Archive of Our Own

When Sukuna is sealed it is to a world that knows neither light nor love. 

It is somewhere in-between. He does not know how old or young the world is, only that it offers no kindness; only grows crueler as it ages. 

Despite this inherent brutality, it is wholly unprepared for his arrival. 

His arrival is a quiet, mundane affair — unspecial as all the previous arrivals have been. It does not stay that way. He ascends and no one is able to stand in his way. Not the knights that are sent to war against him, the sloven mass of them nothing more than a great congregation of flies he takes pleasure in ripping apart, nor are the earls and their gifts of loyalty and power enough to sway him — after all, what king requires permission to take? The lowly imps are not worth remembering in their pleas and groveling. 

Well, in any way besides jesting before his court.

The decrepit, cavalier rulers of this in-between realm are nothing more than chess pieces for him to play with when he is done with them. Some are even so lucky to sit as pretty, pretty collections instead of bathing in the filth below.

The stories of his arrival will change over time. That his arrival was accompanied by cracks of the veil, a howling wail as his mortal form broke and reconfigured, a susurrus of whispered threats for weeks on end until finally, finally, he had arrived to take his rightful place. A wicked thing free of its mortal coil and filled with ceaseless hunger. 

He is something different entirely upon his arrival — forced into the slums of this place with naught but inferiority in every corner of his gaze. His welcome in this new place is a set of teeth and a jaw he pries upon until there is the scent of blood in his nose and a cacophony of screaming in his ears. 

This is the way of the world, Sukuna understands quickly, that the weak are meat and only the strong will eat. Those that do not acclimate to swift, brutal violence, will find themselves consumed. 

This is the way of the world here. The rules of this society are tied to blood-soaked achievements with the only lineages to be found from those that learned how to crush others beneath their heel in the climb to the top. Useful only in the way of determining who is above and who is below, forever trapped under a cycle of might makes right. It makes no difference, to the people of the in-between, this is the way of things, the natural order of their world. What change is there to be if this is all they have ever known? 

Sukuna, upon first glance and understanding, sneers at the endless vying of favor and strength and cares not for the boastful advances of others or anyone’s perceived dominance of territory or people. He sees things to subjugate, people he will put in their rightful places. 

Nothing worth having is ever given freely and Sukuna has never had qualms with covering himself in blood to get what he wants. 

To kill is not foreign to him. When he was a man and not a demon his first kill came young. Sloppy and messy from his small hands but he triumphed. Here he is older — it does not take him long to sink his teeth in with fervor. The blood spills fresh and warm on his face, over his tongue, and fills his belly with heat.

His name becomes a warning, spoken in hushed whispers and quiet prayers to gods that will not listen. It is not long before he climbs his way out of the lowest levels of hell with his teeth bared in a grin and talons primed to shred. 

He cannot remember a time when he was kind. Not even as a child and mortal, small and fragile, only remembers looking at the people around him and thinking animals meant for slaughter. When that child grew into a man and that man was bound to paper and ink — he was not kind. The scent of rot and burning flesh filled his nostrils and he smiled at the work he had done. Laughed when the men that came to punish him thought to turn him into a demon instead; something they thought they could control in time. 

All it managed in the end as maggots ate at his corpse and Sukuna crawled his way free was to fill him with the feeling of hunger. 

He is hungry as he forces himself to the top, and challenges those who have gotten indolent from their long reign, fat from their indulgence of those below. Challenges those that find him an eye-sore — an upstart that does not know his place for his unprecedented appearance with no lineage to his name. It is child’s play he learns as he quells their armies, kills their heirs, and devours the rulers when they finally come to face him, ripe for the taking. 

He drinks their blood from goblets. Dines on them like the fineries of the old world.

The rulers have the gall to try and put him in a place below them. And he teaches them the only place they belong is as morsels between his teeth and liquid to drown down afterward. 

They are weak and as such, they are his to eat. Blasphemy to the status quo of this world. Eating those ranked above you is verboten — the natural cycle of things is broken when prey learns to eat predator but. Sukuna has long ignored that natural run of the world and the rules that make it. He has never been weak. It is his duty to partake in this new feast. 

The strong eat and eat he does.

It takes him less than a decade to name himself King of this in-between after having slaughtered the many charlatans that came before him — cooking most like pigs on a spit as he makes his way through them. Over the course of his new rule, he gains hagiographic votarists, that believe they are safe so long as they stay out of his way, and fawn over him in waves as if he sees them as anything more than thinly tolerated annoyances. He has no need of them. No armies to fight his wars and no followers to kowtow to curry favor. He is all the weapon he needs.

The in-between and its obsidian veil becomes a clear pane for him to look through at his leisure as he takes his seat as ruler — an ability many in this world can only dream of. He watches the people from his old plane move about like ants around a colony. The sight bores every time.

So many of the lesser demons are fascinated with the mortal plane. Every so often the veil thins and they salivate over what people they can make out, and many attempt to throw themselves through the veil when there is a pull, an attempt at binding. Sukuna sees no appeal in mortals—they are weak, have always been weak—or in binding himself to another.

He has found his rightful place. 

When boredom hits just right he may prod, out of curiosity, see if there is anything of interest for a time, but always, always he returns to what is in front of him. It captures his attention fully, both project and obsession to see just how far he can push this world — mold it as he likes before eventually he is made to reap what he has sown.

And reap he does, as all tyrants eventually must. It is not a fall from grace for there is no grace here.

His fall is a wonderful concoction of betrayal, luck, and so much spite he can’t help but laugh even as it occurs, so heady he can taste the hatred as he is challenged once more and toppled after a millennium. They take him to his tomb, far away from what little light exists in this place, and then fail and fail and fail in their attempts to kill him.

They try in numerous ways: freeing his head from his shoulders, tearing him into itty-bitty bite-sized pieces to scatter him about like ashes, they attempt to melt him down to a liquid, drown him. The attempts are amusing. He remembers laughing when they sliced strips of skin from his body to shove into his own mouth only to watch in horror as he reformed.

It was, perhaps, the first time he felt true amusement. Their panic and anxiety had been a feast of their own.

They think they can kill him.

But as their attempts grow and he is here doubt sets in.

His amusement fills his belly until they cease — change tactics and then he does not laugh. The noise does not echo around in the void. 

They chain him like some beast.

So deep in the in-between that there is nothing but black around him they shackle him like a feral mutt to be put down. First chains around all four of his arms and then more — his wrists, his neck, his legs, and his feet as he breaks them and breaks them again. Until there are so many forcing him to the ground that he cannot so much as shift anything but his head. They learn to keep him weak. A shackled, feral dog. 

If he moves there is pain, constant and dripping ichor as metal cuts into the skin and when that is not enough to deter him they add something that addles him. Befuddles the mind as much as it does the body.

This is a way to humiliate him — degrade him and even now, there are moments he finds laughter bubbling from his chest. Laughable that they think this will be his undoing when he is a monster among monsters. Unkillable. The only thing they’ve achieved in their attempt to demean him is bore him.

That, he must admit, is effective. Boredom eats away at him — fits itself just beneath his skin and curls content and heavy in his veins slides down his spine, and wrings around his neck until he wishes he could twitch just an inch to scratch at his skin and yank it out, draw it free from his body until he can choke it. Boredom eats at him until he starts to see things in the dark to entertain himself. Things that seem to speak to him and annoy him senselessly until he snaps at them to shut up and yet they continue until you answer back, properly. Sukuna learns that boredom is worse than pain, worse than the metal digging into his skin, worse than their humorous attempts of killing him. 

There is only one thing that comes close to the boredom and that is the hunger he feels. He cannot starve to death, but that does not make the feeling pleasant. Satiation is a far-off memory, and his dreams are filled with long-ago feasts. Can feel the meat giving under his teeth when he wakes.

The meals he does get are few and far between. Far from filling. 

It ranges.

Sometimes it is the creatures that roam the endless dark drawn in by the shine of his teeth and the gleam of his eyes in the endless dark both of his mouths wide maws. Sometimes it is the cocky, stupid visitors who think because he is shackled and bound that he is tame or contained — their limbs tasted sweet when they came too close.

Alas, that only occurs once and now Sukuna is fed off only the memory alone. They put him in a muzzle, you see. And put a band around his stomach that digs into his skin. The muzzle fits snugly on the lower half of his face, and no longer is either maw a threat. His memory is fuzzy after that. The visitors stop coming. And the guards of his room do not come in. It seems the chance to see a fallen empire has lost its gleam once they realized they were still not safe with him in chains. 

He loses time then.

Once upon a time he would count the moments between their visits and keep his mind distracted with the number, the countdown until next time but now that, too, has ceased in his prison of shadow. He has no certainty of how long he’s been locked up. Not since his last count.

A century at least he knows, that had been his last visitor, the poor, poor acrid tasting thing whose hand he turned into a snack when they reached for his face. It has been a long time since then, he thinks, but there is no certainty to the thought anymore. Time is not worse than boredom but it is a near thing. 

Now there is just Sukuna existing in a place that does not move at all. It eventually leads him to wonder on if he will decay in a different way. Become flaky and unmoving as ancient relics are wont to do, fragile in their age until eventually, eventually, they break down into nothing and cease to exist in all but the rare memory, or scripture. He finds himself oddly at peace with the thought when surely there should be rage. He is calmed at the thought. What an odd feeling.

Though, he supposes, it only makes sense in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t it? What is there to exist for now that he is ensconced in shadow and quiet and no time. There is no one to care for him — his name surely only invoked as a way to keep unruly children tamed. The hunger too has dulled over the years of his constancy. It is less of a pain and a focus than it is simply a state of being.

He thinks he would be fine with turning into a relic. Does not seek or feel apprehension at the thought, but simply, finds himself lulled at the possibility. 

And then he is not alone. 

A figure, tiny and faint. It is fuzzy, warped out of the corner of his eyes. As if he is truly looking at something through water. It blinks in and out of existence.

To Sukuna, who has existed in this empty, consuming space with nothing but his thoughts and his hunger, finds his attention pulled.

The metal of his chains digs into his skin and he feels the tacky sensation of blood as he strains for it, seeks for it, cranes his head toward it—

The pain is dull as he realizes, impossibly, that something has reached so far from the mortal realm that he can see it. 

A bright soul. Fuzzy and covered by a kind of film that signals it is on the other side of the veil and shines like the sun — piercing through the layers of his prison and he hungers. 

His laughter ricochets off the walls of his prison. 

 It is dry and ugly in its disuse, fitting more a reanimated corpse than a living, breathing, unkillable god. But the glee is undeniable even as it reaches a near hysteric pitch.

Chained and bound, he reaches out — does not register the metal slicing into his skin — spurred on by the thin image before him, and battles the starvation, the ice-cold sting to reach a hand for the veil—his hands sinks through. It is like breaching water after struggling not to drown — twisting and tumbling under waves trying to take your last breath until he breaches through the salt and disoriented senses to find himself warm. The air is clean and fresh, light glitters all around him, and Sukuna —

He is greeted by the sound of crying. Endless wailing.

A child crying. Grating to the ears and yet it tugs at the heartstrings Sukuna isn’t supposed to possess like they’re harp strings and he finds it… beautiful. It has been so long since he has heard any noise at all.

He steps closer, and there is a circle around the crib, and there is a brief — so so very brief in comparison to this — shock to his body before he’s being pulled along by an invisible string led about like a puppet. The child is swaddled tightly in blankets, and Sukuna hears a noise, softer, fainter than the child’s crying but his attention is focused solely on the brightness of its soul, it reminds him of the sun, and it — has been so long since Sukuna has thought of that big burning ball in the sky. It is all he can think to compare it to as it bursts from their form in warm undulations, coloring everything around him in gilded gold, and to Sukuna—who has been locked away in the endless, endless dark—it burns in a delightful way.

