While we’re out, we should go to a movie. You know, before we’re deader than 4 o’clock for the rest of the weekend!”

“You’re puttin’ the cart in front of the bull, baby."

Cleave runs up to greet them at the bottom of the steps for scratches, sitting on his tail as Megumi goes through his usual jig of wishing the hound a blessed morning and reminding him that he’s “the ranch’s bravest boy!” but most important of all, he’d be sure to bring him back a treat this time.

“Can we?” He asks, looking up to Sukuna.

Sukuna crouches next to Megumi, stroking Cleave’s ears back; looking into his fully blown pupils. “Keep the stock alive one more day boy and we’ll get you a steak.”

Megumi and Cleave hop around in a circle, puerile in their jeering as Sukuna walks over to the garage to retrieve the trailer for hitching. He’s chewing on another toothpick he whipped out from his pocket-side capsule, wide awake as the day he was born. Megumi wasn’t so sure how he did it: waking up as early as he did, putting his body to work, day in and day out. Another notch to Sukuna’s belt, it was as the saying goes: he could soar with eagles in the morning because he didn’t hoot with the owls at night.

It had been an early morning, far too early—earlier than their usual start time, that they began to tend to the ranch. As discussed the night prior, they’d be going back to Yuki’s to retrieve the rest of the fencing supplies. However, given that they’d need the trailer to haul it all, Sukuna knew already it was going to be a long day.

Though, tired as he was, thinking back on it, it wasn’t all bad.

With sleepy eyes but a happy body, Megumi had followed Sukuna out to the barn, despite Sukuna kissing him into the mattress to convince him otherwise some half hour before. He tried hard to keep Megumi bundled in the linen, telling him it was “cold as a wedge” but still, Megumi was persistent.

He got emotional, nearly crying as he held onto Sukuna’s wrist, pushing into his bare chest, pleading that Sukuna take him with him.

“I want to be with you all the time too baby but sometimes I have to go away. It’ll just be an hour this time, I promise.” He said.

That only made Megumi cling to him harder, with his voice feeble. “I don’t want to…”

Whether it was the love shared from the day before or the curse of Megumi’s morning mood, he wasn’t sure but one thing was for certain: he found it impossible to function without Sukuna; even in the smallest of capacities.

Eventually, Sukuna gave in, tucking Megumi into the sleeves of one of his jackets as they got dressed to step outside. They worked through the bemoaned mist of the Plains and the cranky behaviour of the sheep to ensure the animals would be set for the length of the afternoon they would be away.

Megumi gave Malevolent another big carrot in thanks for carrying both his body and spirit; the latter a burden much too heavy even for himself. He stopped by every stall and gave each horse a cube and a kiss, telling them to “keep bein’ cute!” and to not “have too much fun!” without them.

After that, they quickly took the ATV around the perimeter of the cow pasture, searching for Ceres and her mother for the calf’s first feeding. It was an easy ride, with the wind tossing the hair around Megumi’s face back in a phantasm of mother’s caress. Her chilled hand swathed him in a cloaked comfort quickly forgotten when compared to the deep adoration Sukuna held him with.

When they found Ceres, she was surprisingly more awake than them, jumping as high as she could into the air under a bank of trees. If it weren’t for the ATV’s headlights, they would have been lost in the sea of a sleeping place, so deeply hidden away that even the moon had trouble revealing its secrets.

Sukuna brought with him a stool to sit on while he positioned himself to the side of the mother cow, letting Megumi drape over him as he did.

“How sleepy are you?” His deep voice cut through the air.

“M’n..t” Megumi sighed and snuggled into Sukuna’s neck.

A quiet laugh rolled through Sukuna at his lack of real response, prompting him to milk the cow without passing off instructions to Megumi as he might have any other day.

“Do you want to feed Ceres?” He had tried one more time, holding up the bottle.

Megumi being there, but not really there, peeled an inch off Sukuna’s back. He nodded then and moved to stand, nearly tripping over his own two feet but luckily, Sukuna had been paying attention. He always was.

Sukuna maneuvered him to sit on his thigh, holding onto his waist firmly. On instinct, Megumi turned to return his face to the side of Sukuna’s neck, breathing in his earthy scent to bring with him to sleep.

“Angel, cow’s the other way. Do I need to take you back inside?”

The threat of going in without Sukuna made Megumi instantly perk up.

“No!” He squeaked like a mouse, grabbing for the bottle but couldn’t get a full hold of it until Sukuna had let it go; trusting Megumi to handle the weight.

“You got it?”

“Mhm.”

Together, they fed her until she became full and turned to walk away, leaving them with a mostly empty glass. The rest of the morning Megumi didn’t remember much, other than being pulled along by Sukuna and at some point, being held in a bridal carry.

When they got back into the house, they showered quickly and laid back in bed wrapped in one another for some time. Megumi had come into the habit of clinging to Sukuna all throughout each night for both warmth and out of worry that the man would move an inch without Megumi knowing why and what for.

Sukuna whispered to Megumi then that he was going to f*ck him—he wasn’t asking. But Megumi hadn’t heard him or realized what he was doing until he was stirred lucid to one of Sukuna’s large fingers teasing the slit of his wetted c*nt.

The prise of his movements were deliberate, rolling the bead of his cl*t in circles before moving along the rill of his folds—smoothly gliding and hooking two fingers inside to pull Megumi a hair closer. He had slid his panties more to one side, trying somewhat to keep him from waking, but naturally, ripped them away anyway.

With a flick of his wrist, he tore it in half completely to be pushed down his bed-side leg.

“‘Couldn’t wait.” Sukuna spoke into his crown, but to Megumi it sounded underwater.

“Hmnnm.” Megumi blinked with whines low and soft.

Without thought, Megumi had spread himself more open, reaching up and around Sukuna’s neck as the man slid into him as they were: sideways missionary. He was still full from the night prior, not as swollen but certainly stuffed. With their chests pressed together—in as much as they could given their size difference—Sukuna f*cked into him with a troth of tarried ambrosia. Megumi moved his leg over the weld of Sukuna’s hip and oblique, sighing as Sukuna held possessively onto his waist and ass.

Skin to skin he had felt the claw of Sukuna’s desire reach into his.

“You can sleep, baby. ‘Just need you.”

Megumi gasped, lost to the feeling of him from the angle they were in as it allotted for even deeper penetration; Sukuna’s quickening pace that made it all the more numbing. He could only whimper at the intrusion, secreting more and more of his own pre-cum with every sinking inch.

“Hm.m..uh,.....”

With one arm underneath Megumi’s head, keeping their gazes streamlined, Sukuna’s gaze was unearthing; in the dark, his dead eyes glimmered alive. From under a half lid, he watched Megumi down the slope of his strong nose, not so much as blinking. Through words unspoken, they moved to share a chaste kiss until it melted into something sloppier and heavier.

And he hadn’t let up on anything else; the grip he had on Megumi’s waist turned tighter.

“Sukuna—”

“M’right here, baby.” Sukuna spoke gently to him, kissing his brow, pushing in and out, softly groaning through that first drag back out then back in.

It woke Megumi up, the stretch and depth of Sukuna’s strokes. He whined low in his throat until it naturalized into moans. Sukuna palmed one of Megumi’s ass cheeks, hulling him steady to f*ck into him even slower as he spoke into his ear.

“Even bright and early you’re ready for me, how’d I get so lucky? You feel so good baby, so f*ckin’ good. Every time I’m in it. I’d kill for it—for you, you know that?”

“Yea..h–.” Megumi had cried, throwing his head to the side in pleasure.

“Angel, I can’t get enough of you.” Sukuna breathes, rolling himself to cover Megumi where Megumi’s leg splayed open, inviting him in further.

Megumi had let himself get slowly worked on Sukuna’s co*ck—the wet drag of their flesh, closing his eyes and releasing himself to his senses. He was absorbed by the fill, wanting to encase the feeling within himself forever. To delegate this space Sukuna’s only. He pawed at Sukuna’s back, fighting off the last linger of slumber to surrender himself to the bliss; happily letting Sukuna show him what he meant to him.

“I don’t wann.. uh.. leave… the bed.. wanna s-stay.”

“We’ll come back. We’ll always come back, baby.”

He had said it so assuredly, rubbing the scarred side of his face into Megumi’s neck, picking up the pace again. Chasing his release until Megumi could only scream.

“I–”

I love you. You’re the love of my life.

He wanted to say it.

Sukuna’s essence was lodged deep, the beginning and end of Megumi’s life. When Megumi opened his eyes to find him, the tears began to fall. Lost in the thought of what he felt and wanted to say came over him, the magnitude of it was enough to hurt.

It was the build and build of a riff into a dive. A moment so tender turned intense.

“I know, angel.”

He kissed his neck, sternum, over his collar and down to his chest.

“You are everythin’ to me too.”

Megumi came hard, breathing into his own shoulder. The shaking only stopped after Sukuna came some minutes later and he held him to his chest again for them to sleep for another hour before they had finally got up for the day.

Megumi smiles to himself over the memory, saying a short prayer that someday soon he wakes up pregnant. He’s young, he knows it but Sukuna’s bled onto him the truth of all his desires and every last one of them aligns with his own.

Sukuna, all that I am, will be a vessel for your keeping.

He looks out the passenger window with a soft yawn, quietly humming to himself the beginning lyrics of Goin’ Up Yonder by Walter Hawkins; one of his favourites.. Summer is at its worst within the confines of metal on wheels; especially here on the long road where the trace of the traveler is down to only memories.

Each story exists in a small pocket of space, remembered by those who have since ventured to distant lands, likely never to return. For those faces left behind, they come and go with the heat that pours into the cracks of the asphalt.

When he’s inspired enough by the landscape, Megumi turns back to the small notepad he brought with him, doodling as best as he could as they drive down the interstate. He draws the trees, open fields, Sukuna and Cleave; a combination of things seen and things kept close in memory. All things loved.

“You like art, don’t you?” Megumi asks, looking out toward the road with Sukuna.

“In a way.”

“Like the haiga painting in your room.”

Sukuna moves his hand that lazily lounges at the bottom of the steering wheel down to grab Megumi’s thigh, pulling him closer. “You know what that is?”

“Mhm, I loved learnin’ about art in school. We learned only a little but I know the list of what’s been made is long. Especially from ancient people—it makes you feel connected to places you’ve never been!”

Sukuna hums in agreement. “Well said.”

“Also, look!” He brings the paper to the front of the steering wheel so Sukuna can see what he’s put to the page.

“Is that me?” Sukuna asks.

“Mhm!”

“Where are you?”

“O-oh,” Megumi feels his heart swell to the size of a balloon. “I’ll draw me next!”

It was a wonder of his, if “I love you” could be said without saying it.

Is this your way, Sukuna? You told me you see me at the end of the world…

God teaches us that though we may speak in different languages, whether human or even of angels, Love is one thing. But if we don’t have love, we are as loud and unnerving as a bell. And so, I may have the gift of prophetic telling, I may understand all secrets of the universe and know everything there is to know of Man, and I may have faith so great that I can move the very mountains, both Blue or Rocky.

But even with all this, if I don’t have Love, I have nothing and am nothing.

I could give away everything I have and offer my help to others, and I could even give my body as an offering to be blackened and beaten.

But I gain nothing by doing all this if I don’t have Love.

Love is patient and kind. Love isn’t jealous, it does not brag, and it is not too proud. Love is not rude, nor is it selfish, and it cannot be made easily enraged. Love does not remember the wrongs done against it. Love is never happy when others do wrong here in the world but it is always happy with the truth..

Never does Love lose trust or hope and never does Love quit. ¹

You do love me.

Megumi continues doodling, putting the notepad on Sukuna’s meaty thigh for a steadier base and of course, to be closer after his surge of emotion. Sukuna doesn’t flinch or say anything, only lets him continue. It’s when Megumi starts to draw himself with a round stomach that he takes the notepad up and back to his chest, leaning away from Sukuna so he can’t see.

Megumi darts his gaze to see if he notices and of course, he does. He’s watching him for a few seconds from the corner of his eye with a soft smirk until he continues looking forward onto the road.

Before they get to Noel’s Draw, they make a stop at a gas station in a nameless armpit of the Plains. Quite literally whatever the name of the building is— was , the sign is blown to smithereens like the aftermath of a nuclear fallout. All that remains is a large yellow ‘S’ on a broken white slab of wood. It’s a rickety establishment, a faded colour of viridescent green with white and flaxen coloured trim. There isn’t a corner of the place that isn’t caked in some combination of dirt, flaked paint or random clusters of graffiti.

From the shattered slabs of concrete there are dead weeds that sprout up and out, frozen where they took their last breath in a crawl toward the sun. Out here, it was likely once a vital lifeline for wanderers, servicing any and all who found it. A legacy of memories as a backdrop for a group photo or the Hail Mary for a weary trucker.

Megumi looks over it with a piteous expression. Of the whole place, there is just one service pump. It idles under the awning that extends from the main building and from the looks of it, it might be on its last and final leg.

Sukuna parks the truck up beside it, rolling down the window before killing the engine and stepping out, boots to the ground without so much as a word. He closes the door and makes his way back toward the fuel cap.

“Are you gettin’ push water?” Megumi crawls over into Sukuna’s seat like a leech looking for blood, poking his head out the window.

“I’ll be right back.” Is all he replies.

He re-shelfs the nozzle before beginning to walk toward the building. Even in its run down state, with his long legs clad in their usual Levi denim—collecting some bit of kicked up dust—and the hugging of his shirt to his muscle, Sukuna makes the place look like a scene straight out of a movie or a video game. Whether amongst the things made by God or by Man, Sukuna wasn’t made to blend in.

Megumi's lip starts trembling as he bores into Sukuna’s back. He leans up against the door, body partially leaning out of the window thinking maybe he can reach Sukuna better if he extends his body, as if he can’t just open the door.

“Don’t go!”

Sukuna’s brow furrows as he stops and looks over his shoulder and by his reaction, Megumi must look pitifall. His eyes dissolve from determined to something of comity, trekking back over to Megumi with a muted exhale. He comes up to the door where a only fraction of his torso is uncovered as he leans down into the cabin.

“What’s the matter?”

“You’re gonna come right back right?”

“Yes, I’m only right in there.” He softly flicks his head at angle.

“Can’t I come too? Please?”

Sukuna eyes look over him quietly in clemency.

“I need you to watch the truck for me.”

It feels like Megumi has pleaded this several times now, today alone and each time, it’s worse than the last. Within him, it creates a swirl of doubt and he starts to breathe a little faster. In the form of a crystalline dot, a bubble before the burst, races down his cheeks in a race not yet visible.

“B-but why, there’s no one out here.”

“Not yet.”

Now, Megumi is a muddle of a sob. Ready for their opening lap, the tears stack in the corner of lashes in peas made of glass. “Please I don’t want—”

Sukuna takes a hold of Megumi by the jaw, fingers trickling along the skin just beneath his ear. “Baby, please don’t cry.”

“I can watch from the door!” Megumi frowns, the squish of his cheek makes the expression that much more topsy-turvy. He can feel it, a tantrum on the fritz and like every last one before, it’s silly.

But he can’t help it.

Sukuna keeps his gaze on the move, roaming down to his lips to the cross necklace or his chest, Megumi isn’t too sure—until he finds his eyes again.

“You will sit here and I will be right back, is that understood?”

The same way he used to call out for Toji— Daddy —he feels it wrap around his tongue; it’s a desperate plea to keep him close.

Please don’t leave me by myself. I hate being by myself. Please. Please. Please.

Megumi watches his form retreat without waiting for Megumi to respond. He sinks back on his thighs, watching with hands clasped over the window panel until Sukuna walks through the door with the chime of a rusting bell.

He sniffles over a heavy pull of breath, taking his knuckles to the face to wipe at his cheek. He looks down at the dust and dirt below, at the imprint of Sukuna’s boots from just moments ago, greeted again with questioning.

I thought you said I could have anything I wanted? Do you not want to be with me all the time? Did I do something wrong? Am I not pretty enough today?

No, I’m sorry. It must be my fault. I disappointed you in some way or maybe you’re already growing bored of me. I have to be better. I have to. I’ll be better.

He sits back in the driver’s seat, wiping the very last remnants of his sadness and looks at his knees, fully accepting of the realization. Through the rearview mirror, he eyes the utility trailer, counting each dark beam of the railed paneling that wraps around it.

One. Two. Four–No. Three. Four.

There’s no one here except them and whoever might be behind the counter inside the station, but Megumi feels too far from Sukuna then; their cosmic addresses are no longer system-based but instead intergalactic with each second that ticks by. He fiddles with his pencil, scratching over a blank page in slow, chaotic circles.

When the doorbell chimes again, Megumi turns to look, his chest moving out of its slouched position to sit up straight to see Sukuna with a plastic bag hanging from his closed fist and a bottle of water in the other. Megumi stares, counting one mississippi, two mississippi until he’s there again at the car door.

“‘Got you some water and a candy bar.” He says holding up the water.

Megumi slides back up to his knees, reaching over the door to wrap around Sukuna’s shoulders, gliding past the outstretched gift and into his chest with considerable force.

Sukuna lets out a quiet grunt of surprise. “Hello to you too, angel.”

Not letting up or letting go, Sukuna takes a drag of a step back, rolling a hoard of gravel under his foot in an indistinct crunch.

“Are you—”

“‘M’not lettin’ go.”

There’s no argument or usual reasoning from Sukuna, even as Megumi thinks about how he might smack his knee a little hard on the door’s paneling if Sukuna were to pull him all the way out.

“Alright.” Sukuna chuckles softly.

Whatever decision or thought process he goes through is diminutive as he moves straight back another few steps, pulling Megumi clean out from the opening.

Megumi uses momentum to his advantage to swing his legs forward, successfully locking his remaining two limbs around Sukuna’s big body. He laughs over Sukuna’s shoulder, burrowing his face into the bulk of his neck.

“If I could drive with you on me like this, I would.” Sukuna turns his head, planting a sickly sweet kiss to Megumi’s cheek.

He then pulls the door open, setting the bag on the floor of the driver’s side as Megumi hums, muffling into his shirt.

“You should.”

Sukuna laughs. “I’d rather not kill us in a fiery crash.”

That makes Megumi giggle a little too. He peels his head back to take a good look at Sukuna, bringing them face to face to share a few kisses.

“Admittedly, I’m so far past plumb foolish for you as is, as long as we’re together—it don’t matter. I’d happily burn.”

Sukuna lifts a brow, amused. “I’ll have to keep a closer eye on you.”

