Chapter Text
He’s dead. Absolutely boned. Goodbye world, this is where he flees this mortal coil and all its trappings. Right here, right now, in some dingy alleyway in Tokyo, laid out in a halo of busted bags of burnable garbage.
He’s not even going the way he thought he would: head down, mouth and nose streaming with blood, the thick taste of copper mixed with syrupy sweet benzocaine heavy on his screaming, branded tongue, body broken beyond saving in the face of a curse who wouldn’t listen.
Well, he was.
At first.
And then Okkotsu fucking Yuuta shoved his fingers in his mouth, and that’s what killed Toge.
Yuuta’s face has that oddly intense cast to it, the one that he affects when shit has gotten a little too real for everyone’s liking, where the world has narrowed to just Yuuta and his protective rage, his bright eyes dulled to a fierce roar of color. His presence over Toge is a shelter in and of itself—Toge is slight, sure, but he’s no waif, but holy hell: When did puberty finally come to roundhouse kick Yuuta in the face, because wow, shoulders. How has he not noticed how broad those shoulders have gotten yet?
It’s like before the fight with Getou and releasing Rika, the world had pinched Yuuta into the smallest possible shape, and that the weight has lifted, he’s grown like a weed. The rounded layer of puppy fat on his face has started to slide away as Maki’s spartan training pushes him to something entirely new, his messy hair now starting to fall into his face as it grows. He’s gotten taller, too—at first, it was from the set of his shoulders, no longer rounded in a slouch. Now, it's the lengthening of his bones, the settling of his spine into something confident, upright.
Toge is of the opinion that Yuuta’s cute, but it’s like Yuuta took off at a dead sprint towards hot while he wasn’t looking. Toge can already tell it’s going to cause him no end of trouble.
Because Yuuta has his fingers in his mouth. Fingers that have only just recently begun to shyly entwine with his. They’ve never even kissed but now Yuuta’s fingers are in his mouth!
He sort of wants to start screaming.
Toge knows Yuuta’s hands are warm, a little dry and calloused, and large against his own slim palm. They’d once pressed their hands palm-to-sweaty palm to compare after a round of grappling, barely hiding the tension between them, the sort of tension that just wound tighter and tighter until Maki had catcalled them—her smug get a room had echoed so loudly that it rang in Toge’s ears like she was the cursed speech user.
And sure, okay, it was a bit of a thrill to see Yuuta’s fingers stretch above his own. And okay, yes, they were blatantly flirting. And sure, sure, sure Yuuta’s hands are nice to hold, but… But—
But—
But!
He can feel the calluses on Yuuta’s fingers, each rough ridge as they glaze over his blood-slick tongue, his knuckles pressed up against his teeth and lips, the spread of his free hand spanning the entire width of his jaw. Toge feels suddenly dwarfed—was he always so small compared to Yuuta? Was his mouth always so easy to pry open, with just a push of a thumb and forefinger at the hinge of his jaw?
Yuuta presses down at the back of his tongue, the scrape of his bitten-short nails a bright bloom of pain and heat that startles down his spine.
“Don’t bite down,” Yuuta warns, his voice dark and silken. Toge shudders hard, throat spasming as he struggles to swallow the pooling saliva and blood gathering in his mouth. “Don’t hurt yourself more.”
Yuuta is healing him, Toge realizes.
Yuuta pushes at his tongue like a doctor with a depressor, clinically pouring his cursed energy into his fingertips. Toge can feel the heat off of it, like little pinpricks of electricity sparking through the shot nerves of his throat, singeing away the searing pain and replacing it with warmth.
Drool spills out over the well of his teeth, wetting his slick lips and dripping obscenely down the curve of his chin.
Rika is probably holding off the curse they’ve been sent to exorcise, some semi-first-grade thing that bounced back Toge’s power words, shredding his throat in mere moments before taking advantage of their surprise, swiping them with a backhand swing that sent them both flying towards the alley wall.
Yuuta must have righted himself by bracing his energy only to watch Toge be flung back like a ragdoll into the bricks and collected garbage. No wonder he looks like he does, so soon after their disastrous Christmas and all the practicing they’ve been doing—
Or… that’s what Toge would be thinking if he was even the slightest bit sane, but his sanity must have left him the exact second his boyfriend gagged him with his fingers. Instead, his mind is blank except for the high-pitched whine in his head as he realizes several things at once:
One: Yuuta is strong enough to manhandle him like he’s made of straw. Thank you, Maki, I love you.
Two: Yuuta’s hands are big, probably so much so that he could wrap a hand around Toge’s neck with ease. Or clasp his wrists and push them up against the wall; or hold him down and—
And, most devastatingly, three:
Toge is very, very, extremely horny for this. Arousal surges deep in his belly, flushing his face with a heat that starts at the base of his neck and crawls upwards, mouth watering.