A searing warmth settles beneath his skin. Slithers its way up his spine and slips through the cracks of his being until it meets the core of his self - melds with him. Sukuna cannot look away even as the sun burns him. He has never believed in worship or gods, but he thinks he has found a close thing.

“Loud little thing aren’t you,” he murmurs to the crying child. “Too big for your body.”

It does not stop crying but its eyes creak open as if they see him and — oh. It may be too young to understand, but Sukuna is not.

He is here. Fully. On the other side of the veil. 

A feeling burgeons in Sukuna’s chest reaching down, down, down into his soul taking hold. It is not a feeling he can name.

This is not to say he knows little of emotion—he knows plenty, in fact. Know how they feel when they course through his body and overtake his mind. He has experienced many—ire, hatred, derision, callosity, amusement, rapacity. While he has not felt much in such a very long time, he has never lost his grasp on them or the memories he indulges in that house these emotions.

And still—he cannot name this new feeling that squeezes within the cavity of his chest. All he can compare it to is a hand wrapped around his heart forcing it to beat.

Emboldened he reaches forward with one large, clawed hand to touch the sun before him. If it was warm before this is near scalding as the heat courses over his skin like wildfire. Rids him of the chill that has clung to him like a second skin until there is only heat in his body, the old shadows that followed him falling away like old skin he’s finally shed.

This time when another whimper of a noise cuts through him, Sukuna reaches for him, black claw stark against pink skin. “No need to cry,” he murmurs. “You are not alone I am here.”

It is a tiny thing, fuzzy hair on its head and wiggling, grasping fingers. Young. A noise escapes Sukuna’s chest foreign in his memory but surely natural — a low, rumbling noise from his chest that has it crying ceasing as its attention focuses entirely upon his form.

It sees him. His looming form is no doubt covered in filth and his own dried gore and — does not wail.

There is a small noise as its fingers wriggle for him. A coo he thinks and its gaze young and surely not seeing much sees him despite it being a small, unknowing thing and t it reaches for his finger.

A sigh of air escapes his chest as Sukuna curls his finger, tucks the sharp talon away from skin, and lets it be held.

“Do not worry,” Sukuna says quietly. “I will stay.”

The noise besides the child grows louder, the circle beneath his feet alighting with purple fire — and its heat does not burn. Its shine is so pale compared to the child’s own but it grabs his attention as he looks around the room. And he. He wants to laugh.

A mockery of a nursery. Empty walls form a box — a prison around them before his narrowed gaze falls upon the other occupant of the room. A squirrelly man. Pale and smiling as if he has won a prize muttering soft, crazed finally, finally’s under his breath, and then Sukuna sees the runes by him. The knife in his hand.

Looks down upon the circle beneath his feet and sees the runes for sacrifice and something familiar surges in his chest. Coats the back of his throat and pumps through his veins at the temerity at this cretin. To try and sacrifice his little light in a bid to bind him? An emperor born anew?

What impertinence. 

The rage is warm in his belly.

Sukuna recognizes the way these deals are made. Knows there is always a price. He knows what this one is. Does not need to be told — and what a price he will pay when there is a sacrifice before him.

There is always a price when you want something bad enough and Sukuna is more than willing to provide. 

The moon is high in the sky long past midnight and there is a man crouched in an empty room. 

There are no decorations in this room only four empty walls decorated with cracks and peeling wallpaper. The flooring of the room has been torn up to reveal slate gray concrete and an array of sigils and runes forming a jagged circle, a book open next to the man to give instruction. The only item that sits in this room besides the man himself is a crib, a rickety, old thing collected on a whim to house a child — a sacrifice situated before the man.

The sacrifice is young. Stolen away from its home because he can feel the power that thrums through it in a way so few in this world seem to recognize. A perfect conduit and gift for the power he will wield soon enough. For the being, he will subjugate to do his bidding.

Finally, everything is perfect. In its rightful place. The veil is thin.

He has been waiting for this moment for as long as he can remember, and now the final hurdle will be crossed.

“Soon,” he says to the empty room as something snaps similar to elastic. “I will have all I wish for soon.”

His hands are filthy, blackened. It is not textured enough to be powder and if one were to look closely—to pay attention, they would note the still healing lines on his hands where red bleeds to black—they would see a mess of ichor coating up and down the sides of his arms. 

The blood has been used to draw a circle around the crib. Perfect in its jagged design. There are characters on both sides of the circle, exact replicas of lines and characters from the book beside him, similar only in their origin.

There is a rumble in the room. A shake in the foundations. A crack extends from floor to roof along the wall opposite of him.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” the man says, eyes alight with a fervor that digs into his bones. He can taste the power that spills from the split of the void forming before him just before the crib. It sends a shiver down his spine — the air is heavy with decay and rot.

His eyes are rimmed red with lack of sleep, and exhilaration is all he runs on at this moment as he looks at the crib attracting his quarry. “There you are. Not one of you has managed to turn down a meal as filling as this — gluttons the lot of you,” the man says. He sounds maniac as if the scent of rot and the unnatural chill that floods the room is something one should welcome instead of run from. “It won’t be the last if you do as I bid.”

He can gift slaughter like no other. Will give it freely and relish in the carnage. It will be a deserved ending.

His hand flexes around the ceremonial blade in his hand; the intricate handle has long imprinted itself into his skin. 

The monster has formed in its entirety taken with its meal. It is only a matter of time.

“Go on,” he says, warbling free from his chest. “Partake of my gift.”

His eyes slip shut for just a moment and his hands have finally dried from their sluggish bleed.

“Not yet,” a voice says. It echoes around the room. Discordant in its speech.

His eyes snap open. 

There is the smell of burning flesh—the purple flame in the middle of the room licking at fabric and skin as sizzling and a sound similar to grinding gears resounds in the room. The seals straining much like a rusted gate to keep a beast locked tight. It creaks as something tries to push through.

He scrambles to a stand, gaze locked on the sight before him. His bones have stilled in place and the chill has the hair on the back of his neck rising. His heart threatens to burst from his chest with the speed it kicks to as he takes in the individual he has painstakingly drawn out.

It is a large man, towering over him, shining blood-red eyes pinning him in place. He is dressed in obvious finery even beneath the filth staining the fabric. He stands before the cradle two of four arms crossed with one resting on the wood of it and the last tap-tap-tapping at the barrier as if it were a novelty. His eyes are lidded looking down upon him as if he is an insect he can’t wait to crush beneath his shoe.

“Don’t you know it’s best to savor a meal,” the demon says.

“You’re here,” the man says, awe coloring his tone. “I have been waiting so long for this day.”

“Oh,” the demon says slow and deliberate. “How terrible of me to keep you waiting. Where are my manners, hm? I haven’t even commemorated you for this offering.”

And it is still untouched. One of four hands only resting idly along the side of the crib. Rocking. Swaying. Gentle, easy motion until the child is quiet.

Of course, this lord wouldn’t enjoy a noisy meal.

Sukuna hums.

“You don’t seem to be in a hurry,” he says. “And here I thought you would be an impatient beast. Though,” a pause. “I find your preparation lacking.” 

The man blinks, brows forming a valley as they press together.

“Lacking,” he repeats, incredulous.

“Oh yes,” Sukuna croons. “Inviting one such as I with a paltry offering - I find it very lacking. Not even to my taste, truly, with how… homely it is presented before me. This is to be a new reckoning, the meal and presentation should fit the occasion.” Two of the arms spread wide, gesturing. “If this is to be my banquet you have left me wanting and I am ever so ravenous.”

The crib is rocked with soft creaking filling the room. It is a strangely gentle movement, an easy sway back-forth, back-forth, and the nail that rests close enough to cut flesh pets over a round cheek. As if easing a lamb before it is to be slaughtered.

“Do you know what happens with ravenous beasts, mortal?” Sukuna questions, his teeth gleaming even in the dark of the room. “They do not turn mindless, not if they are a self-respecting thing. They learn to wait. To bide their time until their next morsel comes along their path and then they do everything in their power to ensure there are not even bones left in their wake. I am hungry,” he repeats. “And I find you ever so lacking in appeal.”

Sukuna drags his nails against the wood and it gives like cotton beneath his fingers. Then he rests another hand against the barrier and presses once then twice. It sizzles.

“What do you intend to do about this?”

There is curiosity in the tone but — it is as if he’s wondering what his answer will be. As if the demon has already made his mind up on what will happen and he is only entertaining what the man has to say on a whim.

The man pauses. His skin crawls. “I can find more for you after your first meal - or-or I can have you dine on those that have wronged me. That would be enough wouldn’t it?”

Sukuna shakes his head, sighing.

“Ah, mortals. Always wantings. I was hoping that you might surprise me but I see that you’re just as fucking stupid as the rest,” he laughs, a low timber of noise that rattles the bones, and finds the man’s eyes. “You think you have control in this matter?”

The fire around the circle wanes, flickers, pales as the few lights in the building blow, a shudder making its way through the physical space.

His breath catches in his throat.

“What—What is it that you want, my lord,” he says, and the servile disposition is familiar, and perhaps, the man may think it will help him as he shifts ever so slightly away from the circle. “Anything you ask of me I will deliver. I only seek your attention as a way to… fulfill a debt owed to me.”

Sukuna makes a derisive noise in the back of his throat. “Foolish thing thinking to appease me with overdue placations. Did you truly think this would be enough to satisfy me?”

The man falls silent. Sweat drips down his neck and follows the curve of his spine.

It is as if Sukuna can smell it with how his smile grows.

“Oh, you did, you thought this would be enough,” he coos, a mocking condescension. “What a foolish, foolish thing you are. A disappointment.”

His hands press forward and there is a stuttering, sizzling sound of flesh being eaten and reformed, as Sukuna’s smile shows sharply in the dark.

“You won’t be able to break through until you’ve agreed to help me,” he says, no hesitancy in the words. But there is no foundation for them. Nothing solid and steady.

This is but a castle of glass waiting to be shattered.

Sukuna’s lower set of eyes glances down, a brief flick before they return to pinning the man in place. No interest in the swirling, sweeping sigils, and then his head tilts, a curve to his mouth.

“Really?” Sukuna murmurs, sounding like a predator toying with its food. “Are you confident in them, mortal? Enough to make a wager?” He blinks, all four eyes slow and deliberate. A hand pushes through and his voice bounces off the walls with dark amusement. “I wouldn’t be.”

The man finds himself locked in place.

Sukuna continues, shoulders rolling with the countenance of an ill-tempered beast as he prowls forward. It is a languid movement — no need to rush when his prey is already held in his jaws. 

And he has always loved to play with his food.

He tsks. “To think mortals still believe they can play with things far beyond them in this day and age. Seeking to play god when there is no such thing to answer your prayers now — only old, ancient things that arrive ravenous.” Sukuna chuckles. Takes another step. “Ahh, it is good to see that mortals haven’t learned at all.”

Quieter is an echo that is both too loud and too quiet. “Do you know what kind of bargain you have tried to place on me, foolish thing?” 

“No, no, I-” the man’s voice comes out strangled, dragged out even as he is frozen. “I thought, I only —”

“Thought to shackle me once more against my will as if I am some slobbering, fatuous creature you can tempt with not even a snack,” Sukuna finishes, unamused. “Perhaps I should reveal something to you mortal.”

Another step.

Entire body free of the circle.

The man’s body is moved without his will. Enticed like a moth to a flame and soon he is standing before a monster. 