Megumi smiles, taking his teeth to Sukuna’s neck to softly bite at the skin only to quickly smooth it over with a kiss as a peace offering; it’s a childish effort to convince Sukuna he’s not crazy. Sukuna leans over the cushions of the truck to lay Megumi down on his back, thinking he’d let go but Megumi keeps him hovering there.

Megumi whines, saying Sukuna can’t be all too surprised at the things he might say as Sukuna is, after all, his favourite person ever.

Where it can pass the cover of the gas station’s roof, sunlight filters in through the tinted pane of glass of the windows onto Megumi’s hair flaring out beneath him, giving him a halation of solar radiance. Sukuna pushes into Megumi’s neck with more kisses–some suckled wet, weakening Megumi’s hold on him entirely.

“I don’t think you’re crazy. No one said anythin’ about that.” He holds Megumi’s throat then under his palm, kissing his cheek again. Megumi feels him smile after he lets out a pleasured gasp.

“You’re thinkin’ it, I know it.” Megumi boffs in suspicion, trying to pull himself closer as his calves push into Sukuna’s back. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“Can you?”

“I can,” He sighs, running his hand over Sukuna’s collar bone, admiring the feel of his built body. “They speak to me. They’re always speakin’ to me.”

“What do they say?”

“They say… when we get to Noel’s Draw, we’re goin’ to get donuts.”

Sukuna kisses from his chin up the line of his jaw. “That all?”

In moments like this, Megumi is reminded of the beauty in simple moments with Sukuna. He can count on one hand the amount of times Toji had entertained his antics, even if only for a few minutes. Though Sukuna wasn’t nearly as silly as Megumi was, it made him elated to know he would try to meet him halfway anyway; that despite Sukuna’s overly hardened exterior, he could let it down at times for Megumi.

“And, when we get home,” Megumi continues, rubbing his bare thigh along Sukuna’s side, up and down. “You’ll f*ck me.”

Sukuna hums. “You think I’d make you wait?”

Megumi bites his lip looking downward toward Sukuna’s groin, squishing the tips of his lashes down to his cheek.

“You’d f*ck me right now? Here?”

Sukuna leans down, nudging Megumi's cheek with the tip of his nose as he lays more love to his jaw and down the column of his neck.

“Please don’t tease me if you aren’t actually—.”

Sukuna ignores him and pursues his onslaught, pushing the fabric of Megumi’s shirt up to reveal his pertly pink nipples. He dips his head and swirls his tongue around the bud with his other hand holding his hip steady as Megumi tries to grind into the growing mass of his dick.

He comes back up to kiss his nose, hushing Megumi’s moan. “Scoot back.”

Megumi does as he’s told and he scoots back, the fabric of his shirt acting as grease against the leather, easily allowing him to sit up and with his back the door of the passenger side. Quickly, he sheds his boots.

He watches Sukuna stand, ducking in a hunch to push the plastic bag further under the dash before sliding into the seat and closing the door. He puts the key in, turning the truck on to roll the window down and then off again. At the same time, Megumi lowers his lifted legs down to the space between them, lifting his thighs up to his torso to slide off his shorts until he’s in nothing but panties and his shirt.

Sukuna leans over, taking the whole of Megumi’s thigh in his grip and dragging him toward him. He kisses the inside of his knee, then his thigh, putting his hand to his stomach to hold him down before pushing the fabric of his cotton panties to the side—wrapping his thumb around it like a string to keep it secure. It sinks into the fat of Megumi’s thigh, pushing much of the meat of his puss* to the left.

“You should know better.”

He licks a stripe up the slit, immediately going in to nurture each lip evenly. He takes his time, pushing Megumi’s thighs open and back, respective to where they can fit in the odd angle of the cabin.

Megumi puts up a poor fight, reaching down to cover his leaking c*nt with a shaky hand. “W-wait, I probably stink…I’m sweaty.”

“You keep sayin’ stuff to me like it makes a difference,” Sukuna moves his hand back to kiss around the sensitive skin. “But you don’t ever stink, baby. Now lie back.”

Megumi brings his head to the seat with a whimper; greeted with the blank slate of beige of the car’s roof. Sukuna begins methodically, holding one palm over Megumi’s lower stomach to let his thumb rub into the cl*t. Megumi starts to hear colours. Beige peels away to reveal the blanket of the cosmos—nebulae of red, purple, blue and orange. The image seems so surreal, right there in the enclosed space with them he can no longer tell if it’s a trick of the mind or if the roof is really no longer there.

“I’ve been havin’ dreams about you.” Sukuna says, dipping down to lick at an inner lip.

“Mh n..hm , me? Me?”

“Yes baby, you.”

“About– ah! About what?” Megumi runs his hands through Sukuna’s hair, contorting his stomach around through each cosset of Sukuna’s tongue, feeling his spit get him more lubricated with each swipe.

He takes a moment to pull away, exchanging his mouth for his index and pointer finger to fondle him in a scissoring motion—spreading Megumi’s lips back to reveal the fleshy tunnel of his c*nt with a low groan.

“How you walk in beauty.”

“Y-you don’t ever think contrary of me?”

I hope you don’t, not now or ever. Don’t lose interest in me. I want to be the prettiest. The smartest. The kindest. The best. All in your eye.

Sukuna blinks through the release of baited breath, pushing the two fingers into Megumi’s puss*; alternating between swirling them in a granule spins and scissoring him open. “About you, angel? Never.”

He groans louder yet into the skin, unerringly taking to every inch of Megumi’s pink palace, treating it as a canapé before the main course of the cl*t; imbibing his seed as if it were the very nectar of life.

“I want to claim you from the inside, out,”

Megumi hauls both feet high into the air in a high-pitched whine, one points toward the glass of the front-facing windshield and the other toward the rear; jutting and kicking out in response to the merciless work so satisfying he hardly ever lets them fall back down to Sukuna’s shoulders to rest.

“Carve my initials somewhere deep...”

Sukuna’s relentless in limiting the range of motion of his tongue to just the pearl of the cl*t: sucking, slurping, absorbing. It catapults Megumi’s body into autodestruct, entombing within the resonated cavity of his womb Sukuna’s devotion from one Blue Moon to the next.

“Oh f*ck -–”

His nerves sing, passing off all the signs to his brain for him to know he’s close. Much like the harvest of dandelion seeds, or the peeling of an orange, he feels himself unfurl from the center out. With Sukuna, the first and last org*sms are always the most intense; the prelude and epilogue of deference synthesized between their two bodies.

“I’m right there ‘Kuna, yes, yes, yes– ”

The impending echo of it surges through his throat and out past his lips in a lofty cry. He pushes, or tries to, Sukuna’s head further into him as he brings his pelvis forward; his muscles shivering to a constringent failure just at the tip of his first release.

Megumi makes a lethal mistake of meeting Sukuna’s eye in the midst of his reaping on his trembling c*nt, eating like he couldn’t imagine being separated from it; until he does.

“Play with yourself,” He cuts through Megumi’s climb like a snapped rope, suddenly pulling back to sit upright in the seat. In one sweep the spit is wiped down from around his mouth.

He looks over to Megumi who is looking back at him like he grew a second head, nearly rolling off into the foot well in a convulsion. Sukuna undoes his belt, then his zipper, freeing himself—all of it echoing loud in the absence of Megumi coming undone.

“Why – why would you–” Megumi stutters, rubbing his thighs together as he cranes his neck up to catch a glimpse of Sukuna working his jeans down.

He wants to scream.

“I’m not tellin’ you again.”

“No, no, no,— ”

Sukuna pulls on Megumi by his thighs again, forcing him to sit up. He’s lifted to a straddle—then hauled further up and over the hull of Sukuna’s lap entirely; so high up their heads rest nearly parallel to each other

“So needy, like goddamn bitch in heat—” He husks, palming the bulk of Megumi’s ass in his hands, forcibly rubbing him down over his co*ckhead.

Megumi melts, gasping at the feel of the precum that sits at Sukuna’s tip.

“I need to do everythin’ for you?”

With his free hand, Sukuna quickly locks the door, kissing Megumi’s chin as he situates them in finality on the seat. It’s so hot in the cramped space even in the shade of the station, it feels like a sauna.

“Yes.” Megumi whines hard.

In getting lugging over, Megumi’s lavender panties fell back over the flat of his c*nt but Sukuna quickly pushes them aside—this time over the globe of his ass to stay put. He takes two fingers to slide along his slit teasingly again—and slower yet as Megumi pants by his ear.

“I’m that important to you?”

Megumi’s left leg comes to rest by the flat of his foot to the base bolster, just outside Sukuna’s thigh while his right leg is knee-down into the right bolster—almost in the break of the seat. The position, oddly not uncomfortable, has him slanting almost sideways into Sukuna’s shoulder, leaving his back to face the steering wheel and dash.

“Y-yes—” His responses get breathier and breathier.

Sukuna’s fingers are almost portly, large in length and just the right amount of thickness he could f*ck Megumi on his index and middle finger in the closest thing to a replacement to his co*ck and he does; reinserting them to the hilt. He curls the tips of his fingers to the top of his walls, undulating over its soft wetness with a wicked smirk.

“If I were a sicker man, I’d say I love how much you need me.”

Megumi moans loudly, more than he cares to admit and far beyond the point of holding himself back. He crashes out into ubiquity at how he gets worked to a shake with lethal precision. Every muscle of his torso feels pulled and stretched, pulled and stretched.

He mumbles incoherently, dripping onto Sukuna’s hand entirely.

“You live in a fever, huh?” He hums.

“N-no,” Megumi closes his eyes, mashing his cheek into the side of the headrest. The sensitivity of his delayed org*sm controls the extent of his voluntary movements; the rest is dictated by Sukuna.

Sukuna lifts his shirt up again to kiss at the skin unveiled. “Then what is it?”

Megumi buckles under Sukuna’s edacious appetite in having his way with him. The calmness of his voice, lateral to what his hands are doing—a million sensations at once—is almost unjust. He rolls his hips in the opposite direction of Sukuna’s teasing, upping the friction so much his c*nt speaks; gurgling loudly.

“I,” He whines above a whisper. Wanting. Waiting. Withering. “I love you.”

Finally, he feels the weight from his chest lift; moonlight flitting the fate of a carrion.

Sukuna pauses, snaring Megumi’s chin to look him in the eye. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

Megumi’s confessional tears join those of pleasure but to Sukuna they may look all the same.

Sukuna sits his neck back, revealing the depth of his brown eyes drowned in a cirque of black. He gently releases Megumi’s chin, dropping his hand down to his hip.

“I love you too, angel. More than anythin’.”

Megumi whines again, opening his own eyes at the perfect moment—in sync, to meet Sukuna for a sloppy kiss. He wobbles on trembling thighs, the goosebumps of his perspired skin prickling to a mount. With a moan he finds a consistent rhythm, starting at the joint of his hip, heightening both the suction and penetration as he f*cks himself at the same pace Sukuna is.

And it’s Sukuna who breaks the kiss, moving to kiss under his jaw.

He hoists Megumi to move even more over his shoulder, in the tight squeeze between the plastic of the door and the crevice of space between Sukuna’s head. The pillar loop of the seat belt digs into Megumi’s sapped shoulder in a metal pinch.

“Don’t stop, please– oh God –”

Even in the desipience of exhibition—or really, wherever and whenever they have sex, Sukuna never fails to really f*ck him. Sukuna’s splayed fingers slide to grip into the flesh of his right ass cheek, marionetting Megumi’s small body to push down when he pushes up.

The sound that comes from Megumi is a chimera of a whine and a groan—the frustrated growl telling of full-blown pleasure.

“There you go baby, f*ck it out—just like that.” He says, licking around a wet spot at the well of his collar and neck.

Megumi hopes it leaves a bruise. Something obvious and dark. And big.

“Oh, fuuuuuck ‘Kuna , I’m s-s’close–” He’s sobbing now, an utter mess of drool and loud moans, letting himself be reduced to putty by his hand alone.

The squelch bounces around throughout the cabin, flicking over the leather and their skin in the seconds before bliss.

“Keep singin’ for me sweetheart,”

With a cry, Megumi comes over Sukuna’s lap with his bad arm gripping to the headrest in newfound strength, allowing his body the grace to jerk in Sukuna’s space. Ripe and sweet, Megumi clutches the front of Sukuna’s shirt with a deathly claw of a grip, looking down at his lips with angelic softness, as the last of his spend spills out. His whole body convulses fiercely; the sinew of his legs feel like they’ve been turned to stone.

“f*ck.”

Sukuna grabs Megumi's ass entirely, bringing him closer in a fold to his own chest. His co*ck, squished between them now, presses into his stomach right up to his navel. Megumi brings both aching feet to the seat, flat to the leather–planted on either side of Sukuna’s thighs, yearning for it.

“Ha..h....”

For a moment, Megumi thinks about using the back of the headrest as a means of something to hold onto completely, like makeshift reigns but reasons against it. His body demands to be touching Sukuna with every pore on his body, so places his forehead to Sukuna’s, running his palms symmetrically on either side of his corded neck in a tremble.

After a sharp inhale, he whines in a pitch unfitting of anything other than a plebe to a praetor. “I’ll kill myself if I have to live in this world without you in it.”

A calamity, the sixth mass extinction of the earth, comes to a confinement in Sukuna’s stare. From one body, the gift was given to raze with fire all it loathed and with anointment, all it held dear. Megumi feels the mirage of oil pour over him. As he speaks, Sukuna springs his co*ck free, letting it bob under his droukit state.

Megumi grinds himself over his beading tip freely, slowly and at long last mixing their cum. Sukuna grabs the base of his shaft, lining himself up expertly despite the angle. One slippery soft inch of skin by one slippery soft inch of skin, Megumi sinks onto him.

“How sweet you are.” Sukuna tilts his head up, leading with his chin to kiss Megumi softly once.

Megumi’s c*nt swallows all ten inches whole, greedily and unflinchingly.

“Sukuna,” Megumi starts to cry again.

He’s bouncing slowly up and down, adding to the condensation that’s coating the windows with each huff of air, fleetingly wondering if only they had turned on the aircon.

With sweat on their lips and spit on their tongues they come together for another kiss; the tempo of it torpidly pleasant. Sukuna smiles into it, chasing Megumi’s bottom lip and his tongue in a gentle laugh. “I’m listenin’ baby,”

Megumi looks down at the crunch of his stomach, how it folds into subliminal rolls down to the smooth plane of his puss*. Then on the white slime around Sukuna’s tan shaft—how it clings to him. It brings him an elated sense of joy, thinking of it like some part of him can seep into Sukuna’s being entirely.

“My legs…they hurt,” He hisses, falling forward, trapping Sukuna between him and the headrest in a hug across his shoulders but still heedlessly lifting and lowering himself.

Needing no further instructions, Sukuna hooks his arms under Megumi’s thighs anyway, producing the necessary leverage for Megumi to continue bouncing with little effort. In an instant, they’re both back to watching Megumi get stretched out and the very vice of his florid lips.

“Look at you,” Sukuna groans, nearly breathless.

Sukuna’s attention was the core of Megumi’s greed.

“I wish you could see yourself through my eyes,” Sukuna continues, nipping at his earlobe. "You say you need me? Baby, if only you knew how much I need you. The days aren’t long enough for what I want to do with you.”

He’s kissing him nonstop, all around Megumi’s face and neck as his jaw hangs slack, open for all his mousy moans to fall from. Megumi’s at that point where his gut is borderlining on pain from the punch but the delirium over takes him completely.

“Sukuna— ” Megumi whines through clenched teeth, absolutely hammered away into oblivion by how deep Sukuna is getting.

But even then, it still wasn’t deep enough. He needed the seed that would be pinned between his cervix and Sukuna’s head woven into the very essence of his metra.

“f*ck, I’m close—” Sukuna groans into Megumi’s neck, no longer letting Megumi move on his own; instead he keeps his body in his hold—with one hand on his ass and another on his hip—he uses him like he weren’t a person. His grunts are heavy, ringing in Megumi’s ear from the inner part and out twice as loud from the shell.

“You’re so f*ckin’ tight, I always feel like my dick is fightin’ for air.”

He maps out all the pleasure points along Megumi’s skin; kneading, kissing, musing, licking, pinching, all in a thoroughly vicious practice until Megumi c*ms hard for a second time.

“Good f*ckin’ boy,”

Megumi rides him even long after he can’t tell up from down, clenching and unclenching over and over and over until warm liquid intermingles between them; the sensation of molten to the soul overtakes the body. Sukuna’s stream of sem*n feels like it goes on forever, creating him into an earth-bound cloud burst.

Megumi feels cleansed once more. A Baptism in Sukuna’s Holy Spirit.

God teaches that Baptism is not the washing of dirt from the body but rather it is asking God for a clean conscience. It saves the spirit because Jesus Christ himself was raised from death and the horrors of the earth as they linger. Now that he has gone into heaven cleaned, He is at God’s side and rules over angels, authorities, and powers. ²

John shows that through this cleansing of the spirit, the body is immersed and filled with the Holy Spirit—the secondary fill from the Baptism of water.

Megumi thinks of himself like a canvas for Sukuna, blank and waiting—beautiful and profound, only when Sukuna paints him full of colour.

In a gruff string of breaths, Sukuna brings Megumi down to the seat, coddling him until he’s sure he’s laid to the leather kindly. He’s still kissing him, even as Meugmi twitches and recoils from every joint.

He gyres to Sukuna’s skin, already quietly crying at the loss of his co*ck from inside him. He claws at Sukuna’s shirt, trying to push it up his torso; the large scar across his abdomen looks darker than usual at the current angle.

Megumi nonsensically pleads for more, for Sukuna to lie down with him, all through teary eyes, like so many times before—painfully in reverence, atoned only in his action.

Sukuna kisses his wrist before pulling back and slicking his hair from his own brow. “You’ll overheat here, baby.”

Megumi twitches, shooting his right leg off the side of the seat's edge. He puts his head back, arching in reverse, fingers diving in between his folds—trying to mimic the loss in a fruitless chase; anything to fulfill the desire to revel a little bit longer in the high.

Sukuna turns to watch him, eyes roaming over his supple thighs and up to the hand that reaches under his crop top, fondling his own chest. Megumi lets his eyes close, hearing the chime of a bell, somewhere in the distance of the imagination.

He’s so weak, his muscles feel like dough. Nothing can stop him from crying out for Sukuna as he rubs the whole expanse of his puss* in lazy circles.

“Startin’ to think you like to provoke me on purpose.” Sukuna’s voice carries over him like ocean waves to the shore, the implication like the filtering of sunlight through the crests. He brings his thumb to flick and rub his cl*t at the sound of his voice.

“Do I need to start f*ckin’ you til you pass out, hm?” He leans over, taking one last long slurp of Megumi’s aching c*nt.