Yuuta‘s fingers in his mouth, pressing down, stroking across his tongue—skimming over his lips and his teeth—Yuuta, Yuuta, Yuuta, his brain chants, mercury-quick and in bright bursts, as violent as a curse.
Put your fingers in my mouth, gag me, stuff them in, use it, let me let me let me—I want, I want, I—
He gasps as Yuuta draws back, fingers stained red with blood. Yuuta stands, wiping his hand on the shocking white expanse of his shirt, already stained with curse-muck and dirt. The image sears itself into Toge’s eyes, Yuuta with Toge’s blood spattered on him, hand glistening with spit.
“Ah—Yuu…ta—,” he gasps, voice hoarse, mouth loose with shock. His face burns like a brand, shocked into a stupor as their surroundings come back into stark difference. “Shake—“
I was fine—
But Yuuta just shakes his head once, skimming his non-bloody fingers against Toge’s jaw and lips as he stands. It’s both a reassurance and a quiet command, bundled in one casual movement. One casual movement that has Toge leaning forward, chasing the slight brush of Yuuta’s fingers, his face burning.
“Let’s try again, it should work now that we have a better idea of logistics,” Yuuta says, reaching for his katana. “Rika!”
Rika swarms up to Yuuta’s side, head cocked to the side. “Yessss?”
“Wait with Inumaki for me, please?” Yuuta asks, blade glinting in the half-light in the curtain. “Do what he says. Just like we’ve practiced. Okay?”
“Ooookayyyy!” Rika chirps, sliding beside Inumaki and patting his head. “Hiiii.”
There’s a certain amount of jarring shock that comes with being violently ripped from horny daydreams to being petted like a dog by a giant special-grade curse, and Toge almost wants to close his eyes and pretend to faint from it. It’s just too much at once, even for him.
(But, he’s pretty sure that would turn their already thorny mission into an absolute disaster, and Toge is also pretty sure they’re not supposed to demolish a town, so he refrains. Yuuta has got to work on controlling himself when he’s angry. They’ll work on that. Probably.)
“Konbu,” he murmurs instead, pushing himself upright.
Yuuta may have healed his throat, but he still aches all over from being slammed into the wall, his joints and muscles complaining as he crouches at the ready. He’s grateful Yuuta has the sense to conserve his energy instead of wasting it on reverse jujutsu.
He watches with keen eyes as Yuuta uses the nearby dumpster as a springboard to the rooftop, watching the way the other boy positions himself just so. He makes eye contact with Yuuta, who nods once.
This time, they have a better gauge for the curse’s power, and he can adjust accordingly. They’ve practiced this: lure the curse to a tight area and then support Yuuta on the ground. This time, he knows not to aim his power directly on the curse; if he bolsters Yuuta with his power, it will allow Yuuta to focus his energy on exorcism.
He inhales sharply. At the mouth of the alley, the curse trudges back and forth, its tentacle-like arms sprouting hands upon hands, each curling against its bone-encrusted head.
“Hey!”
It’s not necessarily a power-word, but Toge piles his energy into the sound, forcing his willpower to slam itself into the curse, dragging its attention to where he stands with Rika. It makes a noise of complaint, head swiveling towards the depths of the alley, oil-black eyes fixing straight on Toge.
It charges at him, forcing itself into the tight alley, roaring as it reaches for him. He barely even has to take a step back before Yuuta’s form comes speeding down, his katana sinking into a chink at the back of the curse’s bony head.
It screams, a flood of ear-splitting noise and cursed energy. Yuuta flinches at the onslaught, face wavering in pain, his hands loosening from his sword.
Toge sends a silent apology to Yuuta, hesitant as always to utilize his power on his friends, and inhales, focusing on Yuuta’s bowed figure.
“Yuuta! Focus!” Toge shouts as Rika growls low in her throat, a rumble that vibrates through Toge’s sternum. “Rika. Help Yuuta.”
“Yesssssss!”
If he’d been commanding any other special-grade, he’d be back to hacking up blood and mucus, but ever since Rika re-materialized, he and Yuuta have been practicing this particular combo. Their ultimate move, if you will.
They’re the only two in their year approved for solo-missions and they’ve been pounding ground non-stop since Christmas to clean up the mess Getou made for the jujutsu world.
Word from Gojo is that the higher ups are reevaluating Yuuta, which means they’re facing stronger scrutiny than usual, too. They have to pour their all into this, even more than normal. They have to prove to the entire jujutsu world that Yuuta is worth it, that Getou was inevitable, and that someone as powerful as Yuuta shouldn’t be led to slaughter. Toge won’t let it happen. He refuses. If they’re not training, him talking himself raw to control Rika and Yuuta practicing his swordsmanship until they’re near passing out from exhaustion, they’re in class or on a mission.