“All that is asked is a sacrifice,” Sukuna says, softly. Lovingly. Pets a hand down the man’s face and rejoices in the way his blood smells cleaner than the rest of him. “You never specified who had to be sacrificed.” 

The words are strangled in his throat. 

That…that can’t be right, he has taken all precautions mentioned. There…there is no mistake in any of his runes. 

“No - you are lying — you must be,” the man says. Insists.

A talon smooths through his hair. Scrapes at the skin of his scalp. It burns. 

“Do you really think that?” Sukuna coos, mocking.

Unease slithers up his spine as doubt comes it. 

What had he missed? There should have been nothing at all but clearly, clearly there must be something if this being is toying with him. 

“I suppose you will have your uses brief as they are,” Sukuna says. His claws still pet over skin peeling skin from muscle and muscle from sinew. The scent of copper is heady in his nose. He sighs. Oh, how he has missed this. “You are a wonderful start to this consecration because of your asininity.” He smiles. “You will adore the dark.”

The search for power can be such a terrible thing. It leads some to mess with powers that are beyond their understanding, though this isn’t to say that some don’t handle it well, because some do. An unfortunate thing (or perhaps fortunate considering the circumstances?) that this particular mortal sought out something they would have no chance of controlling at all.

That his search for power has led him to search for a monster.

And a monster he has certainly found. 

“What do you mean?” the man asks, but there is a primal fear settling in his bones twitching minutely at the urge to run away.

Sukuna’s smile is not a nice thing.

“Oh, little thing you know what I speak of, even you are not so foolish to be ignorant of death,” he says, petting the man’s cheek like he is a particularly amusing pet. “You hope to bind something in this room and binding will happen — but it will not be with you nor your disgusting hands holding my nonexistent leash. You should be grateful.” he continues, a croon, soft and sweet. “You will be gifted with the first death of many as an offering to my little light and our coming reign.” 

A hand comes up to curl at the ball of his shoulder. Strokes softly, easily, as if Sukuna is soothing a startled animal and not planning to rip it free of the hold its socket has. He has so many plans for this new, modern world and he will grace his light with as much mercy as he can muster — they will want for naught.

Mercy is an unknown concept to him so the thought is—startling. To have mercy. For so long he has done what he desires, nothing more, nothing less. After all what use is there in mercy when he has always taken what he wants?

But then he thinks of loneliness and how he was toppled and that—that will not do. He will learn mercy if need be only so his little light will never experience loneliness.

(They will not know loneliness for Sukuna has experienced it intimately.)

“I found him for you,” the man rasps out when Sukuna smoothes a thumb over their throat. “The perfect sacrifice — I went through such stakes to find you the perfect conduit. I give you his soul and you do my bidding for however long it sustains you. That—that is a fair exchange!”

The smile falls. The expression falls flat—twists. The hinges of the very house squeal.

The light of the moon no longer touches the room.

The man can see Sukuna’s face but the low, rumbling snarl of noise does not escape the mouth he can see. Something wet curls around his hip and then a sharp pressure follows it. The chill that encroaches only emphasizes the way every hair on his body raises in alarm.

“You still think you have a say?” The languid texture of the demon’s voice disappears. The predator no longer plays at letting the mouse free. The claws are out and digging into his skin as a voice deep and cruel and rabid snaps near his ear.

The lamb skin has fallen to reveal a wolf with teeth and bore so hungry there will be not even marrow to remember him by. There is no space between him and the beast now. Razor-shaped teeth graze his ear and—

He is not safe. 

Has never been safe.

“Foolish, foolish thing,” Sukuna laughs, then repeats. “A fair exchange? You are less enticing a handler than you are hors d’oeuvre. One soul for my servitude to a vile cretin.” 

His heartbeat is a hummingbird beat caged as he is by four arms and a maw at two ends. There is no space to stumble away—moving back leads him into a tongue that coaxes him forward as if he playing coy, and in front are talons the size of his head, arms that coil and grip his limbs, a snake readying to squeeze the life out of his lungs. There is no safety here.

The laughter is twofold, echoing in his ear and reverberating through his bones.

He sees a tongue run over white, white teeth. 

“How wonderful an exchange for you, mortal. Do you think that one soul will be enough to entice me to do as you wish for however long? The audacity of your paltry offering and your continued impertinence show just how ignorant you are, boy. I am not some simple thing for you to order around like a pet because someone has wronged you.”

There is a pressure on his tongue sharp and stinging before the coppery taste of blood fills his own mouth, and drools down his chin.

“Truly, what did you think would happen when you sought out powers greater than your own? Hmm? That I would bend to your whim and your asinine desires of revenge? For a boy that doesn’t even know how to prepare for one such as I?”

The man shudders, gurgles around the flood of liquid flowing into his gullet. Spasming with a panicked edge as he can only breathe through his nose.

Sukuna tsk, disappointed. “Mortals, always so easily tricked by the promise of power.” A third hand grips at another limb, stretching it out, out, out until he tangles their fingers together. A mockery of a hold. Yanks once as the hand around the man’s throat closes to keep his scream in his throat. 

No need to wake up the child with such messy business. 

“Well, it is of no concern now. You have brought me here and I intend to stay.” He smiles once more, less rabid than before. “You will be a far more useful being in death than during the time you lived. Besides, you did manage one thing,” he says. “Be proud of that achievement”

Pets down the man’s flank and feels the goosebumps through the fabric.

“You found something new for me to add to my collection.” 

The body flinches in his hold when its tongue is released from the hyoid with a squelch. It isn’t as sweet as Sukuna would like it to be, but this is only the beginning. 

There is so much to go through.

He hums as he pets his thumb under the curve of the thing’s eye. A pretty, pretty brown.

Sukuna moves quickly, sharply, methodically even, as he digs his fingers under the eyelid and yanks the first eye out of its socket.

Without a tongue, the noise that escapes the thing’s mouth is a pained gurgle as blood spills from its empty eye socket.

He lifts the eye up. Holds the optic nerve and swings it like a pendulum. Back-forth, back-forth.

“Look at that,” Sukuna marvels. “It seems like a disgusting creature such as yourself can still hold something beautiful. You’ll make a fine first start of my new collection.”

They will be gifts, perhaps, at a later time in life when his little light is older and can appreciate such fragile things. For now, Sukuna turns his attention back to the meal before him.

It no longer moves except for uncontrollable spasms in his hold.

Sukuna watches it like he might an insect he can’t decide between studying or crushing beneath his boot until it is nothing but a stain on the floor.

He takes his time with this first offering now that it cannot wake his little light. It has been a very long time since Sukuna has had a meal—has had to prepare himself a meal and practice truly makes perfect.

One day, after all, he will be providing meals for another under his guidance and he must set a certain level of expectancy. There is a wonderful thing about mortals and it is that even when they bleed they stay warm longer than most.

His division of meat from the bone is unfaltering once he gets started. Sukuna has always enjoyed taking his meals at his own pace and tonight he wants to enjoy several different courses.

There is a monstrous tenderness to his intentional cruelty to the body. Some meat tastes better when tenderized beneath his hands. And bone must be snapped and snapped again to get to the marrow. The rib cage must be pried open to reach the tender meat of the lungs and the sweetbread of the body.

Sukuna destroys out of love. After all — this body seals him to his light. Cements him to this plane; all through the most visceral way to show his adoration. 

Not a single drop will go uneaten to show his devotion to his little light for guiding him here.

There are some cuts he thinks of saving to share but—the child is a small thing. Sukuna will eat for him—grow more powerful—until they can partake of a feast together when he is older.

Blood is still warm and trickles down the inside of his arm as he gorges himself on a heart that still beats once-twice until it is welcomed into the dark.

He sighs after his meal. 

Sukuna is a creature of want; all demons are.

Once upon a time, he wanted food, power, and control—and that is still present. Will never disappear in its entirety because it is still a want. 

But now Sukuna wants his little light.

The ache of his hunger is now a dull ache after even this sad, pathetic first meal. There is still a simmering rage beneath the hunger, but it too is dull. His thoughts go back to his little light.

Sukuna wants him.

He rises from his first meal in eons and his eyes shine in the pitch black of the room and he moves to the crib. 

Sukuna pauses before the crib a hand outstretched but not quite touching the swaddled boy. He can feel crusting blood on his skin and in his hair—across his forehead from the first few limbs he yanked free. The clothes he has been wearing for an eon are—ruined beyond compare now even when considering his state earlier.

What had once been soft, regal clothing is now stained dark with blood.

Sukuna exhales through his nose. “Filthy,” he says into the dark, irritation inflecting in the word and beyond. Blood is flecked across his chin, beneath his eyes, coating his mouth.

Beyond that, it has soaked into the sleeves of his kimono — traverses up all four of his arms as if he is wearing skin-tight gloves.

That will not do.

The child is clean. Sukuna does not wish to defile him before the time is right. These things must go slow.

He draws his hands away from the crib. Raises them to his mouth, and begins to lick them clean. Only after they have been licked clean does he reach for the boy.

There is a single drop of blood under his eyes. Sukuna swipes at it with his thumb and he has found ambrosia.

“Better,” he says and cradles the boy close. Already he can see his claim on the child settling on skin. Twin crescents beneath his eyes and later, Sukuna knows, he will be capable of seeing through them if he wishes. He is careful as he pets his hand over the peach fuzz of hair.

Bound fully now. Sukuna cannot be shunted back to his old plane unless the boy sends him or he dies and — ohh, Sukuna will guarantee that neither will occur soon.

With an inhale he catches the scent of the boy. There is his own of course, as all creatures carry, but lighter, fainter is something else; family.

Sukuna hums as he exits. Family is useful for a time until the boy is older.

They will not be able to separate them—they will be tolerated for now.

“My mercy for you will be unending,” Sukuna says down to the boy. He has woken up now, his fingers wriggling to hold the meat of his hand. His hands are small. Fragile. He will grow strong in time; Sukuna will mold him to be perfect. “My little light, I will not separate from you now that I have you in my grasp.”

The boy coos quiet and sweet unknowing of the way their once-prison falls to the ground once Sukuna passes through the threshold.

Sukuna slips into Yuuji’s life easily—aside from the first introduction to the boy’s grandfather but that has been…dealt with—fits as a constant companion with the boy. Mortals are still foolish, he admits this easily, but so long as he keeps his teeth hidden and his claws sheathed they do not attempt to separate him from his boy.

(It would not end well if they did. But—there is a new phenomenon in this world that works in Sukuna’s favor.

Child kidnappings grow as the year passes and more and more understanding of the world below comes to fruition. An unfortunate occurrence in the eyes of the world, but a still all too common act. Families are lucky to find any remnants of their children should their disappearance be linked to a wayward summoning attempt.

Summoners and demon hunters alike exist and the way to bind and kill is expansive. Sometimes it is through safe practices—academia-approved circles and only specific ranks allowed—but often, too often, the practitioner wants greater, stronger things and well. The price is always steeper. 

And as such—Sukuna is a reluctantly welcomed creature into a home of five that dwindles to two as the years pass by.) 

As such Sukuna eats with the boy, sits with him as he does his homework, takes him to and from school, and entertains his silly games, his all too naive world view.

He is a constant in the boy’s life. For a time even occupying his room at night.

In his lack of a need to sleep, Sukuna becomes a shadow over the child’s crib and later bed as he sleeps, as a baby he was effective at shushing Yuuji—his little light—when he started fussing late at night. Later when the boy grows a little older he admits that you make the night less scary and a part of him wants to laugh at the admission—because naive, naive little Yuuji he is the dark—but another part, feels that same old clench in his chest.