Megumi projects from time and space altogether, gasping as Sukuna kisses him through a suctioning pulse before moving up to kiss Megumi hotly on the mouth. He deposits some of their mixed cum—that didn’t stay in Megumi—lathering it onto the flat of his tongue with a swirl of his own.

It’s slimy; the melting of a seminal snowball from one liquid state to the next. Megumi moans and arches into the kiss, swallowing it post haste. Megumi brings his hand up to jaw to keep Sukuna captive for a minute longer, losing himself.

When Sukuna pulls back one last time he does so with an adoring kiss to Megumi’s lips. “I have an idea for you. While I drive,”

He sits back up in his seat, pulling his pants and drawers back up over himself. Megumi feels Sukuna grab onto his panties to pull them down and off him.

“And I won’t ask a third time.” Sukuna puts Megumi’s panties in his pocket. “But don’t move until I come back.”

Megumi whines, obediently curling his fingers inside himself.

Sukuna slips out of the truck, stepping around to the back to check the hitch was still secure and pumping the gas they came to this sh*thole for in the first place.

Then, another car pulls up. It’s a van coated in a deep purple with a tire on its back. It pulls up to the other side of the pump on the side closest to the station doors in an amaetur parking job. Before it can even come to a full stop a group of college students pour out, some with large bottles in hand.

Inside the cabin, Megumi’s eyes flutter open at the copious footsteps to the gravel, too weak to sit up. “S-sukuna?”

Outside, Sukuna’s dusting off his hands and finishing with the gas pump when a girl from the van shouts, stopping completely to get a full view of him. “I like your truck, Mr.!”

He doesn’t reply, nor even spare the blonde a glance as he walks back to the door.

When Sukuna opens it, Megumi gasps—sliding his feet along the leather in relief at seeing him again. Squirming still, he throws open his legs in invitation, returning his fingers back to the curd of cream lathered all on and around him.

Sukuna’s back in the driver’s seat, making quick work of the key and column shift to get them back out onto the frontage road.

The drive all the way to Noel’s Draw continues like this: Sukuna coasting with rubber sails from Land's End to John O'Groats, encouraging Megumi with soft and eager coos to keep going, “Spread yourself a little farther—there you go. Keep it in. Good boy.”

Megumi doesn’t remember anything else past that but Sukuna’s deep groan after Megumi squirts one last time.

After a much needed power catnap, Megumi unscrews the top of his water and crumples the empty candy bar wrapper, looking out at the outline of an aeration windmill, a hoop and holler from where they are in the parking lot outside Yuki’s shop. The old piece of junk metal sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the developing concrete of the town; the few buildings already on their ascent into the modern era.

“Let’s get goin’ angel, c’mon.” Sukuna gently takes the water from Megumi so he could put his shoes back on.

When they get inside, Yuki has an assistant in for the day by the name of Choso. He helps Sukuna load the rest of the posts and braces, along with additional purchases of rope and wire, into the trailer bed. Megumi stands back, holding his bad arm behind his back, watching the two men move to and from the shop’s backend.

“Honey, you’ll have to go on over to Severy to get the rest of your posts. Our supplier can’t count and sent a lot of our stuff over to Looper’s off Center and 3rd street.”

“How far away is that?” Megumi asks.

“Just before you get to Marquette, though, they're basically neck and neck. Might as well be the same damn town, actually. Cartographers aren’t always good at their job,” She mumbles as she goes on. “Anywho, you let me know if y’all need any help, Choso and I are for hire!”

Sukuna, of course, waves it off, putting his hand to Megumi’s back, leading him back to the front. “We’ll be alright. You let Looper’s know we’re comin’ in today?”

“Now what do you take me for?” She laughs, flicking her hair over her shoulder. “Now get out of here and go get you some of that world famous Severy’s Savory Sweets ! I’ll be waitin’ til your next project!”

It’s just supplies, from a woman he’s known for less than a day but he feels an odd longing looking over his shoulder to wave her goodbye as she tells them, “Y’all take care now!” , like it’s the last time.

So they go on their way, driving another whatever number of miles it is from there and Severy , Megumi’s too preoccupied by what these so called Savory Sweets could be to really notice.

Upon arrival, his question is answered immediately. On one corner, there’s a lemon yellow ice cream shop, nex to that is a taffy shop coloured bubble gum pink and next to that is a chocolate shop, Mary May’s Land of Chocolate. Like a cow, Megumi’s tongue nearly flaps up to his eye in anticipation.

Sukuna takes Megumi’s hand first, walking toward Looper’s ( Ranch & Home Supply ) in easy strides. Passing the ice cream shop, Megumi looks in through the glass, eyeing the cashier hand a woman and her boyfriend, friend, brother—something, a small sundae. It’s topped with a tart looking cherry, swirled to near perfection.

His body is careened by Sukuna turning and leading them inside without so much as a word. Inside, he buys him a strawberry swirl sundae with a fruit piece on top.

Megumi stepped into the shop with a smile and left with a kiss.

At the counter of Looper’s , Sukuna’s going back and forth with the clerk about his order sent over by Yuki, to which the clerkman explains he can have his guys take the remaining supplies out to their truck and trailer for the trouble. Sukuna reluctantly agrees, passing off his license plate and other identifiable-s for the transport to be made smoothly. It’s all the rudimentary stuff. But Megumi isn’t too sure, he only listens to hear the sound of Sukuna’s voice but his attention is mostly pointed toward the store itself.

The place is a cowboy’s candyland, like Yuki’s but bigger and stocked with newer clothes and gadgets. It throws Megumi for a loop on how the Midwest has such large department stores even in the most remote of areas.

“I’m also lookin’ for a support cleat and pins for a crib too, if you have any.”

From how fast Megumi whips his head he swears his hair ought to fly off like a toupée, and all the same, he nearly inhales the spoon from his sundae to the back of his throat.

“Of course, they’ll be in aisle 30.” The clerk extends his arm out to show the way.

Walking over, Megumi reaches for Sukuna’s hand. “A crib? But I’m not—not yet, I don’t think—”

“Maybe. But eventually.” Sukuna cuts in, doting.

After grabbing the crib items, they meander up and down the aisles; browsing for a laundry list Sukuna tells Megumi they might as well check off since they’re there. They come to a full and prolonged stop at a glass case, looking at knives.

Megumi’s close to Sukuna’s side, scooping his ice cream into his mouth in small scoops, nearly halfway through the cup as he looks all the same into the display, trying to guess which one might catch Sukuna’s eye.

“If you see somethin’ you like, you know to just hand it to me.”

Megumi nods silently, grateful for all the ways Sukuna takes care of him and cherishes him as he said he would. His affection in its physical form is more than enough for Megumi to feel satisfied but the additive of spoiling him in gifts doesn’t hurt. Their time together pours through him like liquid gold, in a catholicon of jubilation.

It isn’t much but he wants Sukuna to know, in any case, that he feels the same—that it’s the love for Sukuna’s love that compels him to give in service what he does in word.

Megumi doesn’t have much himself to offer but he tries.

“You should try some,” He lifts up a glob of the pink for Sukuna. “It’s good.”

In true Sukuna fashion, he makes the simple movements of the body appear regal; with a turn of his neck he looks away from the glass, the spoon and then to Megumi. Down, down, down comes his face to the white plastic, opening his mouth for Megumi to feed him. Megumi does so in a giggle, watching him take the bite with some couth.

“That is good.”

Even though Megumi didn’t make the ice cream, he’s so deeply in love with Sukuna that the compliment feels personal to him as if he had . A giddy feeling comes over him at the affirmation, happier too that he could give Sukuna something he liked.

Megumi gasps at an idea. “We could make our own ice cream, with the cows at home!”

Sukuna takes him gently by the elbow, taking him to move further down the display to even bigger knives that transition over to rows of bullets. “We can.”

A song, something with soft chirping birds—surely, a way to put patrons in the mood—is layered with piano keys and wind chimes, plays overhead. It’s calm, like the walk back home from church on a summer’s afternoon. Megumi falls into it, drifting some feet ahead but still within Sukuna’s line of vision. On a clothes rack, somewhat adrift in the sea of shelves and other racks, there hangs a shirt that Megumi thinks Sukuna would look good in. He reaches for it, letting his delicate fingers run over its surface, smiling at the envisionment of Sukuna in it and then the thought of his big smile—the crinkle of his eye—if he were to gift it to him.

He imagines the entire exchange in a vivid conjuring of the heart.

A hug, a kiss, a lifetime promise.

“You’re so sweet baby” He’d say. “You got this for me? You’re the sweetest thing this side of Heaven. I love you.”

He takes it up some inches above his face to inspect it better, turning it over when he spots the back of man’s head. His hair, short and black grows down the slope of his neck ever so. Underneath the white of his shirt, his back looks strong—-built. The hanger he holds slips from his fingers in a fright, clunking down and clinging to the other shirts. There was no way that—

Daddy?

He takes his ice cream and scurries back over to Sukuna’s side, the farthest from the rack and hides behind the bulk of his arm. Too scared to give it another look, he turns into Sukuna completely, burying himself until his arm comes to wrap around him.

“What’s the matter, baby?”

A whistle of boyhood bred in the Grand Prairie, loud and proud sounds off behind them.

“Well count my lucky stars and stripes, if it ain’t the man himself!”

Sukuna blinks once, taking his gaze from Megumi to some unknown object behind him. From the slight lean he had over the counter, he pulls himself back to his full height and takes a breath. From his shoulder opposite to Megumi he looks over and behind to the source of the disruption.

“What, too cool to say hello?” Says the voice—a man.

Sukuna says nothing. It’s not particularly unusual for him to be of few words but to another person entirely, Megumi turns a little in his hold, trying his best to get a peek at who it might be he’s looking at.

The man lets out a jovial laugh. “Oh come on Sukuna, we done plowed this furrow clean down to the bedrock, why are you lookin’ as lost as last year's Easter egg?”

Sukuna pulls Megumi together to him, which makes Megumi even more curious to look. When he locks eyes with the mystery man, the man’s body goes nimrod straight. Quiet for a moment, he’s looking back and forth between him and Sukuna in a blitz.

At the end of the aisle, tall—but nowhere near as tall as Sukuna—and lean, stands a man who is the picture-perfect image of an American teenager. He’s wearing a white cowboy hat and a black short sleeve shirt tucked into jeans. Overtop, front and center sits a hefty belt buckle, inlaid in chrome with the words ‘Lightning Flat’.

His skin, a stoned fruit olive colour, is a few shades lighter than Sukuna’s but it’s clear he spends a great deal of time outdoors. Looking even more closely, Megumi makes out the shape of a scar under his right eye, which are widened to the size of saucers.

“O-oh, um—who are you?” The man asks, suddenly shy.

Sukuna finally speaks and hides Megumi from view, this time behind his back, with a sneer. “The better question is what the f*ck are you doin’ here?”

Megumi doesn’t think he’s ever heard Sukuna sounds so venomous. It takes him back to the woods, where he killed that man; even then, his voice was level. Here, there’s something else entirely that hangs in the air.

The man scoffs. “What, a man can’t shop?”

“Cut the bullsh*t, Yuuji.”

Yuuji?!

Megumi peeks out from behind Sukuna’s bicep for an even better look, his fingers curling around his wrist. Yuuji looks down at Megumi with the beginnings of a hard blush sprawling across the ridge of his cheekbones.

“Oh wow. you’re uh,” He sounds stunned. “Sukuna holdin’ you captive or somethin’?”

“Yuuji. ”

Yuuji throws his hands up in the impression of a peaceful surrender, laughing in a blithe tone. “Easy there! As always, I come in peace.”

There’s a youngness to his aura that’s equally innocent and likable. Worlds different from Sukuna, even in his most playful moods.

“I mean, I am shoppin’! I got me a show tomorrow and I needed some stuff. But I saw you from across the store, and thought to myself, ‘ now there is only one man I know who is as tall as a tree ’! ”

Sukuna doesn’t laugh nor move, not even in a twitch of muscle. His silence is neither scary nor full of anger but as evident as the sky is blue, he holds to one end of the string of tension that exists only between brothers.

“Right, you see it’s me. Now f*ck off.”

Megumi considers how he thought saw Toji moments earlier, the timing of that with this interaction feels creepier than a face off with Tailypo at the foot of his bed. Add Sukuna’s patent disdain for Yuuji’s appearance and it’s an all out recipe for disaster. But, Megumi being Megumi, threw caution to the wind.

Megumi interlaces his fingers with Sukuna’s, stepping fully outright to his side. “You’re Yuuji, as in…. Sukuna’s brother, Yuuji?”

When Yuuji catches on that Sukuna isn’t going to entertain him, he turns his attention back to Megumi.

“The one and only!” Yuuji beams, his eyes lighting up when they move from Sukuna’s to Megumi’s. “Wait, Sukuna’s told you about me?”

“Angel—”

“Your name’s Angel?” Yuuji cuts Sukuna off.

Megumi holds tighter to Sukuna, keeping him from stepping forward with a soft smile.

“No, I’m Megumi.”

Yuuji blinks, focusing solely on Megumi. “That’s a real pretty na—”

Sukuna turns on his heel with Megumi in tow, moving from the counter to start walking off the side; away from Yuuji.

“W-wait!” Yuuji blurts. “Sukuna, please! You never give me a chance!”

Sukuna ignores him still.

“Sukuna, wait!” Megumi’s tries with a soft plea, purposely dragging his feet to keep Sukuna from moving so quickly.

If it had only been Yuuji’s cry then Sukuna would have beat the sunset home but in Megumi speaking up, his steps stutter. A good twenty-five yards farther from where they started, Sukuna stops just as Megumi asks, following the top of his head as he steps to stand just ahead of him—leaving Sukuna’s back to Yuuji.

“Just wait,”

Megumi collects himself with a sharp breath, putting his hand flat to Sukuna’s chest in a weak attempt to keep him at bay; contemplating what to say as the man’s gathered brow softens.

“I’d like to meet him…” It’s said to be soft enough that only they can hear, released from his lips with a huff of fragility. “If that’s alright?”

Megumi flinches for the fit of a second at his request, recognizing that despite feeling wired to obey Sukuna in every capacity—and willingly, he had spent much of the morning and afternoon, and even the night before, giving him lip. He’s smart enough to recognize Sukuna like any man had his tipping point, and given the wager of the moment is high, it’s a stake that puts him between the Devil and the deep blue sea.

But even so, he can’t shake the itching feeling at the bottom of his foot he had since coming to know of Yuuji’s existence. It was still steadfast within his mind to want to hear about Sukuna’s life from Sukuna himself but Yuuji, a key figure of Sukuna’s past, was undoubtedly part of that.

Afterall, if they were to spend the rest of their lives together, he ought to know his brother at the very least. Through Conviction that they have built up to this point, he ultimately believes Sukuna will meet him halfway.

“Please.”

Yuuji remains planted in the spot he originally stood, waiting at the mesial between two circular racks but diagonal now from Megumi—their view of one another unobstructed. Megumi looks into his harrowing expression, seeing more clearly both the similarity and difference of his and Sukuna’s eyes. Where Sukuna’s are stern, the oasis of midnight and a hollowed well of sorrow, Yuuji’s are the center of a sunflower, the glimpse of a newborn—infantile wonder and galore would adorn his face forever.

The odd familiarity of them makes Megumi’s skin feel like not his own.

“You know,” Yuuji fills the silence, taking a step forward. “I sometimes get to thinkin’ maybe we aren’t meant to come together after all but then God goes and shows me he has other plans.”

That shoots through Megumi’s skull like a bullet. God?

“I swear it, Sukuna—and Megumi, was it? I’m sorry you have to bear witness to this—but I’m beggin’ you. You can’t keep pushin’ me away like this.”

Still, Sukuna hasn’t looked at nor acknowledged Yuuji, he’s looking not at Megumi but into him. The rise and fall of his chest is different; it finds Megumi like an out of place play pretty. Megumi gives the man an empathetic smile, small and reserved for him.

“Don’t you trust me?” Megumi whispers.

There’s a flash of something across Sukuna’s face, as his jowl tics. The clocks hand spins and spins.

“Alright, but if I say we’re leavin, we’re leavin’. You understand me?”

Megumi ignores how tight Sukuna’s grip is as he reaches up on his tiptoes to kiss Sukuna’s chin in gratitude. Coming down, he steps around Sukuna with his wrist still in his grasp, keeping him behind him to tower over his frame. He lets go of his hand only to hold onto Megumi’s hip. It’s predatory. A claim. And Yuuji doesn’t seem to miss it.

“I don’t mean to uh—intrude, I guess. Just—I’d ask how you’re doin’ but,” He smiles at Megumi, sheepishly. “I’d venture to say, not all too bad.”

Megumi leans back into Sukuna. “We’re took up actually,” He decides he won’t mention how it’s been in five days time and at the meet cute of a murder. “And already I’ve heard about you some.” “From Uraume” goes unspoken.

He isn’t sure what Sukuna wants him to mention or not.

“I hope whatever Sukuna’s mentioned hasn’t been all bad.” Yuuji gives Sukuna a curious look.

“Well, it wasn’t anythin’ he said really, it was more of me just askin’! So it’s nice to finally put a face to the name and meet you! You said you’re up here for a show?”

The tension, at least from Megumi to Yuuji, seems to wane.

“Y-yeah, I am! I’m a PBR for the Texas Outlaws.”

“What’s that?”

“They’re a professional bull ridin’ team based out of Kiln and managed by a legendary rider by the name of 8 Seconds of Venom Jesse! It’s I guess—a hobby as much as it is a career.” He’s rambling like he’s equally nervous and happy. “Anyway, they’re havin’ their annual Whiskey Velocity Tour , here! First show’s tomorrow, y’all should come!”

“Not happenin’.” — “I’ve never been to a rodeo!”

Megumi pulls his lips into as flat of a line as his lips will allow, sensitive to the expression he can only imagine Sukuna is wearing on his face. It’s everything for Megumi, what his mouth doesn’t give away, the flicker of red and gold flecks of his eye, the soft twitch of his lip or the outer corner before it pulls into a full blown smile, it does. And when he turns to look up and over his shoulder, he sees none of that now.

“Don’t listen to him, you should definitely come!” Yuuji says.

Sukuna is quick to bite back. “No.”

“Alright well, I know you don’t like rodeos. I think,” Yuuji grumbles the last bit. “How about line dancin’ or a late lunch? We could catch up! Give me today and I’ll be out of your hair. That’s a promise!"

“Line dancin’?!” Megumi gasps.

Like a malpracticing doctor, Yuuji was splitting the moment wide open; fatal corruptions and all.