This… hasn't left with a lot of time to explore their new relationship. It’s like he’s been handed something incredibly delicate and he’s unsure of what to do with it. It’s not like he expected his crush on Yuuta to even go anywhere, since the guy was engaged to something that could pop his head off like a doll’s. But here they are, exorcising curses day in and day out, fingers laced in the back of cars, when they’re walking from class to class, during lunch, and… those fingers were just in his mouth.
“Don’t move!” He yells at the curse, barely even moving as ichor sprays across the alley as Rika begins to tear into its fleshy limbs. His throat smarts, nothing terrible; he swallows back the tickling feeling as he walks forward. “Stay.”
A tentacle rolls, twitching, across the toes of his boots. He steps over it, kneeling at the head of the curse where Rika holds it steady.
Bones shift as it struggles, churning around its neck where Yuuta’s katana is stuck in the crusty white matter. He cocks his head, resting his elbows against his knees. “Stop,” he tells it, tasting a new, bright well of copper against his tongue as the curse thrashes its head back and forth in Rika’s grasp. “Do not move.”
He looks to Yuuta, locking his gaze with those dark blue eyes. Yuuta pulls his katana free with a twist that crunches bone and holds poised, waiting.
“Ready,” he breathes.
“Kill it,” he tells Yuuta, watching as the other boy’s face blazes with a dark fire, absorbing the command into his own energy and suffusing his body with both his and Toge’s will. His sword comes down like a guillotine, severing the curse’s head from its body. Rika pulls it free of the last grasp of greasy tendons, splashing the alley with dark blood and viscera that smokes and burns as the curtain disintegrates around them.
Warmth blooms in Toge’s chest, past the smarting pain in his throat and the sharp taste of blood on his tongue, sinking into his stomach as Yuuta’s shoulders heave with each harsh breath, the sweat of exertion glistening on splotchy cheeks.
Fuck him running, even covered in curse goo, dirt, blood, and trash, Yuuta is the most beautiful boy Toge’s ever seen.
It’s strange—he didn’t always think that way:
When Yuuta first showed up, he looked like a drowned rat and had the personality of a kicked puppy, with a curse almost too horrible to look at. But once he stayed, once Toge understood, once Yuuta truly began to blossom… it was like… it was like getting punched in the gut. No, it was like watching the sun rise, that split second when the sun crests the horizon and light spills over everything, warm and bright. It was just like, one day, the world shifted, that Yuuta was now the center of Toge’s orbit, and he his.
He remembers Yuuta tossing him a lozenge at the end of a mission, his eyes crinkled at the edges as he grinned, and when it hit Toge’s outstretched hands—his favorite brand and his favorite flavor—he was hopelessly in love.
It was almost as devastating as this is: it’s not like he hasn’t thought of sex, or even sex with Yuuta before. He’s sixteen for fuck’s sake; he’s thought about it a lot, thank you. But it’s not there yet for them, they barely have time to sneak away to lean into each other, they’ve only just gotten used to holding hands, and they haven't even braved kissing.
And it’s not just because Yuuta’s a mess—and boy, is he ever. No matter how confident he is in his own growth, he’s still in shoes too big for him, and he trips over the laces at times; it’s all still so new to him. It’s heartachingly endearing, and it makes Toge want to tuck him in close to his heart and keep him there.
(It also makes him want to make Yuuta’s life a flustered hell in equal measure, just because he’s so damn precious when he’s teased. God.)
Yuuta might be a mess, but so is Toge.
Yuuta feels like a fever dream, like a mirage he’s conjured up. Somewhere, he must be dying, curled up and alone against the onslaught of a curse, throat in ribbons and blood foaming in his mouth with each gasping breath. Surely, he must have perished in Getou’s attack on the school, Yuuta’s trembling form the last thing emblazoned on his dying iris, because there’s no other way he deserves this.
He’s just a thorn in the side of jujutsu society, brambles growing from a clan that has dwindled down into the whispers of what was.
His mouth is a weapon, so why would anyone want to kiss it?
He’s hurt people too, just like Yuuta. Just like Yuuta, he carries the weight of it, the weight of wondering just why he was born, of guilt and shame and hesitance. Just because he’s more used to bearing it doesn’t make it any less heavy, it just gives him more stamina.
Because he’s human, stamina fails.
There are times when Yuuta, beautiful, beloved, infuriatingly kind Yuuta, seems like he’s going to kiss him. When he confessed, his soft voice wavering with anxiety, their hands clasped tight between their bodies; during their first real date, when the temple lights backlit Yuuta’s face just so, their fingers wrapped tight in gloves and hooked loosely; in the morning, eyes sleepy and smelling of toothpaste. Each time, Toge finds himself dodging.