If anything, Yuuji should feel the hair on his nape rise at night. Crawling over his skin like insects in the night. Sukuna stares at him in the dark, on occasion, traces the slowly shifting features of his boy, and unwinds.

After all, soon enough he will be able to mold Yuuji into something stronger—will teach him how to shed his old skin. 

That time comes when the boy’s grandpa is admitted to the hospital for the first time.

Yuuji is young, eight years old and they are in the house alone. 

“Sukuna,” Yuuji says. He is at the table doing his homework—a dutiful boy in everything he does. “What are we going to have for dinner?” 

They have just returned from their visit to the hospital. Yuuji, he knows, is a wonderful cook even for his age but Sukuna knows this is a prime opportunity to teach.

“Have you ever had a rabbit, Yuuji?”

“Rabbit?” he repeats, a little skeptical, his nose scrunching, and Sukuna just hums from his place at the table. “We don’t even have any rabbits!” Sukuna is sure that if any other child took such an exasperated tone with him he’d take their head.

“But,” Sukuna says, “If we did would you try it?” And then with such benevolence that Yuuji should thank him, he adds, “I will even teach you how to cook it.”

A rabbit is a fitting start. Weak and fragile—Yuuji will learn how to skin it and then, eventually, Sukuna will teach him how to kill one.

There is a quirk to Yuuji’s smile as he pretends at thinking it over. “Where are you gonna get rabbit?” he asks in that all too curious way of his, the way that gets him into trouble for asking too many questions in class, the way that has Sukuna smiling, all teeth, as he leans back in his seat.

“Why, Yuuji,” he croons. “I’m going to catch it for you.”

It is not a difficult task. They may be quick to mortals but it is nothing in the face of his own speed. Killing them is even easier their necks snap like toothpicks between his fingers. By the time he returns home they are limp in his grasp and Yuuji has set out everything he asked for on the counter like the polite, obedient boy he is. 

Sukuna smoothes one of his hands through his hair. “Knife,” he says as two of his hands lay out one of the rabbits and then hold it in place. Finally, his last hand nudges Yuuji closer to the counter. 

The knife gleams pretty and bright in his hand. He is going to teach Yuuji all the required skills to be his personal butcher. Food, he has learned, is Yuuji’s way of loving—what best way to encourage his display of love than by taking the time to perfect his technique?

In return, Sukuna will lovingly rip everything in their path to shreds.

“Not like that, brat,” he adjusts Yuuji’s grip on the knife. “Steady now or you may cut me instead—” they will save that for a later time. “—Now cut a ring just below the leg joints—there you go.” 

Yuuji’s hand follows the guide of Sukuna’s grip around his wrist as they slice the skin over both legs. His grip on the knife isn’t so bruising once they slice the skin of the legs to the backside of the rabbit and when Sukuna eases the knife out of his hand until later Yuuji’s hands don’t shake. He pets his hair in praise.

“Next you need to dig your fingers just below the hide,” Yuuji’s nose scrunches at the feeling but with a quiet, encouraging, “A natural, it gets easier as you go down the body.” The scrunch is replaced with a proud little smile.

Slowly Yuuji works the hide down to the base of the rabbit’s head and Sukuna motions for him to stop as he reaches for the knife once more. This is the part he thinks his little light will struggle with. 

Maybe not with a rabbit but surely with the other things Sukuna will eventually bring home to him.

Yuuji looks at him with big, curious eyes when Sukuna fixes his grip on the nice once more. “What next?”

Sukuna smiles. It is shark-toothed tenderness. Carefully, he traces a finger over its neck. “You’re going to cut its head off.”

Yuuji bites at his bottom lip. Looks down at the rabbit. His hand shakes. 

Sukuna squeezes his shoulder, voice saccharine-sweet. “Would you like me to help you?”

Feels the way Yuuji breathes in and then exhales with how close they are. “No,” he says after a moment, and Sukuna removes his hand from Yuuji’s wrist. Rises to his full height eyes lidded as he sees the slice through skin—hears the crunch of metal breaking through bone. 

“Good,” Sukuna praises, glee suffusing the word. “Now when you peel the skin over the other legs you have to break them—”

The snap is loud in the empty kitchen.

Oh. Oh! Sukuna is so proud when Yuuji tilts his head up to ask naive and sweet, “Like that?”

“Perfect,” he purrs. 

For this lesson, Sukuna takes over the slicing, holding each piece before naming—shank, shoulder, saddle Yuuji—and then cutting them into appropriate-sized pieces for dumplings.

Later, when their meal is cooked and Yuuji’s plate has been cleaned he asks Yuuji about what cuts are where and if he thinks he will be able to do it all on his own next time.

His exuberant yes! is enough to have Sukuna thinking of what they will move on to next in a few months. He thinks of bird but—

“Yuuji,” he says. It gets the boy’s attention immediately the stream of words about his day at school coming to an end as he gives Sukuna his full attention. Good. As he should. “What are your thoughts on pork?”

Pigs are the perfect thing to practice on while he is young.

Yuuji is a pretty thing as he grows.

He’s a selfless little thing. Too kind for his own good, Sukuna finds, as enticing as it is to witness it has something acidic and poisonously bitter curling in his chest.

Yuuji, his boy, you see — he has terrible taste.

While Sukuna may find his nature equal parts endearing and distasteful he has nothing but contempt for Yuuji’s exploration of his fellow mortals.

Why debase himself with fickle affections when there is a god lying in wait to settle devotion before his feet?

His contempt for Yuuji’s… reluctantly tolerated interest in other mortals is a two-face problem.

You see - Yuuji has a problem with liking individuals. And for how long he has been around the boy, doesn’t know when it started, but Yuuji has a terrible habit of giving his everything to others as if he cannot help but pour the very liquid of his heart into their cup and watch it overflow — does not seem to understand that others do not savor him. Instead, they treat it as if it is one drink among a dozen more. 

And then — oh, and then, when someone does return his affections it is not with a holy benediction in their words or actions as should be the minimum for his boy. They use him to prop up their own self-worth, the endlessly hungry maggots. Never are they perfect—often too obsessed with themselves, or the idea of corrupting that which is not theirs.

The latest cretin Yuuji has tried is older. Preying on that which is not his to hunt. His boy has such a terrible judge of character — but that’s okay Sukuna is always there patient and serene-eyed to make things better as his thoughts on how to fix it simmer in his blood. 

An oh, fix things he does when the mortals go too far.

There is sadistic satisfaction swelling in his chest when he hears the tell-tale jackrabbit of Yuuji’s heart and the burning scent of salt in his nose when goes to receive his little summoner from hands that only offer pain and no care — not like Sukuna who tucks his claws away to cradle Yuuji in his hold like he is something precious even with his numerous mistaken trust in others. So often they try to break Yuuji when they have no right.

There is a swirl of anger, betrayal, shock in their bond and Sukuna hums as he swipes a broad hand down the curve of Yuuji’s spine. He can smell the scent of blood in the air clinging to Yuuji like a slow-forming chrysalis.

Beneath his hand, Yuuji wipes furiously at his face small budding bubbles of tears turning his skin a blotchy red and his anger is enchanting; there is a thrum beneath Yuuji’s skin, he can feel it, as if he wants to return to his cretin on a warpath. 

“Oh, little one, he’s made you cry,” Sukuna croons, swiping at the salt with a thumb. He has experienced Yuuji’s tears many times over the years and yet—

Something never changes. 

“He kept - he kept trying to grab me,” it’s a shudder of air more than words. Sukuna takes in the way his face is splotchy-pink. He only wants to see Yuuji like this from his doing — those would be good tears.

All the same, a similar swirl of scathing ire wells up in his belly.

It is the audacity of these lesser beings to put their filthy hands on Yuuji — that they would seek to do something he does not wish for in their anger, to press into Yuuji’s skin and leave a mark, dig in deep and carve a reminder however fleeting, that irritates Sukuna. The arrogance to lay their hands on something that isn’t theirs. He wants to crush them beneath his heel until there is nothing left but a growing stain on the floor.

And then—

Yuuji sniffles his arms coming up to hold himself and Sukuna’s gaze is brought to the bright purple and red fingerprints on his arms, and for a moment all twenty of his fingers twitch.

“I want to go home.”

Sukuna eyes him. Sees the shudder along his shoulders. The way his fingers twitch. He tucks Yuuji closer to his side. “Home then,” he says, and thinks how no one will miss a predator for a predilection for high schools as a hunting ground.

Yuuji’s gaze flickers away from his own and Sukuna wonders if he’s slipped—revealed the endless abyss of malice under the mask and then he thinks: what is the harm here? Let his boy see how much vexation he holds for those that do not treat his belongs with care. 

“Sukuna,” Yuuji says quiet when they’re halfway home. One of his hands has moved to grip Sukuna’s clothing. Then quieter, seeking acknowledgment, “I made him bleed as you taught me to.” 

A shiver works its way down Sukuna’s spine. Such a lovely, terrible boy his summoner is. The small hint of pride in the words is a balm to his ire. He is proud indeed to know Yuuji returned what was due without hesitation.

He finds himself enamored even further. What an odd thing — he thought he has reached the limit. 

(Still, later, when Yuuji sleeps he has cleaning to do. A meal to make for tomorrow.) 

The two of them are curled up on the couch, take out on the table, as such Sukuna’s plans for clean-up have been put on hold.

Yuuji stretches his arm out, muscle still corded tight, bruises a ring around his arm, and traces a curious finger over one of the black bands of his arm. His skin pebbles at the touch but Sukuna does not shift.

“Sukuna,” Yuuji says suddenly, peering up at him eyes wide, he asks, “I think you’ve been the best guy I’ve ever met.” And Sukuna looks down at him and holds his gaze as Yuuji looks into the endless abyss and it looks back. He flushes then, just a small thing of color before he looks away.

He never notices the tiny, approving smile. 

“Is that so?”

He shifts his gaze averting to the tv — some old movie Sukuna can’t care less about. “You’ve never done anything to hurt me,” he says simply, then his hand moves down to curl around Sukuna’s fingers as he used to as a child. And—how sweet of him. No, no Sukuna hasn’t done anything to hurt him, but oh if Yuuji asked. 

He smoothes a hand through Yuuji’s hair and they mold together, the dips and curves of their bodies fitting with no gap.

For a while, silence settles like a spare blanket between them as Yuuji listens to the movie and Sukuna plans on what to do later when Yuuji is asleep and dead to the world. Breakfast will be omelets with meat and vegetables he thinks. 

“Sukuna,” Yuuji says again, this time the tell-tale sign of sleep cracking his voice. “Have I ever told you that I like you a lot?”

“No,” he says first, then, “Me too,” Sukuna reaches over to curl his finger in the fabric of Yuuji’s shirt collar, tugging his head gently to the side. Resting it on his shoulder. “I like you as well, and that’s why you’re mine. What a privilege.” 

If Yuuji only takes it as a reference to him being Sukuna’s summoner that’s alright these things must go slow.

Some of the best things age with time. Yuuji is bound to him by blood and before long Sukuna will ensnare him through righteous ruination.

When Yuuji comes into the kitchen the next more he pauses in the doorway from the smell alone. It distracts him from the cramps in his neck from falling asleep on the couch and the pull of muscle in every step from the way he’d pressed himself into the corner of the couch. It smells good. There’s the residual scent of sizzling vegetables when he sits at the table.

Sukuna doesn’t often cook — more than content with him taking over the kitchen for the both of them. Something about missing having someone else to cook and enjoy the efforts of. 

It’s always an affair when Sukuna cooks for the two of them in one way or another. It makes Yuuji feel special. 