“Oh my stars, I love dancin’,” He fully turns around into Sukuna, uncaring that he’s being affectionate with Yuuji present. “Please, can we go?”

Yuuji may as well not be there—and maybe may not as well be Sukuna’s brother either. It was almost painful to see how little Sukuna seemed to care for what he had to say. A sliver of Megumi felt bad for Yuuji but it was of course his own interest that drove him to continue his theme of pleading for Sukuna’s favour.

“I mean, of course, if—if it’s bad between you, we can go. I don’t want to torture you but I’d love to talk to him. And...I'd love to go dancin’.”

Sukuna’s fingers slide from his hip to the top of his waistband, just above the zipper in a whisper of a movement. How gently he moves sends a shiver over Megumi, it feels warm and pressured like a truce.

“If it’s what you want.” The words flow through Megumi with the same amount of ardor as the first time he said it.

Megumi jumps up, kissing Sukuna again with a soft “I love you” . It’s a quick peck to the lips but Megumi presses a stamp's worth of postage into it. When he turns around he’s greeted with a blushing Yuuji.

“Consider us in! Do you know of any good spots to eat?” Megumi holds onto Sukuna’s finger behind his back.

“Y-yeah, what do you like?”

“Whatever Sukuna likes.”

“Oh, um….”

Megumi picks up on Yuuji’s nerves—the quickness in his uncertainty of his own answers as if he’s treading on eggshells with Sukuna in every capacity. It only makes Megumi more curious as to what kind of relationship they had then and how it shaped the one they have today.

“How say you this, we all drive together and decide from there?”

Megumi considers their truck is currently hooked to a trailer full of stuff so naturally, it’d be nice for Sukuna to not have to haul that everywhere. Though, it runs the risk of putting themselves at the mercy of relying on Yuuji to take them back.

He leans back into Sukuna for his approval, holding his breath seconds short of coughing up a lung; needing every bit of reassurance he could get. There was always a chance of Sukuna’s true feelings going unspoken but Megumi tells himself they can always talk about it later.

“Y-yeah, yeah! That sounds like a plan then.” Yuuji smiles, holding up a pair of gloves after a beat. “I’ll let y’all finish up. I have just these to go and pay for. Then I can wait out front?”

Megumi nods, watching Yuuji turn with a reformed yet still forlorn smile. But there’s hope in it, laced in the soft lines around the outer corners of his lips.

He’s clear on the other side of the store when Megumi turns toward Sukuna.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to start a cuss fight between the two of y’all,” Megumi takes Sukuna’s hand completely. “I’m maybe bein’ real selfish, I can admit that, but if the blood isn’t spoiled—”

“It’s alright, angel.”

It’s the chill of staring down a dark tunnel, imagining atramentous tendrils surging from the ground below, cocooning credence from the mind and the eye; it’s in the air, poignantly intimate.

“It’s alright.” He repeats.

Megumi can tell he’s once again likely not telling the entirety of the truth. It may have been “alright” but only that. Bottom line, Megumi would never forgive himself if in pushing this, it hurt Sukuna. No matter how strong, in his short time here already, Sukuna had bastioned himself to be, even God felt the emotion of man.

You don’t hate me, do you?

God hates seven things: prideful eyes, a tongue that tells of lies, hands that kill innocence, a heart that bids to do evil, feet that move with haste to do evil, an avowed witness who lies, and anyone who is the cause of feuds between family. ³

But I’ve been good for you, don’t you see? I haven’t yet done and never will I do anythin’ evil to you. Not by any of these accounts and I won’t start now with fuelin’ everwhat fire exists between you and Yuuji. Please, keep your patience with me and trust me.

Sukuna cups Megumi’s cheek and kisses him sweetly, softly prying between his lips. If they weren’t so blatantly in public, Megumi would have given into the salacious moan bubbling. Kissing Sukuna feels like being in a getaway car gone into overdrive, it’s moving forward so fast a thousand dreams once running find their grailed end.

But still, Megumi knows now it’s his way of being avoidant. At least, he isn’t too mad that he can't kiss him.

“Didn't see anythin’ you want?” Sukuna asks, breaking them apart.

Megumi shakes his head, taking both hands to hold the small dixie cup of ice cream, now melted soup. At its baby pink center, a cherry stem floats to the top. Like it, he feels the worry from just moments before drain down to his knees and through his soles; reduced to a puddle beneath him. Less than but not fully vanquished.

Over at the checkout counter, Megumi is off to one side tossing his ice cream when Sukuna gestures to something behind the clerk, asking for “their highest quality pair” . Megumi doesn't catch what it is he’s referring to in time before it's bagged and in his hand as he slides his card through the machine.

Walking toward the front of the store, Sukuna takes Megumi by the hip, rubbing affectiously at the bare skin of his side. Megumi is all the happier then when even after walking out, Sukuna doesn’t let go. It’s exactly the amount of backing he needed.

It almost slips again, the desire to tell him he loves him but he reconsiders—not wanting to push his luck more than he might already have. Standing beside a large stone pillar, they find Yuuji as happy as a hog in mud.

“So, uh the line dancin’ joint is actually on the other side of town, so I hope y’all don’t mind we get our food over there?” He says.

“Lead the way!” Megumi says, hoping Sukuna catches some of the cheer in it.

Yuuji takes them over to a truck, the same make as Sukuna’s, painted robin egg blue with a design of thick white band around it. It boasts few chips and scratches but nonetheless, it’s aged; likely an 80s model. Megumi slides in first, sanctioning himself between Yuuji and and Sukuna. Immediately Megumi can tell the cabin, another unitary style, will make for a tighter fit; especially with Sukuna, as large of a man as he is. But Megumi would never complain about being pressed up against him.

Getting into the car, taking off and driving may have been awkward if they let it, at least Yuuji and Megumi but it was clear neither of the two were capable of letting a moment fall flat like warm soda.

“Your tournament, is it here all weekend?” Megumi leans his head on Sukuna’s arm as he asks.

“Sure is! Like I mentioned It starts tomorrow but it’ll go through Saturday. It’s our first tournament of the year but I feel like I’ve been waitin’ a lifetime to get around to it!”

Megumi hums, looking out past Sukuna to the window. He watches an old woman haul a couple of bags into her trunk; her long orange dress sticks out sorely next to the polish of her dark blue Cadillac. Despite her age, she’s moving like a spring chicken.

It’s an odd feeling, how life carries on for everyone within their own story simultaneously to his own. He wonders if she has grandchildren or is part of a book club. He turns to peer at Yuuji for a flicker of the eye, wondering what Yuuji’s story is too.

Said boy reaches for the radio’s knob, thankfully turning the music down rather than up. It’s audible but only just barely enough the lyrics can be made out.

(Deliver me

Let your waters wash over me

Well, deliver me

I’m lost and alone

And I wanna come home)

Megumi immediately looks to Sukuna, finding the underside of his jaw pointed to the right. He’s looking out the window too, to something off in the distance or nothing at all. With the sun at its current angle, their side of the cabin is cast in a quare shadow, making his brown eyes blue.

Over the cool denim of Sukuna’s jeans, Megumi slides his knee in suggestion or more truthfully, in an attempt to get Sukuna’s attention. He quickly racked his mind for ways to lighten up the look that had fallen over his handsome face.

He leans in close to whisper. “It’s so flat out here I’d bet Cleave could run hindside first and go as fast as we are drivin’!”

Sukuna takes a hold of Megumi’s thigh, keeping him still. A small but another acknowledgment still. Still free of the dog house. He would take his wins.

Yuuji clears his throat, in a sort of breaking of disaccord way. “So, how’d you two meet?”

A thought, on top of a thought inside a thought below another thought. There are many thoughts Megumi has at once, especially in the subject matter of Sukuna. He wonders how many times in their long love together, they’ll be asked this question and what lie they’ll tell.

Or will they ever tell the truth?

His neck cranes a little, to look over his shoulder from the strange angle he’s put himself in, knowing better than to assume Sukuna will answer, to speak to Yuuji.

“Well, it wasn’t nothin’ of a big doin’. He was over in my neck of the woods sellin’ some dairy. There ain’t nobody from ‘round there that captures the eye like he does so me being me, I had to introduce myself. The rest is history!”

“I was goin’ to ask, you sound a little, uh,”

“Funny?”

“N-no! I like your accent! But, you certainly, uh, sound different from us. Us Westerners, I mean. Not that that’s a bad thing! Where exactly are you from?”

Megumi tucks his chin to his chest slightly with a soft laugh out of shyness. “I get that a lot. I’m from Appalachia. A real small town called Arthur, to be specific.”

“That’s neat! I’m all the way down in Goodnight, Texas. It’s a one-horse, one-road kind of town but I like it a lot. We’ve been gettin’ a lot of folks from other states comin’ through though so slowly but surely, it’ll grow.”

“Goodnight sounds like it’s from a fairytale.”

“I’ll say.”

Megumi listens but is most focused on Sukuna like a puppy, with eyes big in wait to be held. Not that the varying answers could be anything other than a circ*mstance of what hospital they were born in, he recalls Sukuna telling him he was from DeSoto and so finds Yuuji’s answer peculiar but refrains from asking aloud what that might mean.

Did that imply they were split earlier than he originally thought.

Was Yuuji lying?

The rest of the way is quiet, save for the sounds of driving. When they pull off to a less busier road, Yuuji rolls down his window some bit, holding onto his hat as the wind glides by. Meanwhile Sukuna and Megumi are looking beyond the glass to the line of buildings that give purpose to the tiny municipality in the shapes of a sheriff’s office, town hall, post office and general store.

Megumi feels content enough to let his mind wander, wondering what thoughts are rattling within Sukuna’s mind as he keeps his gaze focused out toward the terrain no matter what passes by.

Eventually, they pull off to a building made of flemished brick; it’s one level and homely. Behind the glass of the windows, curtains drained of their colour hang in twos, split to each side to allow the light in under the Gable style roof.

The sign, at the entry of the parking lot, reads: ‘Salt River Steakhouse’.

Yuuji throws the shift intro break with a whoop. “Hope y’all are ready to chow down!”

All the same as the impression of the outside gives off, the inside is quintessentially quaint, a real mom and pop diner; it’s the blueprint of a hometown hero’s stomping grounds. Photos of old—pioneers and wranglers, the hardened expression of the cowboy’s who’ve paved the way—litter the walls. There’s a horseshoe over the door, to which Megumi whispers with a point of his finger to Sukuna.

“They do it too!”

A sweet melody plays through the speakers overhead. It’s a soft strum of a tune, filling the dark corners of the restaurant like a ghost. One that likely sits at the end of the bar, humming over the rim of a Glenfiddich malt. Megumi imagines he came from the outskirts of the town over, a gunslinger lurking between the highs and lows of dishonour, wondering where he’ll lay his head next.

“Welcome in, is it just you three? I can take you over this’a’way!” The host, a teenage girl, says walking them over to a corner booth.

It’s decently sized and clean, overseen by a lowly lit lantern hanging over the dark, dark oak of their table, convincing Megumi all the more of his gunslinging ghost tale.

Sukuna lightly gestures for Megumi to slide in first to sit between the window and him. The host sets down three laminated menus, the clank of her charmed bracelets smack into them in a hypnotic sort of way as she spreads them out before the three boys.

Megumi didn’t want to think too much of it, the first falter of her smile as she caught a glimpse of Sukuna when they walked in but now, this close, it’s unmistakable. Though polite, the shifty nature of her gaze borders staring—something Megumi would otherwise find annoying as Sukuna is his man but he has the feeling she’s staring for another reason entirely: stupidly, in disbelief at Sukuna’s disfigurement.

She looks once more at Sukuna, giving him a slyly judgmental side eye. The chipper tone of her voice faltered. “Your server will be with you shortly.”

Yuuji takes off his hat, setting it upside down to his left—at the far end of his side of the table. Megumi gets a full glimpse of his hair then; to his surprise, it's a similar shade to Sukuna’s, though he can tell it’s a bit brighter and fitted with a dark undercut. Almost as if it matches their dispositions entirely.

“How long have you been bull ridin’ Yuuji?” Megumi asks, scooting as close as bark on a tree to Sukuna.

“Oh man, since I could talk! And I love it like I would a woman,” He blushes, holding Megumi’s gaze for a moment. “There’s a beauty to it that can’t keep even the most sane specimen of a man away.”

Their server comes over then, introducing herself as Miwa, giving each of them a glass of chilled water. She too stares a little long at Sukuna’s scars. The waitress in Noel’s Draw was easy to ignore, the jealousy something Megumi could handle but this. It was pissing Megumi off. So he leans more into Sukuna to ignore the feeling, choosing peace over violence in asking her a question he doesn’t care about to get her attention away from Sukuna and to him.

She answers curtly and takes Yuuji’s order for a Pilsner and loaded nachos. Megumi gets a Shirley Temple and Sukuna asks only for a whiskey—their strongest.

The look Yuuji gives him is a little defeating.

“Comin’ right up!” Miwa says before walking off.

Megumi looks at Yuuji over his menu to continue their conversation, stopping himself short of purring as Sukuna’s thumb rubs in a window wiper motion over his thigh.

“Ridin’ must attract a lot of attention and fame, since you’re on the road so much.”

Sitting next to Sukuna, it’s obvious the flicker of Yuuji’s nervous eye is falling over to the man; watching his reaction to almost every sentence after a continuation from the department store; it’s curious. Megumi honestly can’t tell definitely if it’s nerves or like him, wanting Sukuna’s approval. Or both.

“A lot of my teammates get a right smart amount of that stuff but not me,” He’s mulling over something on the menu then, scrunching his brow over both thoughts. “Especially from the damn Buckle Bunnies. Lord spare me from their evils!”

He says it like a centipede ran down his spine.

Megumi laughs, lost but interested. “By Ned, what is a Buckle Bunny?”

Yuuji laughs back, scratching at his neck. “They’re trouble , that’s what! Just a bunch of good-for-nothin’ girls who want to play adult giddy up with a rider and then another and then another—and so on and so forth. And, don’t get me wrong, to each their own! I don’t mean to be judgmental but it’s not my style.”

Miwa comes back with their round of drinks and Yuuji’s nachos. She takes the rest of their order, Yuuji telling her he’d like a Salisbury steak and Megumi looks over to Sukuna who tells him he can get whatever he wants as he isn't hungry.

It worries Megumi but he doesn’t want to give another reason for Sukuna to hold over his head and hold Miwa up. He orders the same steak—for Sukuna—and potatoes.

When she walks off, Yuuji takes a bite of his nachos; edging some pieces of beef to fall back down to his plate in succession. Megumi brings both of his legs to wrap around Sukuna’s right knee and shin, interested in keeping Yuuji talking.

Yuuji’s looking at Megumi again, innocently but there lingers a hint of something nearly suspicious. Megumi didn’t want to look too into it, in this one hour they’ve known each other but he thinks maybe Yuuji is taking to him like a stick of wood. But he wouldn’t do that. Not in front of his brother—the brother Megumi is so obviously infatuated with.

He seemed a little slow but there’s no way he was that slow.

“Y’see, it can be real tough for a guy like me. I’m always travelin’, seein’ all sorts of crazy stuff and meetin’ hoards of new people! But you know,” He says, behind his hand as he chews through another nacho. “I can’t say I have had much experience with beautiful women or anythin’. I keep to myself and consider myself a gentlema—”

“I thought you pulled?” Sukuna interjects, taking a swig of his Macallan .

Yuuji stutters over a jalapeno, taking the inner curl of his fist to his chest to clear a lodged piece of beef in a laugh. Megumi watches on, feeling bad he’s slightly amused by their banter. Not that Sukuna was much of a talker anyway, it made Megumi happy he was at least talking at all.

“Well last I remember,” Yuuji chokes back with a hack. “I was up here some years back, so for most people, that means they’re likely to change! I’m no longer a kid, I’m grown!”

Sukuna looks down to the dark liquor, legging the liquid around the curve of the clear old fashioned glass. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Yuuji’s brow scrunches and he shakes his head. “Golly, do you have any siblins’ Megumi? Hopefully none that poke fun at you like this one here does.”

“I don’t, I’m an only child.”

It’s mostly just Yuuji who's stuck on a chuckle, so when he comes down from it he matches Sukuna and Megumi’s calm. He discreetly coughs into his closed fist, looking at Megumi and then dartingly at Sukuna.

“Suppose we could consider ourselves that, in a way. Right Sukuna?” It’s somewhat the most serious he’s been yet.

Sukuna continues observing the liquid in his hand until he moves his gaze up to hold Yuuji’s. It’s another tentative moment, where Megumi and Yuuji wait for Sukuna to reply.

“I might consider givin’ you air from a jug.”

Yuuji laughs in a way that suggests he can take the jabs.

“Well, in any case,” Yuuji pokes at his plate. “Would either of you like a nacho? They’re good!”

“We’re alright, thank you.” Megumi smiles.

“Suit yourself!”

The conversation falls silent until Miwa comes back with their entrees, not bothering to look again at Sukuna.

“You boys enjoy!”

It’s another stretch of silence with Megumi trying to cut into his steak before Sukuna gently takes the utensils from him. Megumi shrinks into his seat, catching Yuuji watching them as he chews through a bite of his own; his brown eyes crawl from Sukuna’s hand to the fork to the gauze wrapped around Megumi’s arm.

It’s clear he’s curious but chooses against pointing it out.

“Pardon me.”

Megumi turns his head, watching Sukuna stand. “Huh?”

“Keep out of trouble.” He says above the table.

Yuuji offers a shy smile. “Sure thing, Megumi and I will hold down the fort.”

They both watch him walk back toward the entry until he turns right, further into the restaurant, out of sight. Megumi turns back to pick at this steak, looking for an outline of an animal in the red wine sauce, but only notices how it stains the white chunks of the mash potatoes.

Yuuji is the first to speak.

“I uh, I noticed the cross around your neck. Are you…a Believer?”

Megumi smiles, bringing his fingers to touch lightly at the metal. “I am.”

Though it's been hanging from his body since getting it, at times, it’s cold to the touch.

“That’s amazin’! When I’m not bull ridin’, I actually give sermons sometimes at the local church in Goodnight. My Daddy, he’s the pastor there now. He’s actually who raised me on the path to fellowship.”

Time freezes. A feeling between dread and prurience caresses his thoughts. Daddy? Pastor? Their Daddy is… alive? Megumi looks into Yuuji, unblinking. Then who…

“I hear tell Texas churches can be real huge, like a warehouse! Do you and your Daddy like the one you’re at?”

He doesn’t want to make Yuuji suspicious of him for wondering so pointedly about his and Sukuna’s paternal relations but it was dangling in front of him like a worm on a hook. A stupid move might be better than no move.