A turn of his head so their cheeks skim together, a spin with a small laugh as the ends of his winter scarf hit Yuuta’s chest, a tingling peppermint-scented press of lips to his forehead.
Yuuta hasn’t stopped trying. It makes Toge feel like he’s drowning, ribs caving in, heart shattering into a million tiny pieces each time Yuuta’s gentle mouth presses to his skin, warm and chapped and so, so soft.
And damn him, Yuuta never asked, because he’s so, so kind. And Toge doesn’t know how to tell him that he’s scared. He doesn’t want to hurt Yuuta, and he knows Yuuta struggles with the exact same fear. It drives him up the wall. They’re on the exact same page, their fears and feelings mutual, but Toge can’t bring himself to tell Yuuta everything, every dark and rotten secret, because he can barely even admit it to himself some days.
He never thought anyone would want him.
He was just a weapon in the form of a boy, mute from the soft edges of his heart. He never thought that he would find a place like he’s found at Jujutsu Tech, never thought he’d find people like his classmates, who pass him notes and learn to sign; never thought he’d find someone like Yuuta, someone who would want him and his thorny mouth and his blood-soaked lips.
He’s been stupid, and it’s come to drop kick him off a cliff, because Yuuta shoved his fingers into his mouth but they’ve never even kissed. There should be something illegal about sexual awakenings being this damn violent. But they’re sorcerers, there’s probably a law that all budding proclivities be discovered and written in blood.
They’re covered in filth, probably bruised to hell and back, Toge has blood caked on his lips, but all he wants to do is climb into Yuuta’s lap and cup his face and kiss him until his lungs explode, press in close, skin to skin, and, gods above and below, ride Yuuta into oblivion.
Preferably with Yuuta’s fingers gagging him. That would be nice.
He stands, hands falling uselessly to his sides as Rika dissipates, heart heaving with the last fading surges of adrenaline. He can feel his pulse in his ears, the tips of his fingers, the pit of his gut. Yuuta looks up, locking their gazes.
He grins, face split ear-to-ear with his boyish glee and Toge laughs despite himself. He reaches out, grasping Yuuta’s own outstretched hand, hauling the other teen to his feet.
Yuuta gives his hand a firm squeeze before drawing back, holding his palm up for what is now their traditional high-five. Toge complies, caught up in Yuuta’s infectious joy at a job well done.
“I’m so glad it worked. Maki owes us ice cream,” he says, sheathing his katana over his shoulder.
“Shake!”
Toge’s laugh peters out as Yuuta steps in close, a dry lump forming in his throat as his heart speeds.
“Here, um,” Yuuta murmurs, eyes darting down shyly as he grins. He sticks his hand into his pocket, fishing out a couple of lozenges. “I don’t know how well I healed your throat, and then you used it again? So, uh. Anyway, I panicked, I’m sorry. I must have scared you.”
“Tsuna,” Toge murmurs, feeling heat creep onto his face. He can’t meet Yuuta in the eye as he gingerly takes the medicine from his boyfriend.
How is he supposed to say: Don’t apologize. Actually, do it again. Grab my tongue. Let me lick your fingers.
Let’s take this back to the dorms. Ruin me. Ruin me for anyone else like you’ve ruined my heart for anyone else. I don’t care if you’re covered in blood, it’s hot, you’re so hot, holy shit why are you hot.
Would Yuuta even want that? Oh god, he wants to melt into the pavement just like the curse did. What if Yuuta isn’t interested in sex? Oh, fuck, he hasn’t even thought that far ahead—sex with Yuuta, Yuuta wanting to have sex, it’s—
He fumbles with the wrapper, suddenly far more nervous than he needs to be. Having sex on the mind in front of his very affectionate, devastatingly sexy boyfriend—his first!—will do that, even to those with wills of iron. (Toge doesn't think he has one of those, but everyone constantly commends him on how strong his is. It’s weird.)
It falls and bounces against the concrete.
“Oh! Um. Here,” Yuuta says, unwrapping the spare, flushing scarlet. “I can—here.”
He reaches up, offering Toge the lozenge. If life was a movie, this would be when…
Well, it would be when the record scratches loudly, because Toge thinks his heart just gives up at life when Yuuta presses it to his parted lips. It just gets up and walks straight (ha!) out of his chest.
Until the day he dies, Toge will never admit what happens next:
He does the first thing that comes to mind, which, in his panic, is probably not the best thing to do.
He bites Yuuta’s fingertips.
(He’s trying to not pop a boner in a public alleyway while he’s covered in blood and trash, okay? Could anyone blame him?!)
“Ow, what?!”
“Okaka! Sujiko!” He snaps, pulling his collar up high over his burning face before walking—not running!!! He is a powerful sorcerer and he’s not running from his boyfriend, no!—past Yuuta with all the dignity of a drenched cat.
“Inumaki? Hey! Did, did I do something wrong?”