One of four arms settles at his nape. Squeezes, a familiar weight before it smooths down his spine, soothing. “Some of your favorites,” Sukuna says trays balanced into two of his hands while his fourth pulls his own chair.

Quiet and on the counter Yuuji can hear his grandpa’s old radio droning on about the news including a new missing person’s case. They’ve been growing lately. None of the victims have been found yet. 

The description is familiar.

Yuuji looks down at his food a growing hunger in his belly. It is some of his favorites: rice with meat and noodles pilled on top, an omelet filled with fried vegetables, meat, and cheese, and grandpa’s old miso soup recipe. He always liked adding firefly squid.

That same hand sweeps down his back once more. “Is it to your liking, Yuuji?”

It is. Especially after yesterday — Yuuji can still feel his back throb at the memory of where he’d been pushed against a wall. His arms are tender. He looks down at his food. All of his favorites were made in an attempt to make him happy; Sukuna really is the best man he’s ever met.

“It is,” he says, heat burning at his ears. He hopes it isn’t visible. That Sukuna will focus on his own portion of food. “Thank you,” he breathes. “It looks good.” And it does — the meat is tender even to the eye and the omelet is fluffy on the outside but just runny enough when he breaks it open. 

“You are deserving of spoiling,” Sukuna says nonpulsed as the words fall from his lips like nothing. As if that is the most casual thing to say in the world. “Go on, Yuuji — best to enjoy it while it’s hot, I did cook the meat a bit rarer than usual this time.” 

It’s red and juicy when Yuuji eats it together with his noodles and rice. His mouth waters at the taste. As usual Sukuna’s prowess in the kitchen goes unmatched. The rest of the food is much the same. His tastebuds throwing a party with every bite.

In comparison to his eating Sukuna eats with a smug refinement, a simple twitch of his mouth to showcase his satisfaction. His movements always seem almost… methodical. Slow. His own way of savoring has always been more composed when compared to Yuuji’s own with the only real noise aside from their eating is the continuing drone of the radio.

“With the victim count raising as weeks go by there is now an emergency early curfew being enforced with new speculation that the perpetrator is linked to rising cult activity,” a male reporter says, tone grave. “The police have refused to comment any further at this time on the current investigation, instead requesting the compliance of the public in efforts to stay safe. We encourage citizens to report any suspicious acti—”

For some reason, Yuuji feels as if there’s a guillotine looming over him. 

“How do you find the food?” Sukuna asks cutting through the noise of the news. His own portion of food seems more robust than usual… though he has been mentioning being hungrier lately.

Amazing. Plain and simple. Sukuna’s cooking is always something he enjoys and he tells him as such in between bites to keep himself distracted from the sad tone of the news.

Sukuna smiles all for his eyes curving into pleased crescents. It’s a fluid movement as he piles more food on Yuuji’s plate, and at first, Yuuji thinks of denying the second portion there’s no what he can finish it, he thinks we can save it for later but then his stomach grumbles not yet satisfied.

“I’ll have to use this meat again,” Sukuna muses, amusement apparent in his little smile. “You seem to have taken a liking to it.”

“It does taste better than usual,” Yuuji says, and he thought it impossible. Sukuna’s food somehow tasting better than it already does. When Sukuna holds out more rice and meat to him Yuuji leans forward to eat it. 

“You made more than usual,” is all Yuuji says after holding Sukuna’s gaze. There’s a new intensity to it. Akin to a starving predator that’s just found a wounded lamb for the taking.

“Did I?” Sukuna says, then, “Well, it doesn’t seem like any of it is going to waste. I’m glad you like it so much.”

And it isn’t. Where one-moment Yuuji thought he’d been full it’s as if he can’t get enough now. They usually always have leftovers to eat at a later time — Sukuna’s own appetite calling for enough to eat as snacks throughout the day when Yuuji is gone — but this may be the first day that they’ll have to make something from scratch without anything left to put away. 

He can’t help but think of what they’ll have for dinner later; if he’ll eat as much then. Yuuji finds that he thinks he could if Sukuna is the one that makes it for them. There’s an odd emptiness in his belly that he isn’t accustomed to. 

“Will you make dinner tonight?” Yuuji asks, earnest, and honest as anything he says, “I always like when you cook for us.” 

Sukuna smiles. It’s a nice smile. The kind that makes his ears heat up. “I’ll make sure to incorporate your new favorite then.” It’s low almost teasing.

After grandpa died Yuuji — he took up odd jobs. Ranging from babysitting after school to dog walking and recently as security for a club. He had originally planned to try as a host after he turned eighteen — the commission is good! And people say he’s cute all the time! — but Sukuna had been staunchly against that particular employment option so. Security it ends up being.

He’s been working there a few months now at least and it’s. The club makes him uncomfortable. It’s divided into private booths for hosts to interact and a more public open floor where the number of bodies pressing together and moving as one gives him a headache. The scent of booze hurts his nose and the lights make his eyes feel dry if he looks for too long.

Yuuji feels awkward in this place. Even when he’s just meant to remove people when they get too rowdy or become a disturbance.

He thinks the night will be a slow one; no wandering hands where there shouldn’t be, and there’s been no signal to throw anyone into a cab yet. Technically, he shouldn’t be out this late anyway with the curfew but neither should any of the other people here be. 

And, Yuuji muses, he’s got to make money one way or another to keep himself and Sukuna fed among other things.

It ends up being a rare night when all the patrons are good or a disruption is handled by someone else. He’s grateful for it honestly. Yuuji has been feeling… off lately. 

Just little things. Tired and easily annoyed. Sukuna says it’s from the stress of finals coming around but he’s not so sure — he’s never been so easy to upset before. Certainly never been quick to try and hurt someone. And he just. Doesn’t want to potentially hurt someone on accident. Especially when someone is drunk and out of sorts and being stupid because of their inebriation. 

(He can hear Sukuna scoff in the back of his head.) 

Still, before long Yuuji is leaving as they close and heading to the bus to take him home. It’s dark and as much as he hates to admit it the lights don’t help much. Yuuji has never really liked walking home alone but he doesn’t want to bother Sukuna to walk with him — not when he enjoys the quiet of the house some nights.

The lights flicker overhead in ugly, faded yellows that barely illuminate the street. There are still the quiet sounds of nightlife as he walks; raccoons digging for meals in trashcans, the soft susurrus of bars still open with patrons chatting and drinking amongst themselves, and even a stray taxi.

Yuuji rubs at his eyes willing the sleep away.

He’s so tired.

A people person he can be considered, but he’s not really a fan of clubs and the occasional seedy nature of them. He’s not a fan of people trying to grab him. 

His shoes meet concrete in muted steps as he drags himself along. All Yuuji can really think of in this moment is a shower and crashing into bed, and maybe not even in that order.

His eyes haven’t yet adjusted to the dark when he reaches the section where none of the lights have been replaced. He grips his own arm tighter as he walks. 

The hair on the back of his neck raises with the chill of the night.

There’s the noise of another raccoon knocking a tin from the trash free. There are just a few more lights to pass under until they’re working again.

Cats yowl down one of the alleyways. Yuuji thinks of what Sukuna once said: the weak are meat and the strong do eat. Whatever poor thing they’re chasing won’t escape. Not unless it’s particularly full of wit or speed.

He continues on and turns down a familiar shortcut to the only bus stop that will take him home. He feels his stomach fall — a rapid plummet.

There’s a hand shooting out viper-quick, heavy, and thick over his mouth, another curling into the fabric of his collar yanking tight. It makes him choke the sudden press to his windpipe tears stinging at his eyes — all the air fizzling to nothing in his throat.

“Pretty, pretty thing,” a voice coos poison sweet in his ear as Yuuji is pushed forward into the brick of the wall. “Struggle and this will hurt far more than it has to.” It’s sing-songed out, a terrible kind of joy inflecting near his ear. He reaches up to claw at their hands, nails digging as deep as he can with the lack of oxygen blinking black spots in his eyes — his chest throbs with each denied inhale of air. Yuuji feels small in a way that isn’t — safe, comfortable, familiar. This is a cornering, boxing in, hands griping where they shouldn’t he doesn’t want this he doesn’t want thishedoesn’t—

Something rotten ripens in his chest when a hand moves from his shirt down to between his legs, tearing the button free Yuuji’s brain fuzzing with panic. 

He doesn’t think — can’t when a touch that makes cold, vile disgust well up in his chest rucks his pants down and presses a bruising grip to his hip — claws at the tender skin of their face until his hands are sticky, and the hand moves away to try and stop the frantic clawing. He doesn’t think when he uses the brief moment to push all his weight back against them until there’s the sound of bone hitting brick — he doesn’t think when he finds himself free and gasping for air as they groan in pain distracted for brief, brief seconds that Yuuji takes to scramble away. His heart threatens to burst from his chest in its own escape, the air hurts to breathe as he moves away, and the concrete is a mockery of a kiss when a hand curls around his ankle like a chain and pulls him down.

“S’kuna!” it’s not a yell so much as a pitiful rasp, and it’s harder to breathe with the panic. He can’t see it but he can imagine the line of red around his neck from the choke hold. Feels his pulse in his ears as he tries to kick and claws his way free. There’s laughter in his ears.

Yuuji does not feel like something strong; he feels like something to be eaten.

His heart is a hummingbird as his attempts grow more desperate. Feels a primal instinct to get away when a hand anchors itself around his neck, feels the weight of a knee digging into the curve of his spine. It’s a pitiful, shuddery whine when Yuuji pleads Sukuna’s name for divine protection.

His thoughts swim as he’s held down. He’s angry. He’s scared, god he’s fucking scared. The wind is cold against his bare skin, and Yuuji can’t stop that wrenches free from his throat. He can hear himself pleading no, no, no please don’t I don’t want this —nonono but it’s all far away. As if he’s underwater. 

Yuuji chokes on a sob when he feels the hand grip at his ass his vision burning with tears. There’s a burning in his chest. A mix of shame and rage and so much more that he can’t quite name. He cries again for Sukuna when there is a new, different stinging pain. 

He thinks he’s going to ripped in half. 

Yuuji’s breaths are uneven heaves of air. 

Something wet and hot spills over his skin. Yuuji flinches away a surprised hope budding in his chest when he finds he can move away. He curls up into a ball, his vision blurry but there’s the smell of blood. Coppery-tang in his nose and so red against the gray of the street. A hand he realizes belatedly.

“Didn’t you ever learn not to touch things that don’t belong to you?” the tone is familiar—even in its false politeness and slow-burning anger. The next breath Yuuji sucks in is with a different kind of shudder, the fear dispersing entirely.

There’s the sound of crunching. Bones he thinks, he’s not sure.

“Sukuna,” it’s quiet, a whisper as Yuuji stays curled into his ball.

A soft gurgle of noise. A quiet rage brimming. 

“Sukuna,” he repeats. There’s a noise that sounds faintly like a scream but it’s faint in his ears. Yuuji shakes. “I want to go home, please, Sukuna — home.”

Home is safe. He doesn’t care what it is that Sukuna wants to do right now (even if it would be satisfying in the end) he wants home. Their home. 

There’s a pause. 

Ragged breathing that isn’t his own. Two heartbeats that aren’t his.

Yuuji’s ears are still ringing with his old fear and he startles like a fawn when one of Sukuna’s hands cradles his cheek. “Oh, my little light,” he can’t stop his shaking; it’s as if it’s a part of him. Yuuji’s fingers twitch into the fabric of Sukuna’s clothes. It’s a muffled I want to go home that has three other hands lifting him up like he’s a precious thing. He doesn’t focus on how one of them is wet and warm. “I’ll take care of him,” Sukuna says and Yuuji breathes through his nose a sudden clench in his chest.