“Oh yeah, our church, Overture of the First Witness , is actually getting renovated this summer! My Daddy is, as he said “ set on impressin’! ” but he doesn’t even realize sometimes it’s not about how the place looks but how the place looks out for you. I don’t see Sukuna that often but man, those two could not be more alike.”

“Your Daddy?”

“Yeah! Sukuna and I aren’t half siblins’ or nothin’. We’ve got the same Mama and Daddy but he stayed behind with my Momma and well, I went with my Daddy. Not sure how much of the story he’s told you.”

Megumi wiggles his nose to keep it from growing.

“All the same you’ve said.”

“Really?”

“Mhm.” Megumi’s wringing his hands from underneath the table.

“Shame, a pretty thing like you would make it easy for a man to talk the feathers right out of his pillow! He’s a tough nut, that one. He don’t talk all that much and especially not me but that’s just how he is I suppose.”

They share a moment of looking into one another, the soft crackle of the music fades further into the background. Megumi thinks of the daylight from outside, how it drops in from the window; how it pours onto nothing anymore, not even Yuuji.

“Well in any case,” He starts, wiping the blush from his face subtly. “I’d tell you more or the rest, really, but I have no idea what happened or why we were split up in the first place to tell you the truth. I was too young to remember when it had happened and my Daddy never told me a thing and still won’t to this day. Sukuna won’t tell me either. It’s why I’m—why I guess, always…wantin’ to talk to him.” He pokes at his steak.

There’s a somber edge to his tone, one that is spoken to oneself in a dark room. Megumi hasn’t had to say or react any much, Yuuji’s letting it fly all his own.

“Anyhow, I guess the extent of what I know is my Mama kept Sukuna here, in Kansas and I stayed in Texas where we’re originally from. Which is why we didn’t grow up together. Though, I heard she passed not too soon after.”

Megumi feels his world shift on an axis. He tries his best not to let the surprise of the information show on his face. Instead, he hopes Yuuji will keep flapping his jaw.

“I’m sorry to dump all of this on you. I’ve been told I can be a bit of a chin musician… it’s somethin’ I’m workin’ on but, Sukuna is important to me. Even if he keeps me at arm’s length. And now you…” He looks Megumi in the eye. “You seem important to him so, you’re important to me too!”

There are so many more questions, some of which could be considered backtracking to those he had before. Sukuna’s situation is much, much more complicated than he anticipated. Not that it changed anything for how Megumi felt; not in the slightest. He would love Sukuna through the good and bad.

Why wouldn’t he?

At the very least, it was clear Sukuna wasn’t lying but just as Megumi has suspected, hadn’t told him the whole truth. However, what is most baffling is that Yuuji essentially has no idea of the details regarding their childhood. His own memory of his brother, gone forever. Unless… he was lying too.

No, there was no chance. Yuuji was talking Megumi’s ear off way too casually to be anything of the secretive sort. A secondary feeling swept over Megumi, that in his own pursuit to discover Sukuna’s truth, he was feeling a twinge of guilt for Yuuji. As the one person who should be the key to removing the millstone, he was as left in the dark as Megumi, if not more.

He hated to admit it but the thought made Sukuna all the more intriguing to him.

What could be so awful, he couldn’t even tell his own brother?

“Well,” Megumi begins, thinking about how Yuuji feels in this; how it might feel to walk in his shoes. Front he heart, he looks to him with a look of commiseration. “At least you have each other now, right?”

“You’re right about that.” He sighs, taking a swig of his water.

“He’ll come around, he’s sweeter than he lets on.” Megumi giggles, feeling a sense of queer to trade a secret too. Afterall, there was no telling how long Sukuna may have divulged this much information—if ever.

But just as quickly, he feels another moment of guilt, like he’s going behind Sukuna’s back again but he’s reminded of God’s word. The truth is, everyone who sins is a slave—a slave to sin. A slave does not stay with a family forever but a son belongs to the family forever. So if the Son makes you free, you are really free. ⁴

Megumi lets the verse sit with him, plunging into the thought that they were all three sons. Whatever sins Yuuji had committed, be them the same, less or worse than that of Sukuna and vice versa, they would always be sons first. Together, they would be freed of their wrongdoings to step fully into a life without pain.

Megumi lets the thought bubble around him, like sitting in it like a jacuzzi, a fizzing broth of water, foamed only at the surface. Below, it’s a haven of safety and security. It makes him happy, enough that he sighs a breath of relief. God was allowing Megumi to walk through the valley with Sukuna, hand in hand. Was it that God was showing him once more it was to be Megumi who would help free Sukuna from his earthly burdens? Even in this situation of uncertainty, Megumi knew it to be true.

How I love you, Sukuna. I wish I could kiss you. And I will—as soon as you get back to the table. Where are you?

“Thinkin’ on it, I bet he gets that sweetness from me—like we’re twins!” Yuuji’s back to a lighter mood, waving his hand around. “We’re only 4 years apart in age, you know? Sure, he’s taller…and a little more buff but it’s fittin’ of his face!”

“You think? He’s kind of the poster child for a Gentle Giant, if I’m honest.”

“I’m glad in the very least that he’s kind to you.” Yuuji laughs through a bite of steak. “You seem like a real sweetheart.”

Megumi smiles, taking a bite of his own; looking out through the blinds of the window, hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of something interesting. He looks back to the aisle, where Sukuna was not too long ago.

Waiting.

“Sweetness is only as sweet as the water it's sourced from.” He says.

“Do you write?”

“Me? Oh no, I fear I’m considered “illiterate” by most standards.”

“You’ve got a way with words…you’d make a great Presider!”

“Oh, I haven’t gone in some time now…about a week.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t.” Yuuji winks.

Nothing could ever compare to Sukuna but talking with Yuuji, for all intents and purposes, in the silly subject matter as well as the staid material, he’s grateful for the joy of Yuuji. He could make even a rock smile.

The world brightens and Megumi feels a sense of wholeness when Sukuna turns the corner, walking back to the booth. Megumi keeps his gaze trained on him, following up the line of his long legs, from the chestnut leather of his boots to the sheen of his belt buckle. The tan of his skin looks gold in the dark of the place.

Megumi wonders if he should run to him, like actors do across a beach in a movie; to jump into his arms and kiss him until a smile shows on his face. But when their eyes meet, Megumi is shown the kiss isn’t needed. It’s barely noticeable but the corner of his mouth raises. Handsome forever and all his.

“Welcome back!” Yuuji’s voice cracks off.

Megumi knows he doesn’t have to scoot over or out of the way to give Sukuna his seat but he moves anyway, giving the man ample space before jumping his bones.

“You sure you aren’t goin’ to eat?” Yuuji asks, trying to strike a pointed conversation with Sukuna again.

“We usually share!” Megumi answers, taking his fork to the potatoes.

“That’s nice.” There isn’t any malice in his tone but there lingers something more, either sadness or a twinge of jealousy. Megumi isn’t too sure but where Sukuna pulls away, Yuuji lunges forward.

Both he and Megumi finish the rest of their plates, talking the most of the three. Sukuna chimes in very little, only to answer Megumi if he asks a question or for clarity on a topic. From the time they got there to now, the number of patrons dwindled to just them and one man some tables over.

It's a much smoother outing than Megumi might have expected, given Sukuna’s quips; but the man remained quiet even as the waitress came over and thanked them for their service. Yuuji gave her a puzzled look, reminding her they had yet to pay but she kindly let Yuuji know “the other gentleman” already got their ticket.

“Well shucks, you didn’t have to do that! Thank you!”

“Yeah, thank you.” Megumi takes Megumi’s hand under the table.

“Shall we light a shuck then?”

Megumi turns to Yuuji with a big smile, his face alight with new world wonder.

“I know you suggested it but, do you know how to line dance Yuuji?”

“Boy, do I! I’ve been squarin’ up since I was yay high!”

The early evening sky is left with a few stratus clouds and a nickel’s worth of a breeze. The sun shines on her descent through the trees on the other side of the road; a greened-up beauty, the magnifying glass to her glow. It paints the same, everlasting image seen time and time again.

“The saloon is still a-ways south, probably another 30 minutes. I can drive us there and then I’ll drive y’all back?” He’s looking almost exclusively at Sukuna, his expression deep with yearning.

“Sure.”

It’s almost unnoticeable but Megumi completely understands how Yuuji’s eyes light up; it’s like being knighted into the Round Table. Sukuna’s word was a pivotal weight to both of their hearts.

“30 minutes is enough time to make sure we don’t puke our guts up when we get to dancin’!” Megumi cheers.

“Sure is! You’re gonna love this place Megumi, I already know!” Yuuji smiles brightly, like one idiot encouraging another.

Sukuna puts himself between Yuuji and Megumi, keeping Megumi close as they walk toward the car and opening the passenger door in one smooth pull. With a solid push from his good arm Megumi lifts himself onto the running board of the truck, turning to hold Sukuna’s face in his hands.

He gives him a drawn out kiss, happy his back is blocking Yuuji’s view of them; in his obsession there’s a hidden spark of competition—or plain possession he had no qualms of expressing but regardless, Megumi knows he wants Sukuna in all ways only for him.

“You’re the best thing to ever happen to me.” Megumi whispers.

I love you.

Sukuna blinks once, the set of his eyes are relaxed in their usual way.

“To the Lone Star Lover! ” Yuuji whoops without a clue.

Just as Yuuji had said, the drive wasn’t too long or too short. As they ventured further west, the land remained in its same flatness where the road was only lined in grass and abandoned barns. It brought Megumi back to the thought of exploring the mountains with Sukuna. When did the land finally grow tall? Did the birds fly higher than they did here?

Megumi kept the skin of his cheek close to Sukuna’s arm, equally sat between the two brothers but heavily leaned into the elder as he was earlier. Yuuji has the radio playing again but Sukuna doesn’t seem to care or at least, he’s making it appear that way.

“Do you like road trippin’, Megumi?” Yuuji asks, throwing a glance over to them.

“Baby—” Sukuna’s voice, lower than Yuuji’s, cuts through to Megumi first. He gently moves Megumi off his arm to wrap it around him, holding the boy closer to his side. Megumi snuggles in, almost forgetting Yuuji asked him a question.

“I’ve never been on a road trip.” Megumi replies, over his squished left cheek.

“What?! Have you ever been farther than, well, here I guess?”

“You don’t need to keep pesterin’ the boy.” Sukuna says.

“Oh geez, it’s just a question!”

“Let’s stop askin’ questions.”

“I don’t mind…” Megumi looks up to Sukuna in a whisper.

The beginnings of another cuss fight sink there, not uncomfortably but postulated in Yuuji switching the subject to give a quick history lesson about the saloon.

Coming upon the deadend of the road, Yuuji pulls them into a dirt lot in front of a large building erected all on its lonesome. It’s designed in Western False Front architecture with two levels; a rustic sienna colour paints the bottom half of the wood paneling while white paints the top. In large, yellow tinted orange letters, across its center face reads the words: ‘LONE STAR LOVER SALOON’.

The second level features a balcony fitted with two old Prairie Schooners on either side of the main sign. They’re fairly large, flanking two sets of two clear paned windows between them. As they step out of the truck, the bass of the music rumbles through the roof like thunder. Megumi almost swears he feels the earth shake the gravel there at his feet in a jitter. A gasp in the mind, the dots connect.

Music.

Sukuna is perverse to music. And here, it’s loud.

He pulls on Sukuna’s hand, keeping him at bay by the truck as he closes the door. Sukuna is here, willingly. Standing before Megumi with the same calm expression as always but something coils around Megumi, deep in the pit of his spirit, telling him Sukuna is truly anything but.

“I…I’m sorry, I was real careless agreein’ to this. I know you don’t like music…” He tries in a whisper, almost pleading with his touch to Sukuna’s skin.

Sukuna doesn’t say anything as he looks down at Megumi with the faintest hint of a smile. Megumi waits, biting the inside of his lip in nauseous suspension—unsure if he should say something else or wait for Sukuna to speak.

Sukuna takes from his back pocket a small plastic packet; it’s clear and inside are two red pieces of some gummy material, in small spherical plugs. He rips it open, pouring the contents into his palm. He stuffs the plastic into his pocket before taking one of the spheres between his index finger and thumb.

“Sukuna…” Megumi tugs on his shirt, trying to get him to answer.

But he continues on, placing one plug in his right ear. “Like I’m always tellin’ you, you worry too much.”

Yuuji’s oblivious to them, walking ahead towards the front doors. He throws his arms up, hollering into the air, going on about something related to the fresh smell of boot scootin’ is as good as it gets on a random weekday.

“You’re upset.”

“Leave it.” Sukuna keeps Megumi’s gaze, steady and unmoving. “I’m not anythin’ other than wantin’ you to have fun.”

Megumi is hesitant, wondering if this mission to uncover Sukuna’s past and rectify his tattered relationship with Yuuji was a mistake. An all around stupid idea. Something he should never have tried to meddle in the first place. He hangs his arms downheartedly at his side, willing the depths of hell to swallow him whole. There’s a swell in Megumi’s throat, where he finds the air can’t pass as easily as it should.

You’re mad at me. Please don’t be mad at me.

Sukuna takes one of Megumi’s wrists into his grip, holding it up to his lips to kiss it.

“Believe me when I speak to you.”

Megumi remembers the day Uraume came, how Sukuna spoke to him in a similar tone. In its tenderness it melted within Megumi, a sizzle left unmanned. It was the same now, except Megumi wasn’t being shooed away; instead, Sukuna wanted Megumi around—for him to be happy.

Listen to him you idiot!

“Uh, y’all comin’? Don’t tell me you’re gettin’ cold feet now!” Yuuji shouts, turning around to face them.

Sukuna turns Megumi around, bringing his green eyes to face the brown of Yuuji’s. They’re moving through the dirt toward the door, the heat of Sukuna reminds him maybe it will be ok. He is grateful for that, at least.

“Sukuna, if I’d known all it would take for you to hang out with me was the wranglin’ of an Appalachian beauty I would have done that a lot sooner!”

“Keep talkin’ like that and I’ll kill you and swear you died.”

“Alright, not a jokester!” Yuuji laughs, as they enter through the wooden door, walking up to a brunette girl at the counter.

Yuuji takes to the hostess, paying for their entry on the insistence Sukuna can’t be the only one who “shows off his bank account!” .

The further in they go, Megumi naturally careens to Sukuna’s side. Yuuji must either feel left out or doesn’t realize he’s doing it when he nearly flanks Megumi on his left, leaving him to walk between them; shorter than both.

“Y’all find us a table, I’m gonna take a leak and start us off with some drinks!” Yuuji says, already going 40 towards the countertop of the bar.

Sukuna keeps his pace, fully ignoring Yuuji and acting on his own accord. Megumi flashes Yuuji a small smile before turning on his heels to walk with Sukuna toward the left of the establishment—towards a secondary bar and tables along the entire stretch of the wall. Already, there are quite a number of people sitting, dancing and drinking. The music blares in a cyclone around the room, sweeping each and every patron into a trance of moonshine and leather shoons.

Strung above the dance floor hung old wagon wheels, strategically placed along the thick wooden beams that ran from the front to the back. There in the center, above the dancefloor, was a large box farm wagon—positioned as if it were going to take a nosedive. Around it all, strobe lights flitter over the bodies below in a hue of soft blue.

(You say that nobody cares where you're going,)

The voice through the speakers reminds Megumi of his neighbor Tammy: kind. Though the song gives the room more of a somber and relaxed overtone, those dancing are full of jive and laughter. A woman runs out from behind them, darting so fast she takes with her the air like a fighter jet; all but dragging a rollicking man behind her to the dance floor as she does.

(And that your life don't mean nothing at all

You've heard the saying 'you reap what you're sowin',)

Megumi watches her bound up and down with her hand in his, smiling and laughing until he has her by the hips. There at the center of the room when he dips her once and kisses her twice as comes back up into his chest. Megumi looks on with sincerity, following Sukuna to a table off in the far back corner in a doddle.

(So plant a good seed and watch it grow tall.)

“Have you ever been to a place like this?” Megumi suctions to Sukuna’s hip, putting himself between the man’s body and arm.

“I haven’t.”

“Guess I should’ve figured—”

He’s cut off from a drunken man, who comes stumbling up to them. At first, Megumi isn’t so sure it’s them he’s actually heading toward until he appears to be staring directly at Sukuna. Either Sukuna has yet to catch on or is uncaring—if Megumi had to guess, it’s likely the latter.

“H-hey… yous,” The man slurs, holding a Corona by the bottle neck. He points a paunchy finger at Sukuna. “How tall is—Are you? 8 feet? You look–like. You look like you came straight from the Gulf War–”

He’s grumbling over his words, hardly coherent and reeking of alcohol.

Sukuna imperceptibly squeezes Megumi closer as he looks down at the man who might be barely six feet standing. The drunkard takes his hand to the table, leaning on the splayed palm to take a quick drink. There’s a noticeable bald spot on the top of his head that makes him appear older than he should be, at least not old enough to warrant such premature hair loss.

The man hiccups again, looking down at how he’s holding Megumi. “You a fa*g too? Well, anyway. Your face is f-f*cked up enough, wanted to see it up close—”

“Get lost.” Sukuna warns once.

They catch a few stares from some people nearby but none of them stop to intervene or even watch. Not that Sukuna looks like he needs the help; but it was frustrating, first the girl at the restaurant from earlier and now this. It was as if the town was unapologetic in their judgment regardless of the reason.

“I..” The drunkard breathes, looking around as if he hadn’t been the one to initiate the interaction.

Megumi imagines grabbing the glass from his hand and smashing it over the man’s stupid bald head as he holds it down by his side. The drunkard makes a face and bows a little, turning awkwardly to the side and back around from whence he came.

It was for their own safety that Sukuna didn’t seem to care enough to pursue the issue.

After watching the blatherskite disappear into the crowd, somewhere way off to the otherside of the saloon, Sukuna is the first to sit down. He rubs his thumb over the bone of Megumi’s hand as the boy still stands, watching him.

“Does it bother you when people stare?” Megumi asks.

Sukuna follows the line from the boy’s hip all the way up to his eye, observing him with a cool expression. “No.”

“You’re not just sayin’ that right, so I don’t worry about you?”

“I think you’d worry no matter what I said.”

Megumi bites the inside of his lip, looking at his skinny legs down to his boots.

“But it is sweet, to be cared for.”

“But you don’t want it?”

“I do, sweetheart. I want anythin’ you’re willin’ to give me. The rose of my hour glass is full.”

It’s magnetic, his charm in words he keeps tightly wound together and unwrapped within the threads of a string for Megumi. He’s got his hand on Megumi’s thigh, thumbing over a patch of skin as he’s leaned back into the chair, putting his groin in full display as the result of his relaxed, open legged pose.

“Are you callin’ us Beauty and the Beast? And you’ve seen the movie?” Megumi can’t help but crack a smile back at him. Was this Sukuna’s attempt at making a romantic gesture?

“It may have caught my eye.” He confirms.

“You’re not a beast though.”

Maybe I don’t tell you enough. Maybe you haven’t been told enough before.

“Hm.”

Megumi’s lip wobbles before he sucks it into his mouth, scanning around Sukuna’s face out of shaky nerves. All over again, he’s emotional.

“Go on, spit it out. What else’s the matter?” He asks.

“I just feel like I’ve been pissin’ you off all day and now I feel even more bad for makin’ you sit around like this when you clearly don’t wanna be here. Not to mention, everyone is so mean ‘round these parts…”

Sukuna pulls Megumi gently to sit in his lap, moving his legs to sit on top of the two of his own so that Megumi’s back is to Sukuna’s chest; it’s an all out maneuver to keep the boy’s attention on the crowd and not him. Or maybe, so he can hold him—if the tightening of his hold is anything to go by.

He exhales heavily through his nose, both palms flat to the Megumi’s exposed skin of his thigh then back up to his waist. Megumi feels him kiss the back of his neck in a butterfly-like softness; once, twice. Megumi leans back into him, where the kisses are pressed into the side of his neck next. The touches are uncaring of where they were and who they were yet somehow still indiscernible. Megumi sighs through a shiver.

“I’ll live. You should go dance though, we came all this way didn’t we?”

The sinking feeling Megumi gives Sukuna trouble— is trouble, despite all that he has assured him, creeps into his mind once more; the dread that maybe Sukuna doesn’t really want Megumi around but is making do because he is. It’s like concrete up to the heart that will drown it; the very hands of deceit breach the casting surface and scratch up the wall of his throat, wanting him to vomit.

It’s as Sukuna said, he really can’t do anything without him. But if anything, the least he can do is see to it that they’re always, always together. Always .

“Will you come with me?”

Sukuna kisses the skin of his neck again, placing his large hand on the entire expanse of Megumi’s lower stomach. “I don’t dance.”

“Please, it won’t be nearly as fun without you…” Megumi shifts.

Sukuna keeps his other hand on the side of Megumi’s thighs, rubbing him gently as he kisses his bicep next. “Remember what I told you this mornin’, sometimes you’ll have to do stuff alone. I’ll be right here watchin’ though.”

There’s another kiss to his clothed shoulder.

Electricity sparks a warm flame within him, like an instant cure of grace. He pushes back into Sukuna, pushing his ass over the man’s crotch with light pressure. It’s tempting, with his eyes flickering around, willing with his mind that everyone in the saloon but him and Sukuna, would vanish.

Though, he could ask him to just take him to the bathroom.

An image of himself bent over the sink with Sukuna pistoning into him with a lethal grip on his hips plays in his mind. Sukuna breaks the vision with the placement of his forearm across Megumi’s bare stomach.

“You promise?” Megumi whispers.

“Promise.”

It’ll be ok. Maybe you aren’t so mad, I need only ask for your hand and you’ll come with me. You must really love me!

Megumi turns to look over his shoulder, making it so his nose nearly brushes against Sukuna’s. He blinks once, watching Sukuna’s eyes move from his lips to his gaze.

Intuitively, they move into each other and share a tender kiss; it finds Megumi deep in his core with a testament to the promise; another between them interlinked. Damning his own inner monologue, he knows he can trust Sukuna with every word he says.

“Will you watch me from the side somewhere up there, then? Not back here?”

“If it’s what you want.”

Megumi turns to wrap his arms around Sukuna’s shoulders and swings his legs to hang over the side of Sukuna’s left leg, making it so he’s properly sat sideways on his lap.

“Please…”

It’s not a new move and not uncommon for Megumi to become emotional with Sukuna and he knew it too; he was right, telling Sukuna whatever was heavy on his heart helped but sometimes he couldn’t say it aloud in how he should.

“I’m so happy we get to do stuff together.” He says close to Sukuna’s ear, snuggling into his cheek.

With how Sukuna’s rubbing up and down his skin so tenderly Megumi knows if it weren’t for the music, he’d fall asleep. “Me too.”

“Are you happy?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” He huffs something of a chuckle at that.

“Dunno…you would tell me though, if you weren’t?”

“I think so.” Somehow, the responses have a clipped edge.

It’s the same question but with a new skin and still, the tone makes him sad. Megumi hugs him tighter. “I’m sorry.”

He’ll say it again and again, knowing he’s likely pushing it—dragging it now but the two words are ingrained into his instinct.

He hopes that Sukuna doesn’t despise him by the end of the night.

“What for?”

“You don’t like Yuuji all that much, do you?”

Megumi can feel Sukuna’s chest gently expand and release in an exhale as his hand doesn’t stop feeling over Megumi’s spine. “I don’t hate him if that’s what you’re askin’.”

“Will you ever tell me?” Megumi asks, pulling his face back to look at Sukuna.

Silent through the chorus of a song playing, Sukuna seems to think on it. “Not here.”

Though it’s no fun to wait and wonder, to be kept secret from Sukuna’s life he gets excited that he will eventually tell him.

“Ok.”

He turns his eye out to the crowd, watching as the room comes alive to the current song. It’s fast passed with the cadence dictating the speed and pattern of the lights above as they flash up around. People hoot and holler along, dancing proper on the floor and wherever else there’s open space.

( Oh Ruby, Ruby

Honey, are you mad at your man? )

Fully packed to the gunwales, the room is chaotic and rampant with even louder cheers than when they had walked in. A guy throws a girl over his shoulder, spinning her around as their friends laugh at the speed he picks up. Next to them, another guy see-saws a girl through his legs and up into his arms. It’s a madhouse with the smell of whiskey, cigarettes and the strongest IPA filling all five senses.

(I'm sittin' in the shade

Where I shovel with a spade

I'm diggin' in the ground's cold mine)

Megumi watches on in delight, looking from couple to couple, from middleman to girl group; completely awestruck by the glee of the man. It amazes him how the components of nightlife bring all sorts of walks of life together. Unknowing and uncaring where they came from, who they are, what they do and even what their name is.

It makes him feel oddly nostalgic for the moment despite still living in it. He turns to Sukuna again who's already looking at him.

He wonders what sight they must be, a real treat for the eye for a few reasons. Sukuna’s large frame casually sat back, a Mohair Sam as he is and in what he does, with Megumi, doll-like and docile, sitting so pretty upon his lap.

All while everyone else is up and moving.

“Is it killin’ you, the music I mean? I’ll stop talkin’ to you so you can join that other plug with the one you got in.” Megumi says, pushing back a loose strand from his hairline.

“I can put up with some banjo for you, sweetheart.”

Sukuna saying “banjo” and the sentiment itself helps him feel a little better.

“Wait, put your plugs in! I’ll say somethin’ and you try to guess what I say, ok?”

Sukuna lifts an eyebrow but gives into Megumi’s game. He puts the right plug back in, looking to Megumi to begin speaking. Megumi smiles and leans a little further back.

“Can you hear me?” He tries.

Sukuna searches around his face. “Barely.”

Megumi smiles, feeling a little mischievous. He brings both of his palms to Sukuna’s chest to lean ever closer.

“I love me some egg bread!” He giggles.

Megumi doesn’t think Sukuna has ever looked this cute , in his life; except maybe that first night he awoke on the chair back in his bedroom. When he least expects it, Megumi sees that his brown eyes can be gentle, especially this close up as he reticently watches Megumi’s mouth move before flickering his gaze back up.

“I left meemaw’s apron.” Sukuna guesses aloud.

Megumi nearly squeals out a laugh, wrapping around Sukuna’s shoulders in a hug. He isn’t sure if it's a guess or that Sukuna said “meemaw” .

“Not even close!” Detaching himself, he tries again. “We’ve been busy from cain’t see to cain’t see today!”

Sukuna’s right hand falls from his waist to cup at his ass, and his left comes to hook over his thigh. He stares again, stumped.

“Baby, I have no idea.”

Megumi kisses him again, smiling stupid. “You can do it!”

“Say it again.”

“We’ve been busy from cain’t see to cain’t see today!”

“Whatever person from Alaska can’t sing, can’t stay.”

Megumi tries to keep his laugh in, sucking both his lips into a tight line. Sukuna scrunches his brow in curiosity, chewing on his thoughts with the clenching of his jaw.

“Ok, last one,” Megumi says slowly, holding up his index finger. “I know you love me—like really , really love me. And I want to tell you, I love you too! So much!”

In the few daydreams Megumi has had, earlier at the gas station and again now wasn’t how he had pictured himself confessing to a monumental emotion. In fact, he had imagined it would have been some grand moment, as all moments have been between them so it feels like.

Although Sukuna had said it back, the feeling hasn’t yet sunk in or hit him as tidally it ought to but Megumi ascertains it’s because Sukuna needn’t say the three words aloud as the man showed him the unseen in all that he did and is.

God says that I should not lose heart. Though outwardly I am wasting away, inwardly I am being renewed with each passing day! Through all the momentary troubles that follow us along the way, we are achieving for us, together, an eternal glory that far outweighs it all! He says we ought to put our eyes not so much on what is seen, but rather on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is Eternal. Temporary we are to the flesh but your mind, Sukuna, is forever. ⁵

A slow smirk stretches across Sukuna’s lips, with just one of his cheeks dimpling, as takes out a plug. He pulls Megumi in for a kiss but not the innocent pecks they’ve been doing all night—it’s pointed, slow and heavy. Before he pulls away he swipes his tongue across Megumi’s and presses a kiss into the corner of his mouth.

He whispers, somehow loud enough even over the music to be heard. “You would talk and talk if I let you.”

As Sukuna’s Fisher, Megumi images himself transcending down from a mountain’s peak into the valley and a trough of trial. Cleared away is the dust and free is the heart to spread its wings. With Sukuna, he feels and exists so deeply. In a free fall, it speaks when it and how it wants. Deeper and deeper still in love all over again with each kiss.

“You didn’t guess!” Megumi pouts weakly.

“Did I get either of the first two right?”

Megumi blinks, laying his head down to Sukuna’s collar bone with a soft giggle. “No.”

“Thought so.”

The sound of glass smacking down onto the tabletop hard enough to send liquid trickling over the lip of the glass interrupts the moment. Yuuji whistles, letting out an excited whoop before taking a seat across from them.

“Boy, that line went all the way to Timbuktu and back !” He laughs. "But if I'd known you two love birds would have preferred to cuddle up all night I would have found myself a crossword puzzle while I was at it!”

Megumi feels lighter at the teasing because yes, we are love birds. He leans in to kiss along the one of the jagged scars that runs down Sukuna’s cheek, happily ignoring Yuuji to shower Sukuna in as much affection as he can before getting hot and bothered.

“He’s just so handsome though, can you blame me?” Megumi squashes their faces together to look at Yuuji as one.

“Please, spare me the thought.” Yuuji looks away dramatically. “Anyway, ‘brought y’all some water just in case y’all go as crazy as me out there!”

“Thank you kindly!” Megumi says, leaning over over to grab a glass. He brings it up to Sukuna’s lips first to ask if he’d like a sip or not.

Sukuna takes a hold of it from Megumi and tips it back to take a few slow sips but Megumi still keeps his hand around it, waiting until Sukuna passes the glass back to him to give him a quick peck; he can’t be assed to care at how all-over Sukuna he can be.

Yuuji clears his throat, scratching at the back of his neck. “Sukuna, you dancin’?”

The look Sukuna gives him is insensate.

“Just askin’!” Yuuji throws his hands up again, a seemingly repetitive gesture he does when speaking to him. “Anyhow, love hour’s over, let’s go tear up that dance floor!”

“Let’s see who's the goodest dancer of us two, shall we?!” Megumi riles.

“You’re on!”

Megumi gives Sukuna one last kiss before getting up to his feet, taking a quick sip before slipping around the curve of the table to stand closer to Yuuji.

Megumi feels happier than he was moments before. He tells himself that if Sukuna were really miserable, he wouldn’t have let them come this far to begin with. And he wouldn’t be so happy to indulge Megumi in the way he does. He turns to Sukuna quickly.

“You’re gonna watch me still, right?!”

Sukuna puts the silicone plug back into his ear, moving to stand up with a nod.

“This hoedown ain’t ready for us and if that ain’t a fact, God’s a possum!” Yuuji shouts.

They’re like two kids, running through a field without the worry for ticks and fueled by the pollen they kick up. It’s a race to see who’s the most excited to dig their heels into the ground. Megumi looks back once to make sure Sukuna was still on their tail and sure enough, when he saw that he was, he moved a high-tail faster in glee.

When they get to the floor, they catch the tail end of the song Any Man of Mine by Shania Twain, just as it’s finishing up. Empowered by its exiting stomp and clap filled beat, Yuuji hops up to grab onto one of the large wooden beams that holds the place up and swings around it with ease. Like a sailor at sea ready to shout “Land ho!” .

“Woooooooweee!” Is what he howls instead.

Megumi watches him with a smile that gleams under the lights, captivated by his energy—and some girls around him seem to feel the same; though, much more charmed. Watching them watch him, there in a sea of a thousand colours and stories, he falls into melancholy. He thinks that he should have sat back with Sukuna instead as he sinks into that new boot feeling: where either he gets on with the excitement or drowns in the doubt of an oncoming blister.

He stands there as hoards of people scuttled around his skinny body, like school fish in open water. Yuuji jumps down from his perch and takes Megumi’s wrist to take them forward where they make their way to somewhere to the front of the pack; in their own space without disrupting whatever groups were already banded together.

Suddenly, the next song kicks off with a c scale doubled off a guitar in the E major, a glorious strum that rolls into a moderate shuffle. It takes all of ten seconds for the whole room to burst in another sonic boom of bellows with boots stomping in unison.

“You know this one?” Yuuji holds onto the top of his hat, tapping his heels into the floor.

Megumi nods eagerly, falling immediately into line off to Yuuji’s left and on the outer rim of the large group of people around them.

(Out in the country past the city limit sign

Well, there’s a honky tonk near the county line!)

Megumi and Yuuji grapevine to the right, taking two steps with their feet in a glide to end the sequence with a clap, repeating the motion to their left effortlessly. Yuuji’s looking down at Megumi with a bright smile. Meeting his eye, Megumi is struck with the feeling he’s peering at the rippled image of Sukuna. A mirror’s reaping of God’s eye.

Does Sukuna see himself in you and you, him?

The melancholy returns, compelling him to whip his head back over to the far left, scanning over the room only for a second before finding Sukuna’s head above the mass of moving bodies. The saying was true, those who could be picked out of the crowd, could. Sukuna was living proof of it. He was the indelible answer of a blue’s guitar in an empty room.

(The joint starts jumpin' every night when the sun goes down!)

Sukuna is, very casually and subtly, leaned up against one of the large posts that frames the edge of the dancefloor. Ever the tall glass of water. It makes Megumi blush, filled with a warm joy that Sukuna kept his word and even moved closer than originally agreed on.

He just hopes nobody tries to talk to the man.

(They got whiskey, women, music, and smoke,)

Megumi imitates roping a lasso overhead thrice with his hand sitting deep into the sunken dip of his waist; the silliness of the dance move makes him laugh while simultaneously giving him confidence of a pageant queen with each step.

(It's where all the cowboy folk go to boot scootin' boogie.)

Yuuji hits every move, more than entertained with the song and the next move of four consecutive hops backwards. Their bodies twist midair at the hip, landing in a near zig-zag pattern but masterfully remaining in streamline position from where they started.

“You’re a natural Megumi!” Yuuji’s voice clips over the break in the lyrics.

In unison, the two boys kick their right foot out twice as they stand on the left before switching and mirroring the movement all the same with their left. It’s all repeated again with only one kick with each leg that second time through.

Megumi feels every inch of his body loosen, like his muscles were a dormant curse long ignored until a tomb raider shook them up. Already, the delight of sweat buds from below to gloss over his skin; as he flicks his head around, he feels his hair growing damp with it too.

He feels free.

(I've got a good job, I work hard for my money

When it's quittin' time I hit the door runnin’,)

Megumi brings his airborne left foot down to the wood, sugarfooting his right over to join it—bringing him squarely face to face with Sukuna. He doesn’t see but hears Yuuji heel click in place of the choreography shuffle; like a tomcat let loose in the fish market, he’s high on the hunt. He spins once and hollers higher than before, clapping to the beat despite it not being part of the routine at that specific part.

( I fire up my pickup truck and let the horses run

I go flyin' down that highway to that hide-a-way

Stuck out in the woods to do the boot scootin' boogie!)

The entire sequence starts over again, phasing into the second pass of the four-walled dance. Megumi dips into each movement with just the perfect amount of verve, the taunt skin of his stomach glistens underneath his crop top as he pendulates to the strum of the guitar. They jump into another grapevine that takes them right once more, clicking into the beat with the song as it blares through the speakers.

(Yeah, heel, toe, do-si-do come on baby let's go boot scootin',)

Face to face with him now, Megumi pretends he’s dancing for Sukuna and Sukuna only. It’s exhilarating to think of himself as the apple of his eye, especially when he isn’t looking at anything other other than Megumi. With his hands crossed over his chest now Sukuna’s as still as a marmoreal figure; as feted as that lost at Rhodes.

(Oh Cadillac blackjack, baby meet me outback we're gonna boogie

Oh get down, turn around, go to town, boot scootin' boogie!)

He points down to the floor, ignoring the soft twinge of his right arm under the gauze and instead feels the needle of Sukuna’s eye drag down his body, circling his navel above the trim of his denim. It’s a newer song, already showing signs as a hit for the summer and the coming into of a country classic and Megumi lets his body drop into every note.

With his ear plugs he knows Sukuna can’t hear the rhythm of the music or much of it, so it won’t matter if his movements are a little more sensual than necessary for the beat. With another lasso move he makes sure to roll his hips with purpose, smiling from ear to ear as he spots the delectation that flashes across Sukuna’s face.

Like a dog with two tails, Megumi blows him a kiss.

Yuuji’s talking to Megumi again through another pause of the chorus, trying to get him to answer a question but Megumi barely catches the last few words. They are spinning into the final minute of the song, both breaking even more of a visible sweat when Yuuji spins on his heel to complete the last sequence facing Megumi, noticing his expression that calls for some clarification.

“I said, I need me another drink! What do you say we head over to the bar after this next song?”