“No,” he says, perhaps a put too quick. Sukuna pauses. Yuuji can still hear the interlopers heartbeat in his ears. Can feel his hold around the back of his throat.

Sukuna looks frightening when Yuuji meets his gaze, staring at the state he’s in, the visible line of red around his neck. His eyes are bright as if they’re being lit with a fire from the inside threatening to consume everything in untamed heat leaving nothing but ashes in its wake. 

“Please take me home,” the words hurt as they come out. Sukuna won’t look away from his rumbled state, from his bare skin and Yuuji wants to curl up. He desperately wants to sit in the shower and never come out again. 

“Anything for you,” Sukuna’s tone has no inflection. His stare feels like a heavy weight on Yuuji’s shoulders. He thinks he misses something with how his head still swims over the desire to get away.

Sukuna’s mouth moves but Yuuji doesn’t hear whatever he says after.

Yuuji has not slept well for days now twisting and turning in his sleep with dreams filled with what-ifs that make him queasy. It’s the only reason he hears Sukuna edge open his door and manages to stamp down the flinch that threatens to overcome him. Sukuna won’t hurt him, he tells himself, won’t grab him. 

He blinks up into glowing red eyes when Sukuna comes to stand before his bed. A hand reaches down to pet his hair. “Yuuji,” he says quiet and sweet with eyes curving in glee. The bottom set stare down at him unflinching. “I have a surprise for you.” he continues and something in Yuuji’s belly squeezes.

He doesn’t know why. 

Yuuji hasn’t slept and he’s sure that cycle is going to continue, and yet, “Sukuna it’s late.” 

“I know,” he says and pets Yuuji’s hair as if soothing him. He’s warm. Warmer than Yuuji is curled up tight in his blankets. “I know, but I have something for you.”

It comes out as an insistence. His teeth are shining in the low light of Yuuji’s room the thin lines of moonlight only highlighting the sharp edge of his canines.

A hand is held out to him. “Will you let me show you?”

Yuuji can say no and he knows that as much as Sukuna will be disappointed in the answer he’ll drop it. Will stop this. The clenching in Yuuji’s stomach will ease.

He frees a hand from his fortress. It hovers and Sukuna does not grab it. With a lurch in his throat, Yuuji rests his hands against Sukuna’s palm. When they walk down the hall Yuuji feels as if he’s being escorted to an execution.

He pauses in the doorway of their kitchen. The table is dressed up with flowers and candles giving off a faint light. There is the smell of copper in the air. Yuuji’s eyes sweep around the room.

There’s the drop of liquid hitting the floor. The counter. The pool of liquid is small for now but growing as time goes on. Hands are what he notices first. A pair of them cut off and his gaze continues its path. They’re neatly placed where they would be if they were still connected to the body.

He takes a step back — meets a wall of muscle.

The body on the counter moves. Strains and writhes like a worm.

“I tracked him down for you,” Sukuna purrs two of his hands resting on Yuuji’s shoulders. The weight is calming when it should be sending him into a panic. There’s a person strapped to their kitchen counter. The hands squeeze as Sukuna leans down to ask into his ear. “Tell me what would you like to do with him? He hurt you.” 

It’s said with a fervent kind of expectancy. When Yuuji’s eyes dart to the side Sukuna’s eyes burn as they stare at the man on their counter. His teeth are sharp points. He looks different. Pleased with himself — like a cat that has brought its owner a mouse.

It reminds him of the time when Sukuna brought him a rabbit to kill. And. 

Yuuji hurts.

He can’t sleep without visions of hands touching him, harming him, defiling him in a way they had no right.

“I brought him for you,” Sukuna continues. “Whatever you’d like I’ll do — even if it’s just to throw him back into the gutter where he belongs.” It’s a growl instead of Sukuna’s usual composedness. “You’re kind,” he says, and Yuuji for the first time hears the worship in his tone as if he is nothing but an acolyte reciting scripture. “Too kind to the filth of this world, but for you, I would listen.”

“I —” Yuuji says and then stops.

Sukuna makes a quiet, inquisitive noise as he presses himself against Yuuji’s back. he can feel claws digging into his shoulder. Not yet piercing but waiting for the command. The sentencing.

The man yells beneath his gag. It’s dirty. Grime is visible even in the near-complete darkness.

“I,” he breathes and blood hangs heavy in his nose — travels down into his lungs. Something burns under his skin. The anger, that irritability, but more importantly a hunger swells in him like a well-tended fire. “I want him to hurt,” he says the words rolling in his mouth with a finality.

He’s damning this man to death.

He knows it wouldn’t be Sukuna’s first.

Thinks of all the missing people and all the days Sukuna cooked breakfast.

He feels more than sees Sukuna lungs forward. Thinks no and Sukuna freezes claws hovering just over the man’s jugular. 

It’s only then that Yuuji realizes he hissed the word aloud and Sukuna had listened. Now he peers at Yuuji with a tilted head — a well-trained hound waiting for its owner’s command.

“I want him to hurt,” Yuuji repeats and his feet unglue from the doorway as he shuffles further in. “I want to make him hurt.”

He thinks he should feel something at the thought of willingly hurting someone but there’s — nothing. A numbness that reaches his core and holds tight squeezing the very life from him.

“Oh, Yuuji,” it sounds like a prayer from Sukuna’s mouth. A divine revelation.

The blood on the floor is sticky and wet when Yuuji walks through it. He heads to the drawer that houses their knives. Pauses. “You were going to cook something for us weren’t you?” he questions. “With that meat from last time? Can I do it?” 

“Clever boy,” it’s praising.

His hands go to the skinning knife. “Will you hold him still?”

It’ll be just like the rabbit. The pig.

“Anything for you.” There’s a new kind of devotion to the words.

Sukuna prowls like a predator promised a meal before he settles in place at the man’s head. All four of his arms reach out and clamp down like shackles on his limbs. There’s a crunch that follows each taking hold. Yuuji is busy checking the knife and its sharpness to pay attention.

The weight of it is familiar in his hand as he makes his way to the counter. First is the shirt and beneath it is tender flesh they need to remove.

“You always were a quick learner.” Sukuna is smiling at him a gentle thing in its hunger. “Will you tell me what you’re planning?”

“No.” and then an echo of words from earlier. “I want it to be a surprise.”

This will be just like the pig. The rabbit. The knife is the same, as is his grip albeit a bit steadier now. Unlike the pig, however, Yuuji intends to butcher this one alive — there will be no mercy in this tomb tonight.

Sukuna’s hands shift ever so slightly on the man’s ankles when Yuuji stands before him. The man sobs, tears trickling down his face as his struggle renews. He’s an animal caught in a trap with the hunter coming to collect — what animal wouldn’t seek one last desperate attempt of making it free?

His demon may shush the man but it is a sinfully sweet warning. “Now, now if you struggle this will hurt far more than it has to.” 

His crying comes out as desperate gurgles and selfishly Yuuji wishes Sukuna had a fifth hand to quiet him completely. It’s harder to concentrate with all the extra noise.

The ties around the man’s ankles flex with his struggling and with a glance in Sukuna’s direction he wordlessly tightens his grip until a keen escapes their prey’s throat his body falling still from the pain. As a reward, Yuuji squeezes one of Sukuna’s hands.

He thinks of where he wants to cut first. It would take longer if he wanted to case skin — Sukuna would have to hold the man up while he worked. Yuuji thinks better of it best to go with what’s more efficient.

The first cut has the animal howling against its restraints and Yuuji shakes his head. Really, he’d work much better in peace and quiet. He thinks, briefly, that the sobbing should make him feel sick and that this should be harder than it currently feels, but it isn’t. It’s strangely easy. As if Yuuji is meant to do this.

He’s not sure how he feels about that yet. 

Blood falls in lazy streams down his legs and over the counter. They’ll have to clean up later.

His grip doesn’t waver as he continues the trail of the knife up the animal’s stomach a line of bright red following its wake. It’s a smooth movement with Sukuna assisting in holding the creature down. Slowly the thin river of blood shifts into a rushing waterfall that travels along the planes of the animal’s sides. When Yuuji lays a hand on his shoulder to keep him still to drag the knife up to his sternum his hand comes back stained. Sukuna growls at the scent waiting to enjoy his next meal.

The canvas turns slippery as Yuuji travels downward cutting along the seam of the thighs and legs. All the while Sukuna whispers sweet encouragements and reminders as Yuuji skins the animal beneath his hand. Its struggling has ceased. Shock he thinks. The edge of the knife gleams a brilliant red when Yuuji sets it aside for the moment. He’s going to end up filthy with this next part.

His fingers curl around the skin as he eases it away from muscle and ligament and bone. There is blood up to his elbows and on his cheek from where he tries to rub sweat away from the effort of peeling the skin from the body like a jacket. It catches just under the arms and Yuuji blinks. 

“Ah,” he says. “I forgot to cut its arms.”

“That’s alright,” Sukuna soothes a feral devotion in his smile. “The knife is right there. You can fix it.”

And fix it he does as copper fills the room and settles in his lungs. The blood is sticky over his hands as Yuuji cuts long, thing lines up the arms so that skin will come off like a jacket. It is only then that he drags the edge of the knife over the throat and feels the last desperate wheeze escape. Blood covers his face when he pushes and pulls over the artery and then the room is quiet.

There’s a last gurgle as the body stills. He’s made a canvas out of something vile. It’s beautiful in its final state — he has torn away the defiled flesh from the body; a visceral chrysalis. A final transformation into a gift through a reckoning. Even now the blood continues to flow as a sluggish river that dips and groves around the exposed musculature and over the rounded curve of the ribs until it meets the flat edge of the counter and falls in a steady stream to the floor. The muscles twitch with residual energy as Yuuji stands back and takes in where he wants to start in the butchering process. 

Sukuna’s hands release from their task and like a predator he prowls to Yuuji’s side and molds himself against his back. His breath is warm as it ghosts over Yuuji’s ear. “What are you thinking?” he questions as one hand pets down his side staining his night clothes a near black. There’s a swell against his back — Sukuna is enjoying himself in more ways than one. 

He has to be patient and that — it’s the first thing that gives Yuuji pause in his catalog of the carcass. That he wants Sukuna to be patient. But for what?

“Would you get me something to store the meat in, please?” 

And of course, Sukuna does — ever prepared.

He’s so helpful as Yuuji starts the butchering process. Breaks the sternum, when Yuuji asks politely and stands at his side to receive, wrap and label the meat as Yuuji goes. The heart is the first thing Yuuji goes for once the ribcage is revealed to him. It’s a task to remove the lungs in a way that doesn’t contaminate them. It doesn’t matter that Sukuna won’t get sick no matter what he eats — Yuuji wants to prepare him the best. It’s a heavy thing in his hand still weakly twitching as he pulls it free from the rest of the body. At that point is it a familiar motion to remove the valves and the fat to get to what will truly be edible before he hands it off to Sukuna. “You can have the valves as a snack if you’d like,” Yuuji tells him and not even a moment passes before he hears Sukuna take the invitation. After he removes the ribs with Sukuna’s help and divides them into long and short rib sections to freeze until later. The organs are removed gingerly — the liver is Sukuna’s favorite part.

Once more Sukuna presses against his back humming a little tune as he entwines his hand with Yuuji’s all while he continues sectioning the meat for them to enjoy later. Steaks are the easiest — they’ll be the most numerous once he’s done. He can feel blood on all of Sukuna’s hands as they touch him, pet him. His mouth leaves wet stains when he presses a kiss just below Yuuji’s ear.