“What? We’re barely gettin’ started!” Megumi kicks out his foot, feeling the subtle recoil of his thigh as he shakes his hip side to side.

“And we’ll be here a lot longer yet! We’ll need that sweet release to keep goin’!”

Megumi shakes his head with a smile, admiring Yuuji’s aptitude for fun. The crowd sends the song off with a unified howl, distracting Megumi for the second Yuuji steps closer to him, reaching down for his wrist again when the next song shuffles through the queue. Yuuji must recognize it right off the rip of the first note, pulling Megumi even closer in towards his own chest on beat.

His hand lands on Megumi’s lower hip, twirling him in a clean circle under the mistletoe of his closed fist.

“They’re playin' all the barnburners tonight!”

The touch almost busts Megumi's neck like a bobblehead on a spring, spurring him into an unexplainable swivet but he tries quickly to quell it. He doesn’t want to think it but he considers that while Yuuji is a nice boy and seemingly harmless, Megumi doesn’t really know him—so the frequent touches as they were, were becoming jolting.

But, never knowing how to react other than to take it, Megumi allows himself to be spun again and dropped into a dip where Yuuji drags his palm on the underside of his milky thigh, keeping it pressed into his skin until it reaches the back of his knee. He looks up wide-eyed into Yuuji’s, watching the brown of his iris glow bright as the lights burn white; even under the lineament of his hat.

Not long enough to process it, he’s pulled up to stand from the middle of his back. Yuuji steps around to handle him in an outside turn across his larger body. He totters his smaller body back, successfully blocking his view of Sukuna. Megumi doesn’t recognize the speed he moves at in an effort to reverse their positions, holding onto Yuuji’s hand in a tight grip hoying himself forward. He fakes Yuuji out in his second attempt to twirl him, ignoring the swipe of his clammy palm across his back.

(Bubba shot the jukebox last night

Said it played a sad song it made him cry,)

Yuuji looks over Megumi’s head and his grin of happiness falls for a split second. Without needing to turn around Megumi knows with certainty it’s Sukuna who he’s looking at. Megumi takes Yuuji’s distraction as a chance to take another step back, at arm’s length this time, masking it under an improvised twist of a move.

(Went to his truck and got a forty five

Bubba shot the jukebox last night.)

He clicks his heels once, putting himself in line with the people around him and looks subsequently at Yuuji who brushes off the change of position with ease. Without flinching he mirrors the same movement, swiveling and stepping in a line for five counts.

Megumi breathes easier, back to a sense of comfort in being in Sukuna’s direct line of vision. He turns around to face him again, uncaring that it places him out of pattern with everyone else but it didn’t matter, he knew this dance better than any.

“You’re facin’ the wrong way!” Yuuji laughs.

“I know!” Megumi shoots over his shoulder, running his hands down the sides of himself.

Megumi remembers vividly standing in front of Nobara’s stereo, practicing and practicing until their legs gave out. It was ironically the first ever line dance he had ever learned, as Nobara said ‘ it was the easiest ’ after she had learned it from a TV special.

Naturally she had sworn once they were of age and had the money, they’d step into the saloons with the glitz and glamour of A-list celebrities and gun-slinging rough riders; taking their talents all the way to Nashville.

It was sheer childhood whimsy.

Though, Megumi was happy to play into her fictions, as any means to get out and let loose was enough incentive for him to tag along.

With the memories intercalated with the here and now, Megumi adds a variation to the simple patterned steps by swaying his hips forward with his thumbs through his belt loop, pursing his lips in a mock gesture of another kiss to Sukuna. From lidded eyes, he eyed Megumi raptly; his cheek dimpling ever so at the surfacing of a smirk.

Megumi was vindicated for the uncountable time that without a shadow of a doubt he could only ever have eyes for Sukuna in this life and every one after.

“Told him "Don't play dumb with us, son ’know damn well what the charge is! " Yuuji sings loudly along with the lyrics, rolling his neck on a loose swivel.

He leaps up beside Megumi and gets lost in the choreography, softly hopping around in the small space of his shoulder width stance with twirls of his own. Stepping hard, heel clicking, stepping hard again—he’s a cyclone with the motion of his body; gliding across the floor in a cadence of front to back, heel to toe to drop into a dip.

And he whistles and whistles, leading more with his hips as the beat picks up again into the chorus. There’s a short girl behind him, spinning over her own shoes to keep up with him despite how simple the movements are. The kind of guy Yuuji seems to be Megumi thinks he’d turn around and help her if he saw the sorry state she was in but he seems all too focused on Megumi to see anyone else.

They dance on for another three songs, almost for another half hour, blissfully sweating the night away. When the final chords of Pure Love by Ronnie Milsap flow through the speaker, Yuuji comes in closer to Megumi again, fingers brushing against the skin of his elbow. He takes his hat off and smooths the sweaty hair back from flat under the felt.

“You looked amazin’! Let’s go on and grab those drinks now?”

“O-ok, let me just ask Sukuna first.”

Yuuji sputters, a jumble of garbled words to get Megumi to reconsider but a quick thing, Megumi’s bounding over to Sukuna who calmly pulls away from the beam to stand up straight, pulling out one of the red ear plugs.

Seeing his face, closer now and within arm’s reach, Megumi is overcome with elation.

“I saw you watchin’! Did I do good?” Megumi breathlessly squeaks, throwing his arms around Sukuna’s neck.

He’s self conscious that he's sweaty but giggling, high off adrenaline and the happiness of being close again to Sukuna, he hardly cares.

“Real good.” He says gently.

Megumi tries to climb Sukuna a little, squeeing.

“Yuuji is goin’ to the bar to get some more water, do you want anythin’?”

Sukuna’s holding him by the hips, turning them around so his back is facing the crowd. Megumi stands atop Sukuna’s boots without thinking but Sukuna doesn’t seem to mind.

“I’m fine, baby,” He lowers Megumi back down, keeping both hands on his hip. “Yuuji botherin’ you any?”

It's an innocent question, one not worth noting Yuuji’s subtle but not so subtle passes at him. They weren’t odd as much as they were innocuous. Yuuji was innocuous. So he decides against mentioning it.

“No,” He hugs Sukuna's waist, turning his face to press his cheek into his chest with a sigh. “He’s bein’ real nice.”

He holds Megumi a little tighter. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.”

Megumi is made to look up by Sukuna’s finger titling his chin up. He studies him as silently as mayfly; adamantly too. “And your arm?”

There’s only one LED light that is behind where they stand, through dispensation it flattens across Sukuna’s chest like an ‘X’, passing from his shoulder down to his hip and across again on the other side. Only once does it glide over his face, when the light is red, casting the scarred side of him pyrexical.

In a flash of a thought, Megumi thinks it feels like a warning.

“It doesn’t hurt, no. But I want to sit with you now, I’m done dancin’.”

“Are you alright?”

“Mhm, just gettin’ tired now.”

Sukuna stifles a smile, breathing through his nose. “Go get your water then—and be quick, or I’ll come over there and get you.”

“I will!” Megumi jumps to give him a pecking kiss before sleuthing around him.

He’s parting through the crowd on his way to Yuuji when a group of three girls, two blonde—one with a short, bleach and blunt cut—and one with hair as obsidian as his own, form a walled barrier right in the middle of his path. They smell sweet like patchouli and brown sugar, all rail thin with deep-set tans and blaring mascara. One of the girls, the dark haired one shrieks, grabbing onto Megumi’s wrist with an unthreatening grip; in the blink of an eye they’re surrounding him like vultures.

She starts to jump and down, her white teeth vibrant through the layer of gloss over her lips as her mouth hangs out. A chewed up wad of gum, lime green, sits at the top of her molar as she speaks.

“You are soooo pretty, I saw you from across the room and had to come tell you!”

“We saw you dancin’ and about lost our damn minds! For a minute there I didn’t think you were real” One of the blondes shouts, milliseconds after the first girl finished her sentence.

“Oh, uh, thank you!” He breathes out shyly.

“Sorry we are like, so hammered right now but this is the truth! We’d never lie” The bleach blonde giggles.

The first blonde nods in agreement, taking the straw hat from her head and placing it on top of Megumi’s. “I’m crownin’ you Rodeo Queen! It dudn’t get any sexier than you! You had all eyes on you tonight baby!”

“Oh, I can’t take this, I–”

“Keep it,” The dark haired girl, her eyes light blue, says, holding both of Megumi’s hands. “It’s our tradition here, to pass a hat off to the finest dancer of the night. You earned it!”

“Thank you.” He replies, flushed pink with happiness. He couldn’t wait to run back to tell Sukuna.

The three girls stick their tongues out in some variation of a pose, definitely drunk enough to do something that makes no sense before they all walk past him and into the mass of the dancefloor.

Megumi holds his hand to the hat gingerly, running his finger nails over the scratchy material. The interaction, as bizarre as it was, waters his faith in thinking the day was really looking up.

He meets Yuuji halfway from the bar in a skip.

“I just saw that girl give you her hat, that was sweet!” Yuuji laughs, likely speaking before thinking. “Didn’t think it was possible for you to get any better lookin’!”

The sudden admission makes Yuuji clear his throat, another habit of his, to regain himself with another stretch of the lips cheek to cheek.

“Anyhow, do you drink?”

“I have but I was never allowed to. And don’t regularly, I mean.”

“Do you want one?”

Megumi stops thinking, looking into Yuuji, waiting for the boot to drop on the joke.

“It’s alright, I have a fake ID! I turn 21 next year so it’s super believable!”

Megumi’s expression must show his doubt as Yuuji tries again.

“C’mon.” He whispers, giving him a wink.

Hesitantly, Megumi follows him up to the bar where they lean over the honey-coloured wood looking for a bartender to grab on one far end. Its lamination collects the colours of the lights, condensation of the rainbow of drinks and the countless dents made by God knows what in cinematic ease.

As lovely as it might be to other patrons, Megumi can’t tell if it's sticky or if the height of it is too tall or too short or if the man standing behind him is all too close.

“Excuse me?”

They both turn to their left, eyeing a taller woman with large breasts and cascading platinum blonde hair that falls down her back. She’s in a low cut and cropped white tank top underneath a denim vest. The red of her lips look untouched, puckered and glistening as she purses them at Yuuji.

Her skin is the first tell tale sign of her age. Certainly, she’s beautiful in a duppy kind of way with her sheet-white hue but the frown lines of her face as well as the craggy skin around her chest suggest she’s middle aged at the very least.

“Hi.” She blinks slowly, looking Yuuji up and down.

“Hi!” He answers back, stupidly cherry.

“You, young man, are very handsome. Don’t tell me your friend here is the one rockin’ your socks off tonight?”

The blush that falls over Yuuji is almost cartoonish. His mouth flaps open as his hands hold onto the trim of the bar, looking to his right at Megumi and then her again.

“Wha-n-no! He’s just a friend!”

If it weren’t for Yuuji’s earlier passes he’d say the response would be believable, especially from her point of view but he knows better; he’d venture to guess the idea of sleeping with Megumi is really what is making him short circuit.

Megumi gives him a reassuring smile, trying to alleviate the situation and make it less serious than she’s already imposed. He breaks their eye contact to look back at the woman, realizing then that not once does she really look over to him.

It’s more than evident she’s on a mission to rock Yuuji’s cradle.

“Well, let me order y’all somethin’. What are you boys feelin’?”

“Oh uh,” Yuuji looks at Megumi in question. “What are we havin’?”

Megumi only stares, struck silly.

“Uh, I’ll just tell her what you want, ok?” Yuuju whispers under his breath, catching on.

“Ok!” Megumi answers equally as quiet, catching the shimmering sliver of her dark eyes as she tries to peer over Yuuji’s shoulder.

Yuuji turns to her, suave-inspired. “I’ll have a Rum and co*ke and he’ll have a Paloma.”

“Oh,” She coos. “I like a man that drinks his darks, and aged .”

Megumi listens to her and thanks every star on the spangled banner that Sukuna is nowhere this dorky. Or desperate.

The Cougar looks to the bartender, tucking a hair behind her ear. “You heard the man. And you can put it on my tab, they’re with me.”

With a glass in hand, the bartender turns and starts rubbing the inside with a white dish rag before discarding it and reaching for a rotund bottle of dark liquor. He scans over Yuuji’s boyish grin and model-like lashes with a squint—full of either skepticism or jealousy but whatever it is, it’s almost comical.

“Comin’ right up.” He finally huffs, ducking at the knee to grab a glass from below.

Yuuji turns to The Cougar. “Gee, you’re awful nice! Thank you!”

“Don’t mention it.” She’s twirling a long strand around her finger, giving Yuuji bedroom eyes as he looks back over to Megumi.

“I’m Yuuji by the way and this is Megumi.”

“Mhm. How old are you?” She asks Yuuji.

Megumi checks out of the conversation to fade into the soft glow of the bar’s wall of liquor. His eye jumps from bottle to bottle, scanning each for the most expensive looking one and then the coolest looking one; wondering which of them Sukuna would like most.

Something to pass the time while they talk and he waits.

“Your Paloma.” The bartender puts a pink drink ahead of him, complete with a slice of grapefruit. It’s a feathery shade of orange, with a hint of foamed rim around the inside of the glass and glass crystals around the rim.

It’s really pretty and catches Megumi just right to ignore the fact it is alcohol.

“Thank you,” Megumi takes a hold of it, watching as Yuuji is handed his. The Cougar looks pleased, watching Yuuji go in for a quick sip. “And thank you again.”

The Cougar slides her finger down Yuuji’s arm, dragging her sharp, red nails over the skin just beneath the sleeve cap of his shirt. Still, she’s not paying Megumi any attention; not that it bothers him anyway. He takes a small sip of the Paloma, immediately scrunching his face at the taste. But curiously, he takes another full sip, tipping the glass a little farther back to get more of the pulp.

“Well, we ought to get goin’,” Yuuji places his hands on his hips in a pose. “My brother’s the type to find my skull with his fist if we venture far out of his sight for too long!”

Megumi turns without another cue more, sipping still on his drink, hoping it’ll taste less sour the more he sips at it. He waits until he’s a bushel of people away from the bar to turn and see if Yuuji follows and sure enough, the 6’2” bundle of fireworks comes forth holding his drink over the heads of those he walks past.

Watching the scene, he’s struck with another thought. If things were different, would this be Sukuna who was up at the bar with him?

Thinking about him, he can’t run back to the man any faster.

The two return to the table on a broom, Yuuji floating into his chair and Megumi setting his drink down before falling into Sukuna’s lap.

“We lived!” Exclaims Yuuji, taking a large swig. “But, we didn’t get you anything Sukuna, sorry. Megumi didn’t mention anythin’ and well, hell if I know what you like.”

Whiskey, Megumi thinks. It’s what he had earlier.

“I didn’t want anythin’.” For the first time of the day, he speaks to Yuuji in a gentle tone. They look at each other for a moment before Yuuji tears his eyes away to nod.

Megumi turns to rub his hand over the sleeve of Sukuna’s shirt, down to the scarred skin and up again. He scratches at the short hairs of his head, examining him with kind eyes. “Can I turn around again, and sit facin’ forward?” He asks softly.

“You can do whatever you want, baby.”

He turns around with a soft yip, taking the hat off the girls gave him and leaning back onto Sukuna’s chest with his head resting along one shoulder. Sukuna kisses Megumi’s neck as Megumi looks off to the side, noticing an older man giving them a glare. .

“Where did you get the hat?” Sukuna asks softly.

Megumi puts his small hand over Sukuna’s as it holds him over his abdomen, rubbing it absentmindedly.

“Some girls, they stopped and told me they thought I was pretty.”

“Hm.”

Megumi reaches for his drink, thinking…again.. the taste would be different.

“Do you want any?” He partially turns, holding it until Sukuna takes a full hold.

He takes a relaxed sip, edging the rim of the glass just past his lips. Megumi’s looking off again, this time at the group of girls who gave him the hat, giving them a smile as they point to him with a fourth girl. The four of them make all sorts of sweet gestures of admiration like making hearts with their fingers or a thumbs up. He’s distracted by it until Sukuna speaks again.

“Megumi, did you order this?”

Megumi thinks about his tone—how he calls him by his name before talking hard to him. His eyes meet Yuuji’s as he catches on too. Again, not wanting to give any more reason to not stoke the fire between the brothers, he inaccurately recites the order of events.

“No, this lady at the bar did.”

Sukuna’s eyes slide over to Yuuji in a dark crawl.

“What lady?”

“Some cougar, she was nice but k—.”

“I don’t want you drinkin’ this.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

Megumi turns his head to look back, slightly fretful he’s gone and dug the well anyway.

“Ok, m’sorry…”

Sukuna leans forward to return the glass to the table, sliding his palm down to Megumi’s lower back. It follows the curve of his hip until the tips of his fingers push back into his stomach.

“You can have juice baby, just no alcohol.” He gently wipes the salted crystals from Megumi’s lips.

Yuuji sits up straighter, his blurred body in the background of the moment is vetted by a bright, metaphoric spotlight Megumi sees in his mind shining down on Sukuna.

“You said you don’t drink regularly but have before, I didn’t mean—” He tries to lean to his side to see more of Megumi’s face.

“Why are you takin’ sh*t from strangers?” Sukuna’s voice is stern.

“I didn’t know it would be a big deal!” He sounds slightly scared, like a child being scolded. “Like Megumi said, a lady got it for us—for me! She was hittin’ on me!” He corrects himself.

“And you took it?”

“Why wouldn’t I?!”

Sukuna huffs out a chuff exhale deep in his throat. Megumi follows with a hiccup, leaning back in some sort of apology. He spares Yuuji another glance, assuming based on the boy’s expression he too is waiting on a nerve for what Sukuna has to say next.

“And you drank half of this?” He asks Megumi.

“I-I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to...”

“Get up.”

Megumi’s voice is small. “Did I do somethin’ wrong?”

“Wait, what’s happenin’?” Yuuji looks back and forth between them.

“We’re goin’ outside.”

“No way you’re pissin’ out the fire and callin’ the dogs home already—we just got here!”

Sukuna’s standing with his hand to the back of Megumi’s neck, looking down at Yuuji. “I’m not arguin’.”

“Well, I’m drivin’ and I’d like to finish my drink.”

Megumi isn’t sure where Yuuji’s sudden defiance comes from but he’s suddenly fearful for the other boy; it was truthfully scary how quickly Sukuna could go from calm to cruel.

“Say that sentence again, but aloud and slower .”

Megumi didn’t know much about drinking and driving or how much alcohol it would take to cause an issue but he figured more than anything, that was what Sukuna was meaning.

Yuuji seems stumped as the words hit him slowly. “Ok, yeah—I get what you’re puttin’ down. I’m sorry, this was real dumb of me. I just wanted to have fun, I would never purposely put y’all in danger like that.”

“I know you didn’t mean nothin’ by it.” Megumi adds softly.

Sukuna’s voice is gruff and dismissive. “Nobody died but I don’t need you either of you bein’ stupid.”

Both Yuuji and Megumi hang their metaphorical heads, looking down to the carpet dotted with peanut shavings and leftover liquor. As scary as being scolded was, Megumi was happy that Sukuna hadn’t at least exploded on Yuuji.

Yuuji puts his hand to the top of the table. “Are we really leavin’ though?”

“Yes.”

Reluctantly, Yuuji sighs and fits his hat to the top of his head. “Well, ‘suppose there’s always tomorrow! Y’all are comin’ right? It starts at 6PM at the Garden of Eve Arena. I could give y’all the VIP experience backstage!”

“Don’t hold your breath, kid.”

Yuuji looks crestfallen, taking to his feet with another sigh. He doesn’t bother with the rum—not to dump it or to take one last sip. Instead, he turns on his heel without response, and walks toward the entry with a sullen gait.

“You don’t have to be so mean…” Megumi says as they follow after him.

Sukuna takes his hand off the back of Megumi’s neck carefully, moving it at a snail’s pace to slide it down to his lower back. Megumi feels the slight pressure of his palm pushing him forward but it's the lack of Sukuna’s response that gets his legs moving. They’re halfway past the bar and a diagonal shot from the restroom when Megumi feels the knot in his stomach.

Yuuji’s at the secondary set of doors, waiting until they’re closer before pushing the door open and holding it for them to walk through. It’s silent, not out of awkwardness but out of consequence of the two liveliest of the trio falling sullen.

“Well, despite steerin’ right into the iceberg I sure had a good time! I hope y’all did too!”

Something about Yuuji’s purity, his very disposition despite Sukuna’s, makes Megumi want to cry. He seems like a boy who rides a dead horse to the bottom of the river without regret, happy even when the sun doesn’t shine. And although his comments and demeanor at times was inappropriate, he was a good person by heart—that much was limpid.

“I did, thank you for invitin’ us. I think we all needed that.”

Yuuji turns to Megumi, looking past Sukuna to give him an appreciative smile. One of the lot lights paints the front of his face in a mellowed hue of yellow. “I’d say so.”

Under the darkening sky, they get into the truck and make the drive back to Looper’s. The radio stays off and the windows, up; though Megumi isn’t so sure for how long the air hangs dead between them. Out of nowhere his eyes draw heavily, quickly berthing to shut. Not one to fight the pull of a good night’s rest or a nap, he gives in.

Just before slipping fully away, he hears the muffled sound of Yuuji and Sukuna speaking, Sukuna says something about “ last time ” and the rest fades into utter gibberish; as if heard from another room.

From an originally upright position, Megumi sways into the mass of Sukuna’s chest in a slump, opening and closing his eyes to the blur of the lights. He watches them fade out into larger bulbs and a vision of gaussian edges, lulled to the point he doesn’t notice the drab of drool that’s sliding out from the corner of his mouth.

Yuuji drives them back to where they originally waited out in front of Looper’s , or so Megumi surmises as the truck comes to a complete stop. He hears Yuuji and Sukuna exchange another brief couple of words, Yuuji of course speaking the most. He’s woken up with a warm hand to his cheek, cupping his head closer and up with a tilt.

“Wake up.” Sukuna’s voice rasps, pulling him from the dark curtain.

The door handle pops, pushing the door open in a low unoiled screak. From the warmth of Sukuna’s arm and chest Megumi looks out to see the parking lot now dimly lit and the sky a sinking sapphire. Sukuna steps out onto the concrete, freeing Megumi to lay against the seat in a smooth transition.

“Kuna’, m’tired.”

“I know, baby.” Sukuna reaches to pick Megumi up, lifting him from behind his knee cap in an easy swoop—draped over Sukuna like a rag, Megumi feels his body grow heavier and heavier. The door closes and they move.

Another door opens and he’s put into another cabin—Sukuna’s truck. Sukuna pulls the seatbelt over him, clicking it into place quietly. Megumi keeps his eyes shut, giving into the slow asphyxiation of alcohol. It had only been less than a quarter of it, or something but he could feel it ruining his body from the inside out. Though the black veil of forty winks with Sukuna near seemed to calm the fire at his temple.

Megumi thinks he must have whined aloud or Sukuna has the power to read his mind when he pushes his hair back and kisses his forehead before shutting the door. Soon after Megumi is out cold until it opens again later, like jumping with warp speed he goes from one point to another. This time Sukuna doesn’t say anything in pulling him from the seat and bringing him into the house.

Upon finally opening his eyes, enough to be functionally cognisant, he finds himself in the dining room sitting in one of the chairs with a bowl of soup in front him.

He’s kissed on his cheekbone and spoken to softly, blinking himself from the grog.

“Eat.” Sukuna says.

The soup is filled with lentils, bell peppers, carrots, corn, onion and bits of chicken breast. A quick but homemade meal, one of the best kinds to share except Sukuna leaves Megumi in the kitchen to eat all by his lonesome.

Beauty queen all too familiar with beauty's rest, he’s finally awake enough to coherently understand his surroundings wholly.

Megumi watches Sukuna’s shirtless form retreat without blinking, counting the seconds it takes before he comes back but he never does. His chest feels a little heavy; feeling as if all his suspicions from earlier were confirmed. He had angered him. He did something. It was all his fault. He ruined it. Him .

“Sukuna?” He calls out.

He waits, and waits.

Not wanting to worsen the situation, he takes his spoon in hand with a sniffle, stirring the soup slowly. Each bite is tentative and heavy hearted—completely lacking in his usual appetite for Sukuna’s cooking. Silently blowing over each spoonful through blurred vision, it slowly dawns on him where his tears fall as the broth gets saliter and saliter.

When he finishes, placing the bowl into the sink, he drags himself quietly to their bedroom. There he sees Sukuna sitting on his side of the bed, looking down to his lap, facing the bay window; but the curtains aren’t drawn.

“Sukuna?”

“Come here.”

So Megumi does. He steps over to the end of the comforter, watching Sukuna’s gaze remain frozen to the floor. There’s a phantasm at his own back, compelling him to step closer. Shaking, he moves to stand in front of Sukuna; looking at the crown of his hair, lightly tousled.

“If I tell you to do somethin’, you’ll listen, right?” His voice is low, gentle. He reaches for Megumi’s hand to turn over, running his thumb over the skin of his palm.

“Yes.” Megumi sniffles. “Did I do—somethin’ to upset you?”

It’s silent. No answer. Megumi watches him reach for the button of his shorts, undoing it. Pressing his thumb into the flesh revealed, he speaks. “Take these off. All of it.”

Megumi starts with his shirt, sliding his arm through the right sleeve slowly but still manages to get his arm almost stuck between his ribs and the sleeve hole. He’s nervous. Shakingly, he passes the fabric over his face and lifts it overhead, aware that Sukuna is watching him directly.

Although he isn’t sure of the moment—of why Sukuna is so eerily silent, he feels a comfort looking into his eyes. He tells himself it's the mirroring of each other’s adoration that he finds without really having to look.

Throwing away his own command, Sukuna takes both of his hands to Megumi’s hips, gently guiding him closer still. He unzips his shorts, sliding them over the width of his hips until they fall to the ground on their own. Megumi steps out of them, sighing softly at the kiss Sukuna places on his stomach.

He kisses up and up—stopping at the center of his sternum.

Sukuna’s fingers hook into the cotton of his panties, pulling them down slowly—so slowly Megumi shivers in anticipation. Unsure of what he might say or do next, he gives into the chilling sensation. Truthfully, he’s scared but not so much that he can't move. When he’s freed of his undergarments he puts his hands over Sukuna’s shoulders.

Sukuna’s hands move from his hips to the back of his thighs to lift him forward into his lap, splaying Megumi wide open over his thighs. Immediately, he starts to kiss Megumi's neck, wet and painfully slow—lapping at an imaginary drip of syruped Sorghum.

“I almost killed you that first night we met, you know that? I wanted to crush your throat so you couldn’t scream,” Sukuna’s hand replaces his lips over Megumi’s throat. “It don’t matter anymore, but I thought about it baby, I did. I was so close to doin’ it but then I got a real look at you—”

Megumi shivers in his hold, closing his eyes to the confession, almost in disbelief; ever so weak to him that his arms hang limply over his shoulder still, linked feebly behind his head.

“What things desire makes a man do.” He sucks on a patch of his collar bone.

He stands up, hulling Megumi up with him and turning him around to lay him on his back to the bed. “I’m not above it baby—any of it.”

Megumi looks up, frozen in the shell of his own skin and bones. Sukuna’s words feel somehow clear yet obscure. Hidden behind the shield of shrubbery, he feels like watched game, on the precipice of being spared or being slaughtered. The room is so black dark that even after the few minutes it should take for his eyes to adjust, they don’t. If he were to hold his own hand out in front of him, he wouldn’t be able to make out the lines of fingernails, only the vague shapes and outlines he conjures in his mind. It’s like the morning all over again: where he can’t see Sukuna, he feels him.

“But in keepin’ with bein’ honest with you angel, I didn’t like earlier.”

“I d—”

“Ah, ah. I’m speakin’,” He pushes Megumi’s dark hair from his face. “Just listen, alright?”

He runs his palm up his side, eyeing the milk white valley of his body from his puss* to the notch of his collarbone—it’s beauty in being unmarked and aglow in the night.

“I allowed it only because I love you. I see it now, baby. And I’m not so mad anymore. I love you above anythin’ and I’d do anythin’ for you. All I’ve said to you before now, I told you meant it. Can’t you see? You make everythin’ all better.”

Megumi swallows around a bulb of air, laying as still as Sukuna speaks. His c*nt however, aches; pulsing even before it's properly taken care of.

“I wish I could play the thoughts in my mind out loud for you,” Sukuna grips on either side of Megumi’s waist, teasing with his clothed and fully hardened co*ck against Megumi’s welling folds. “The world’s on fire, a vision of tomorrow ain’t nothin’ unless you’re there. You. ”

He brings his body down, moving his hands on either side of Megumi’s face; he swoops low to kiss Megumi’s cheek, tantalizing sweet. Weaker still, Megumi leans into it. Enough adrenaline pumps through the runnels of his body to indolently ignore anything other than how good he feels.

“I get real weak for you. You’re a sweet thing—sweet as can be.” Sukuna puts their foreheads together, in purity that even the gesture basally cannot capture. Instantly, it sends Megumi into the spirit of a Holy Roller.

There’s an edge to Sukuna’s voice Megumi hasn’t yet heard. It’s a low and fretted scythe of the tongue, dripping over Megumi’s trembling skin a promise of something sinister. Scared to speak, Megumi’s mouth can only twitch.

Sukuna peels himself away, standing to slide his drawers off and returning to push Megumi’s shaking legs apart without a fight.

“But as sweet of an angel as you are, you will still be disciplined.”

Sukuna spits dissolutely into Megumi’s puss*, readying the head of his co*ck with a few pumps before he brings it to Megumi’s leaking folds, but unlike his usual ritual of sliding it around, he smacks the slop just once before pushing past the entrance.

He groans in a murmur but he isn’t at all gentle; piercing through straight into the gut—all in pushing Megumi’s legs open even further. Megumi arches upward in painful reaction, shooting his hands out to hold onto Sukuna’s arms. He tries to push Sukuna’s big body back, blinking away tears that fall before he knew they even formed.

“ W-wait —”

Sukuna doesn’t care. He runs his thumb over the cl*t a few times as he f*cks forward. To Megumi, every organ feels twisted to a mush, thrown into a riptide of Sukuna’s doing, punching at every inch of his inner cavern. He looks up and sees the fractured moonlight surrounding Sukuna, the tan of his skin looks almost blue.

“Be quiet, baby.”

He flips Megumi over, grabbing a fist full of his hair and shoving his face down into the mattress harshly. Since they are at the edge of the bed, Megumi tries to get onto all fours—up to his elbows—to crawl away but Sukuna is, of course, quicker. He smacks the right of Megumi’s ass in a thunderous crack.

Megumi cries and tries again at a plea.

“You will listen when I speak, you f*ckin’ hear me?”

Megumi manages to get up on his bad arm, unrealizing or somehow forgetting that it was still in the process of healing but the moment staves the pain off completely.

“I’m–I’m sorry!”

With his free hand, Megumi tries to push away, his nails catching only a lick of the skin of Sukuna’s chest behind him; the effort to latch on is absolutely fruitless. So he drops to his shoulder, giving into the position. He lets his bad arm roll heavy like wet fabric, limp and lifeless as it's pinned underneath him. Sukuna reaches to wrap around his throat, yanking him up into a vertical position, pressed skin to skin.

“Why has it been so hard for you to be good for me today? Have I not been so patient with you, angel? Huh?”

Megumi feels the arch of his back intensify, certain his spine is contorting beyond its natural limit and his throat feels seconds to bursting. He whines and pleads, stuck in a loop of breathless moans. Sukuna wrenches Megumi’s good arm back behind his back in a contorted bind, pressing harshly into the lower bone. Megumi lets out a high pitched scream that shatters the stillness of a chandelier.

“That’s it,” Sukuna growls, pumping in and out at a mad man’s pace.

The stretch is so unforgiving Megumi is certain there’s blood but the burn is enveloping his senses completely; he’s on fire. Sukuna takes both of Megumi’s arms behind his back into just one of his palms—his strength never ending. Not that Megumi hates it, he always craves it, even in a moment like this. Sukuna pushes Megumi forward harshly then, taking him with his wrists pinned and like handlebars.

The angle is nothing but brutal. The feel of Sukuna rewrites him, each thrust deep and precise. Megumi all but screams into the sheets.

“Is what I give you not enough? You’re always cryin’ baby. I can give you somethin’ to cry about, is that want you that?”

Megumi feels impaled, gutted and torpefied. Sukuna kisses his cheek and says into his skin something else Megumi can barely make out through the sound of his own hoarse moans and their colliding wet skin.

Sukuna releases the tangled limbs of his wrists and grabs for the slope between his shoulder and neck, positioning Megumi so he has the chance to put his palms to the bed; to which the boy does weakly. His hands slide through the slick of sweat to hold his hips, the concave of his shape there driving him crazy; enough to groan loudly.

“f*ck, angel,” He says low, meeting Megumi in long strokes.

The pain has breached pain and is now pleasurable. Sukuna’s length and size puncture beyond Megumi’s cervix, if Megumi weren’t always feeling it viscerally he’d think it was made up. Megumi tries to reach for the pillows or the sheets underneath it to pull himself away from Sukuna but Sukuna keeps him there.

“Tryin’ to run away? It’d do you good not to break the glass between us.”

Megumi squirts without warning.

Megumi suffuses into a chattel—lamblike in the parricide to himself as Sukuna f*cks him even harder; working Megumi for all he’s worth. It feels like a punishment, the Indulgence after the peace. His remission of temporal punishment by way of his sins was over. It wasn’t God who would punish him but Sukuna.

I’d let you kill me. I’d let you bury me beneath the house. I’d let you—

The wet clump of Megumi’s lashes squish further into the mattress with every thrust, he turns his head to the side just in time to hear Sukuna reach for something on the nightstand. He then groans loudly, moaning at Megumi’s velveted grip; muttering something about how Megumi is making a mess.

“Angel, let’s make a pact, hm?” His voice is sepulchral.

Sukuna smooths Megumi’s hair from his neck to hold it entirely in his palm. Drool pools under Megumi’s cheek from where it slides down the curve of his chin with each jerk of his small frame. He passes through a set of heavy breaths as he keeps his pace, satiating his gluttony.

“Yes,” Megumi cries.

Sukuna takes his teeth to Megumi’s neck, marking him deeply.

Sukuna pushes Megumi flat onto the bed and maneuvers him to lay on his side—stretching Megumi’s right leg up and as flat to his body as possible; with his foot up by his head, trembling at the newfound depth Sukuna reaches. Sukuna kisses Megumi’s calf, moving to kiss him as he takes hold of his throat and squeezes. He doesn’t stop f*cking into Megumi but he slows down to a rhythm that makes Megumi more than aware of how tightly his puss* is clamped down.

The position is rough but Sukuna’s tone remains tender.

“We keep talkin’ about ‘forever’ —so let’s put blood to it. You and me beyond the body, in this life and the next. And every one after.”

From the dark, the sound of a switchblade sounds off. Megumi blinks rapidly, unsure if he made it up or if it’s real until he feels the cold metal of a knife’s bevel kiss his cheek. He chokes out, closing his eyes and letting all that he feels to his skin guide him. Sukuna takes to Megumi’s sternum with the point of the blade, holding Megumi so tightly he can only quave.

Megumi hisses at the sudden splitting of his skin. It’s thin, streamline and over as soon as it begins—a slice enough to draw blood but hardly to scar. Sukuna pulls the blade and himself away, stilling himself while being fully sheathed inside Megumi. A moment passes before Sukuna brings his wetted palm to the wound, pressing down with enough pressure Megumi gasps. Their blood mixes.

“Even long after you leave this earth, you belong to me.” Sukuna says against Megumi’s lips in unison with continuing to f*cking him, a sensile dynamite. Megumi comes undone for the second time in a sough.

He soaks the spot beneath himself in another undoing and Sukuna, whining loudly as his legs shake to the point of the muscle hurting. In this death, God finds him through a paroxysm.

This blood, a will of an oath, Sukuna’s covenant, has been sealed. His word is beheld. 6

A rockslide from the mountain, it clicks in place.

“But until then—here we are, you and I. I don’t believe in God–I don’t. You know this. But I believe in you. You’re an angel, sent for me.”

His voice is a gruff whisper close to Megumi’s ear, a supple treat to the bloodied hand he brings to the side of Megumi’s neck.

Megumi’s vision begins to blur in a veil of white as Sukuna peppers him in wet kisses. Out rends another rasping gurgle, like tar in the throat. It’s inconceivable what Sukuna does to him; his senses are hardwired for him and blown out all in the same motion. The pleasure fills him with tears, assenting to how the sickness inside him feels fed.

The sound of skin slapping continues to fill the room in beautiful agony—the accompaniment to Megumi’s demise; he goes numbly slack, dead in the brain but nerves empyreal.

“God, he preserved you for me,” Sukuna continues.

Megumi can only close his eyes and mewl.

“All for me, baby—just for me.”

Sukuna f*cks him again and again and again, licentious in filling him until his drips onto Megumi and the sheets in globs. With a merciless grip, he chokes Megumi until the world goes dark.