“Such a good butcher,” he praises and he sways them as if they’re dancing just a light movement that rocks him against the swell of Yuuji’s ass. And when Yuuji pulls parts free that the both of them can’t enjoy together to hand feed Sukuna he rumbles, a deep vibration that sends sparks skittering up Yuuji’s spine. “Providing so much for me.”

Eventually, he finishes. The body has been picked clean as if a wake of vultures had descended upon it. The meat is packed away in their freezer and still, Sukuna sways against his back. Curls against him in an attempt to make them a singular being. 

Hands pets over his arms, his wrists, press against the calm thud of his pulse, and breathes praise in his ear about how he’s done such a good job staying calm that I knew you could always do it, Yuuji.

Heat builds in his belly at the words. Yuuji feels… powerful. A dictation of life and death as he feeds Sukuna the food he no doubt likes best — that Yuuji likes best now that he’s being honest.

“Yuuji,” he croons, pressing their cheeks together, and out of the corner of his eye, Yuuji can see the sharp points. Two of his hands lift the carcass from the counter and send it skittering to the floor. The counter is a mess of blood and gore.

The heat cranks up to a boil. 

Sukuna’s hands settle under his arms and lift him up like he weighs nothing. “Yuuji,” he breathes with blind devotion. “I want to thank you — let me thank you.”

The heat slithers up calm and collected and Yuuji hums as he leans against Sukuna’s embrace. Sukuna isn’t a bad decision — he’s always been so much better than everyone else. “How do you intend to?”

One large hand settles itself along the curve at his waist — a brand, a claim, as Sukuna presses another kiss just below his ear. “I’d like to worship you.”

It sends a shiver through him despite his best attempts at playing unaffected. 

He thinks he should be disgusted. At the gore and the meat and the this but he feels safe cradled in Sukuna’s arms. Knows without a doubt that Sukuna will have the kitchen cleaned like nothing happened by the morning. 

Yuuji is covered in blood — from the bits that flecked onto his chin down to his fingers and then even further to his toes where he’s moved around in the growing puddles. And still, the heat in his belly has not died only grown from a small fire to an inferno.

“Will you show me how?” asks Yuuji, and the hand on his waist squeezes light and careful — not enough to bruise, never enough to bruise unless Yuuji asks. Slowly he’s spun around in their dance until they’re facing. Sukuna looks at him like a starved animal. Leans down to kiss at the hollow of his throat and then up, up, up until copper fills his mouth and takes his breath away. A hand toys at the corner of his shirt.

“If you’d let me.” Sukuna says, gently even with his appearance a macabre display. Sways them to and fro in the low light of the night their dance floor a bloodstained altar. He leans down and presses a kiss to Yuuji’s jaw and another to his cheek. “Only if you’ll let me,” he says and Yuuji winds his arms around Sukuna’s neck as they sway tugging him closer. 

He can still taste the coppery tang of blood in his mouth, the tacky feeling of it on his skin. Yuuji goes on his tip toes — actions louder than any words he can muster in this moment. The two of them are filled with something warm — adrenaline maybe. Need is a possibility, too. But, Yuuji knows, in the core of himself that has been tucked away and denies, it is want that courses through them both blood-soaked and visceral. Yuuji leans up and kisses him and kisses him hard.

It isn’t Yuuji’s first kiss — far from it but all the same, he can’t describe how he feels at the moment. Only that there is a prickling need under his skin and Sukuna will soothe it best because Sukuna — he’s always been the best choice when Yuuji really gives it thought. The best choice when even in the moment and his hand squeezes at his waist leaving a blood handprint it doesn’t hurt. There will not be a press of fingers into his hip unless he asks for it. He puts the mark out of mind shirt and otherwise. He’s more interested in this, their kissing, his head being tilted back to deepen it. 

There’s a live wire under his skin as they touch; sparks where Sukuna’s hands rest on his cheeks, a crackling heat when Yuuji’s hands unwind from his neck to nudge open his kimono — the only thing he’ll wear even now. In turn, Sukuna only lets him go long enough for the kimono to be pushed off his shoulders before his hands return with a new purpose — working Yuuji’s clothes off in return.

Underneath the gore, Yuuji feels his face flush as Sukuna’s hands travel the length of his body like an instrument he’s taking the time to tune — to learn. It’s enough to have Sukuna pausing when they catch eyes, a palm cupping his cheek, a sweet tenderness to their sin.

It makes his heart clench. 

“Such a pretty little thing,” Sukuna says, voice dipping into a growl. “And all mine — my pretty little monster.”

“Only because you taught me,” Yuuji breathes back, and Sukuna hums not denying as his hand lifts Yuuji’s nightshirt over his head and tosses it to the floor. 

Sukuna smiles instead, razor-sharp, and tugs him closer one hand grasping the entirety of his waist, his fingers smoothing over the small of his back. “You called me here,” he murmurs, sounding like an acolyte ready to kneel before their altar. “I had to make you mine someway,” he continues, “What best way to anchor you to me than to turn you into a monster?” And even though the words should send fear through his body it doesn’t — as always. As always Yuuji feels safe. Feels warmth as Sukuna eyes rover over him, takes in his bared flesh, and finds something worth coveting despite the new sin that stains Yuuji’s hands. 

A god of his own molding coming to fruition. 
There’s a puff of breath against his stomach and Yuuji looks down in fascination at the maw that has until now kept its presence to a minimum. It licks at the planes of his stomach where blood has dribbled down from Sukuna’s hands. A wet, startling heat that has him keening in the back of his throat as Sukuna moves him about like a puppet on a string — his hands dipped red, red, red and turning Yuuji’s body into a canvas of life and death. The teeth of the maw tear his boxers to shreds and a hand pets down his legs soothing and Yuuji. He wants more. “Touch me?” he asks and Sukuna’s eyes flash with hunger.

“I’ll devour you if you ask me,” replies Sukuna hands coming up to lift him. The heat of the maw makes him twitch as air brushes over his length. Lower down twitching against his ankle Yuuji feels something large.

“What if asked you to treat me gently?” Yuuji says, instead of entertaining that sentence. He wants to be treated nicely. Held and praised and loved. 

Sukuna strokes a hand over his cheek just below his eyes, pressing a kiss to the side of his mouth. It’s almost overwhelming feeling all four of those hands on him. “You’re mine to please,” is all he says.”

Yuuji’s inhale is sharp and then sharper still when that wet tongue laps at him base to tip. He’s laid down on the bloody counter, nearly folded in half with the way Sukuna looms over him. It makes his head spin as a hand pets through his hair in tandem with a tongue that swallows him down. There are going to be bloody handprints on his hips, his cheeks, his torse, everywhere. And not once does Yuuji think about wanting to wash himself clean.

Sukuna blocks all the light in the room from him with his body, only the internal shine of his eyes something Yuuji can see. He feels a hand lift his lower half upward while another tugs him close and his cock is hard and heavy against his stomach — he whines, and twitches as the tongue laves over the back of his thighs and then lower over his hole. “Shh,” Sukuna soothes his hand splaying over his chest to feel Yuuji’s heartbeat kick. “I’ll take care of you.”

“I know,” Yuuji agrees because he does. Of course, Sukuna will. Knowing fingers will curl with his Yuuji reaches a hand up. “Take care of me.”

Sukuna marks his name on Yuuji’s throat teeth and tongue as heat spreads over the two of them. The maw continues to make him twitch against the counter and has him writhing until he’s wet and panting from the attention and it — it isn’t even the main course.

The hand on his sternum pets down over his belly when Yuuji feels a finger inch in bit by bit. He hisses through his teeth even when Sukuna shushes him. “Relax, relax, it’ll fit,” he sounds so sure pausing until Yuuji’s hissing and panting ebbs. “I’ll make sure it fits.”

He loses the air in his lungs at the casual confidence in the statement. He wonders what Sukuna sees as he looks down upon him — upon his red flushed body and the blood staining his skin like armor. Wonders if his eyes are blown wide and dark; if he looks as dazed as he feels with his heart a drumming beat beneath Sukuna’s hand as they’re surrounded by the mutilation wrought by their hands. He must be something appealing to Sukuna if the strain of his grip is anything to go by, the harsh rise and fall of his chest as he takes his time easing a finger in.

Yuuji is not innocent but this is new territory for him. A large hand curls under his neck, and rubs a thumb just over his Adam’s apple. A gentle weight that grounds him more than frightens him. Sukuna won’t snap him in half even though he has more than enough power to do that and more.

“You can add another,” says Yuuji and things are syrupy slow as he shifts his leg. Sukuna has thrown it over his shoulder now and the stretch takes some time to get used to but Yuuji finds he likes it. The burn. The way he can feel the curve of his knuckles as they reach in and in and in. Part of his wishes he could see how it looks — Sukuna’s fingers sinking into him slowly but surely. His back curves when he hits something, a low wounded keen escaping his throat. Then there are jaws at his throat, his blood rushing in animal fear at the scrape of teeth.

He’s dizzy. Sukuna could eat him and it would be his right.

This is violence and love entwined — a fire roiling under his skin with a matching inferno looking at him as if he houses the sun under his skin. He feels his eyes flutter when a third finger finds home and tilts his face toward the palm that seeks to hold him. Yuuji wonders if he looks pretty surrounded as he is by death. The hand at his waist digs its fingers in and wrenches him closer as soft, pleased sighs escape Yuuji’s chest unbidden as Sukuna trails kiss after kiss down his chest, a mouth sealing over a nipple all while keeping teeth at bay.

Sukuna takes his time even when Yuuji hears himself start to beg — feels his back bow as he sees stars and Sukuna chuckles against his skin when his mouth goes slack. “A little instrument for me to play with,” murmurs Sukuna as he wrings whines and moans from his lips, pumping his fingers slow and steady never one to rush when he isn’t required to. A hand travels down between them to jerk at Yuuji’s cock and all it does is make him choke on the noises he wants to spill overwhelmed by it all. “You’ll be molded just for me when I’m done with you,” he promises.

A sob breaks free of his throat when Sukuna adds a fourth finger — he’s going to break he’s going to breakhe’sgoingtobreak.

“No you won’t I won’t let you,” Sukuna tsks and Yuuji is mortified that he said it aloud. It doesn’t distract him from the shudder that makes its way through him at the blatant control Sukuna claims to have over him. Of if he will break. 

Sukuna manhandles him like he’s a toy shifting his thighs even farther until they sting at the way he’s being folded knees to chest. His smile is not kind even though his touch. “You’re mine,” he says the words rolling from his tongue with conviction. “You will only break when I wish you to.” 

Slowly, slowly Sukuna takes himself in hand and nudges in. It hurts. Has Yuuji’s eyes squeezing as he hiccups from a new kind of pain — tries to focus on the fingers that wipe tears away, that offer comfort as he’s undone. His gasps are silent shuddery things as Sukuna moves inch by inch until he’s sheathed and Yuuji’s vision is a blurry mess when a hand pets over his belly. 

“Look,” Sukuna says, soothes, as his hand pets over a bulge in his belly. “It’s all inside. I have not broke you — you can take it.” 

he wants to say no no I can’t but still, his hand reaches for Sukuna and he whimpers at the very idea of him leaving. He’s panting as he adjusts to this new stretch, this new appendage making a home inside of him. His head feels fuzzy — this is not at all what he thought his first time would be like but he doesn’t think that fantasy can compare to this. Not when he’s gasping, pleading, asking, “How—fu’k how do I look?” 

Because he wants to be a mess. Wants Sukuna to make a mess of him he’s come to understand. Only wants to hurt and heal when it’s Sukuna’s touch.

Wants him to carve a space on his insides.

“Defiled,” Sukuna chuckles the sound reverberating through his bones as he looks down at Yuuji as if he’s mere moments from devouring him whole. He controls the pace his grip on Yuuji’s hip bruising (Yuuji wants to keep them that way) as skin meets skin and echoes around the room. “Made divine by my hand.”

And Yuuji — a part of him deep down thinks he should be scared, should run away from this. From a Sukuna that no longer hides behind his thinly maintained mask. But the larger part of him that knows that is just instinctual fear and animal survival wants to push closer. Have no barrier between them — after all here they are. In their kitchen where Yuuji has killed a man, is covered in blood from head to toe and is being worshipped. The very idea of running away after this is foreign to him; Yuuji has never felt safer than right now with his demon looming over him and whispering praise into his ear. 

His head swims as Sukuna fucks into him; a tight heat that has him groaning, his head falling forward to pant against Yuuji’s chest as he fucks deeper, deeper, and deeper still. Yuuji can feel the shake of his cock molding him from the inside out—he’s so full. There’s a growing pressure burning low and hot as his eyes flutter at the feeling of being speared open. 

He whines into the back of his hand hoping to muffle the noise when one of Sukuna’s hand shuffle down to fist at his cock and all he can do is pant and shake as he takes in the sight through half-lidded eyes. He’s like a string ready to snap. He’s reached his limit and just needs something to push him over the edge. 

“Pretty, pretty thing,” Sukuna murmurs, and Yuuji’s hips stutter when the grip around his length tightens he whines again reaching for anything — a free hand.

“H-Hand,” he manages. ”’Kuna your hand.” 

He can barely keep it together as he tugs the hand up to his throat with the way Sukuna is grinds into him. Barely hears his own quiet request of, “please — just — just a little.” 

It turns Sukuna’s methodical, thrusts into frantic, staccato movements and his eyes shine with unholy delight as they take in Yuuji with a hand around his neck. Sukuna’s hands around his neck. “Want it to hurt?”

He chants a mantra of yesyesyes, please and while it’s only a brief squeeze it’s what Yuuji comes with the cry muffled as he bites into the back of his own hand but Sukuna—Sukuna doesn’t let up. His thrusts turn painful, near animalistic as Sukuna snarls.

And yet. Yuuji isn’t afraid even as the pressure tightens and tightens — as black spots around his eyes and his body convulses with the need for air. Tears cling to his lashes.

There’s a terrible thrill that slinks through him as Sukuna’s grip tightens and tightens, even when he starts to claw at the man that can hold him down with just a hand. He feels nothing but safe as he slowly loses air and Sukuna looks down at him like something precious that he needs to hold. Lets out a garbled, muffled moan when Sukuna slams his hips forward and heat paints his insides — Yuuji’s eyes rolling back as he does so.

He can barely make out Sukuna’s expression when he rides out his orgasm only knows that his eyelashes are fluttering with the last of his energy to keep his eyes open, his grip limp around Sukuna’s wrist. He looks pleased, Yuuji thinks distantly, and he looks like he’s cooing something as a thumb swipes at his mouth. It’s a head rush when Sukuna’s grip relents and all Yuuji can think to do is surge forward to slot their mouths together. There’s a rumble that works its way down his spine when Sukuna holds him.

Yuuji never expected his first time to come after a carnage and certainly never envisioned himself dressed and draped in blood but. Sukuna nuzzles at his jaw before he presses careful, careful kisses to his jaw and around his cheeks as they come down and somehow he can’t think of anything that could beat this — two beasts coming together. 

Sukuna brushes sweaty strands from Yuuji’s forehead, “See,” he says smug, “You did not break.” 

Yuuji can’t even muster up the energy. He rests his head against his chest. “Tired,” he says first and then, “This was so fucking unsanitary.” 

“mmhm,” it may be a hum but it doesn’t stop Sukuna from licking some of the blood from his neck. “I think you look delectable.”

His nose wrinkles. Above him, Sukuna’s eyes are dilated as they take him in. The back of his knuckles pets over the round of his cheek. They still haven’t moved an inch from the counter. “I don’t think we can save our clothes,” Yuuji says eyes shying away. “Not even if we use lemon juice or — or bleach. Anything really.” his voice wavers now. Not from what he did no, but because he knows that was one of Sukuna’s favorite kimono and now it’s ruined.

Sukuna nuzzles at his jaw still stained a brilliant red top to bottom and seeking to dirty them both further. Yuuji finds he doesn’t mind. “It’s replaceable,” is what he says voice low, then a sigh, “I almost don’t want to clean you up.” 

“We’re all dirty,” Yuuji says smiling against Sukuna’s forehead. There’s a rumble from Sukuna as his hands settle under his thighs to lift him clean off the counter. They’ve left a mess behind. An imprint of Yuuji on the counter. He leans down for another kiss that Sukuna gives him easily. He likes this he finds. A Sukuna that is a beast playing human. “We need a shower. Carry me?” he asks when it seems like Sukuna is about to set him on wobbly feet.

“Spoiled thing,” Sukuna says, voice low. But his grip readjusts.

“You said you’d take care of me,” he replies resting his head on Sukuna’s shoulder.

A hand swipes down the curve of his spine. “And I will like always.”

Like always.

The kitchen is clean when Yuuji enters it next. No hide nor hair of evidence of what occurred here last night.

Sukuna isn’t in the house. He won’t be for a few hours more, Yuuji thinks. He can be meticulous when he wants to be and right now that’s — perfect. 

Yuuji has a surprise for him too. 

The table is still set though the candles have been snuffed out. He’ll fix it back up later. 

He’d asked Sukuna to put the heart in the fridge rather than the freezer when they finished. Now, it’s an easy thing to grab it and all the other ingredients he’ll need—salt, pepper, butter, broth, onions, herbs—alongside the pot it’s all going to go into.

The valves of the heart had been removed last night and so had the majority of the fat. It’s a bright red under his hands as Yuuji drags the knife through the meat dicing it into nice even lengths before cutting those into cubes. As he sets it to brown for a time in the pot with the butter he cuts the onions next. White and red mix together when he puts the heat down low and adds the broth and salt.

He’s made beef heart before with grandpa’s help so he knows by heart that he’ll have to check on it in around an hour. Add more seasoning as needed before he lets it cook long and slow until it’s tender.

Soon enough the smell of the stew fills the room. Fragrant just the way he knows Sukuna will appreciate. In the meantime, he busies himself with the house. Just because Sukuna cleaned up the mess doesn’t mean he decided to do the dishes. Though, it’s not like Yuuji truly minds — he likes to keep his hands busy and cleaning and drying the dishes falls under that umbrella perfectly.

When that’s done he moves on to rest of the house. Putting away laundry and finally cleaning up his desk with all of its scribbled notes and dog-eared books, textbooks, and otherwise.

Eventually, the stew is nearly done and Yuuji is setting the table. The radio is on now playing something quiet as he relights the candles. Maybe it’s a bit early to have a stew but — he thinks Sukuna will enjoy it regardless.

It’s not long at all before he hears Sukuna turning open the door and sliding his shoes off. Hears him pause in the doorway. “Just in time!” Yuuji starts, excited. One hand has a ladle the other holds the bowl. “It’s heart stew.”

Sukuna doesn’t move from where he’s standing "Yuuji,” Sukuna says. His eyes haven’t moved from where they pin Yuuji in place. “Come here.”

There’s a new heat in them that Yuuji doesn’t think was there before — or, no. A heat that he refused to take notice of until now.

Yuuji smiles setting the bowl down at the table and only moving so far as the counter before he stops, leaning his hip against it.

“Yuuji,” Sukuna says, in a tone that would scare anyone that didn’t know him—doesn’t know him like Yuuji. He’s never been scared of Sukuna; not even when he used to wake up late at night to a crimson-eyed monster at the end of his bed after a nightmare. And he’s certainly not scared now, even after Sukuna helped him kill a man and then clean up the scene of the crime. Dipped his hands into blood and painted life and death entwined on Yuuji’s skin.

He should be he knows—should fear what Sukuna is. Should fear what he’s capable of especially after witnessing firsthand what he’ll do but. That was all for him. And that’s such a lovely thing isn’t it? That Sukuna would dirty his hands, would hunt someone down for him all because they hurt him. It’s heady. Knowing that Sukuna would most likely do it for him again if he so much as hinted that he’d like it and oh—Yuuji does. 

That’s care. A wondrous kind of monstrosity on a leash that comes and goes at his beck and call. That’s love. Staining your hands for someone because they’ve been wronged.

“I thought you’d like it,” Yuuji says, eyes curving upwards with his smile only growing wider as Sukuna approaches him—slow, slow. A predator on the prowl. His hand goes up to cup Sukuna’s cheek. “What better way to share the way I feel than with a heart?”

Because this feeling, too is not a surprise. A slowly, accepted truth maybe, but not a surprise. Yuuji has always loved Sukuna — from the very moment he understood what love could be in his young mind and then later still, he loved Sukuna as the definition became limited.

So many of the people he sought out resembled Sukuna. From the gruff way, they would act to having red hair, to feeling small in their presence but they — they never made him feel safe in his smallness. Only frightened.

Sukuna…Sukuna makes him feel scared in the best of ways, and then safe a second later. 

Yuuji has been in love with his monster for his entire life — why shouldn’t he confess with a heart on a platter? 

“My what a pretty little monster I’ve made you,” Sukuna murmurs, leaning down into his space. Yuuji has to shift his legs to make room for him and they move back, back, back until there’s no space left between him and the counter as Sukuna corners him. A thumb strokes just under his eyes. “What a work of art you’ve become.”

“You have to take responsibility now,” Yuuji tells him looking through his lashes. They’re mere inches apart. Their breath mingling together in the space between. “I’ve offered a heart—are you going to take it?” His throat bobs, a new feeling zipping down his spine at the look in Sukuna’s eyes. That thrill is here. Scared one moment, safe the next.

“Do I now?” questions Sukuna voice dipping lower. He’s looking with half-lidded eyes, deep enough to swallow Yuuji whole. “What makes you think I will?” 

“You will,” Yuuji says, leaning his cheek into Sukuna’s own hand. “Because I’m yours.”

“You are.”

“Which means you have to take care of me — that you won’t leave me.” 

Sukuna hums a low sustained thing before he nips at Yuuji’s jaw. “Oh, Yuuji,” he says amusement dripping. “There would be no getting rid of me even if you wanted me gone.”

His inhale is sharp and his chest hurts with how fast his heart beats. The words should scare him. “Good,” and the word comes out dipped in the same fire that rushes through his veins — all-consuming. “You can’t leave. Even if I try to push you away.”

And Sukuna just chuckles a hand linking itself together with one of Yuuji’s own. “‘Till death do us part.”

And Yuuji doesn’t have to ask or signal — Sukuna kisses him. Hot and heavy enough to steal the oxygen from his lungs. When his eyes flutter open—and when had they shut?—he can see Sukuna reaching for the bowl on the table with one of his hands.

“Open your mouth for me.”

And Yuuji does.

Sukuna reaches for a piece of the heart — just large enough, the perfect size to fit in Yuuji’s mouth without a struggle.

And his stomach rumbles, a familiar hunger pain that has Sukuna smiling as he lifts the piece of it up to his mouth — Yuuji parts his lips easily. 

It still has the slightest hint of copper to its taste but it’s good. Filling. Familiar. 

His own hand stretches for a piece perfect enough for Sukuna. He takes it just as easily. Swipes his tongue over his lips and opens his mouth in a silent command for more.

“‘Till death do us part,” Yuuji repeats as he feeds Sukuna the rest piece by piece.