MossterUndertheBed

Gojo Satoru didn't suffer from anything as banal as exhaustion. A short flight from a mission in Taiwan, the thrum of the engines and the air circling through the cabin, a selection of treats on offer that didn't tempt him nearly as much as the relief of stepping out of the plane. Almost four hours of developing a headache, smoothing the headache out of existence, then developing it again. He'd never been a good flier, bored and admittedly overstimulated. The car was already on the tarmac when he exited the plane, a manager behind the wheel whose face Satoru recognized but whose name he refused to remember because this was the guy Ijichi sent when he was avoiding Satoru, then the inevitable return to his secondary residence at Jujutsu High.

A long time ago, in the months after Suguru's defection, Satoru tested how long he could go without sleep. It turned out that even after two weeks he could keep his eyes open even as his brain felt like it might ooze out of his ears. Comparatively, four days of nonstop travel to every mildly strong curse in Taiwan while the top local sorcerers packed into a minivan asked him entirely too many questions about his techniques was nothing. Just left him irritated.

It wasn't the best mood to see neither his wards nor his students in. They'd survive the rest of the day, the afternoon already quickly falling to evening. Satoru sent off a brief text message warning Kinji and Kirara of a very important pop quiz the following morning, then dallied about with the fridge, suddenly ravenous after the flight. The strongest sorcerer alive wouldn't be bothered by some food poisoning, but the brief impulse to vomit didn't sound pleasant. He tipped the days-old leftovers into the trash. Microwave curry it was.

He ambled over toward his bedroom as he ate, mixing the overly hot parts with the overly cold parts. There was a noticeable situation developing over there, cursed energy running wild in anticipation, but nothing a human eye could detect. Even Six Eyes had trouble pinpointing the exact cause, only that it wouldn't be subtle, whatever it was. He slipped off his blindfold, curiosity getting to him, and wrapped the blindfold around his wrist.

Satoru stabbed a potato with his fork as he watched the cursed energy swell, stirring it through the curry before popping it in his mouth. He got another few bites in before the eruption finally occurred, a violent gust of energy that took the curtains down and stalled when it met Satoru's immovable force, twisting before folding into the shape of a man.

Right past Tengen's barrier and everything. Interesting, that. A curse user, not a curse, judging by the thundering aura.

No strange cursed energy event could have kept Satoru from his meal, so he took another bite.

The man who landed on his bed didn't give the impression of planning to attack him. He recovered quickly from whatever cursed technique brought him here, all four of his eyes snapping open. Warm brown, a nice shade but unnerving when doubled, a smaller, extra eye just to the side of each of the expected ones.

Those eyes widened as they took stock of Satoru, his head swiveling to take in Gojo Satoru, the room, and the bed.

"Oh, fuck," the curse user said all in a rush, scrambling out of the bed. He landed next to it, his hands not angling towards fists, his feet steady but not in a fighting position. "I'm wearing shoes. In your bed! Sorry, sorry."

"Someone will handle it," Satoru replied, waving his fork. This place was on the school's cleaning schedule, Satoru mainly around when returning from missions or in need of a place to lose his students for an hour between classes. "So, whatcha doing in my bed?"

The little hangdog expression suited the man. Alongside the short pink hair with a darker undercut that had been left to grow overlong, he didn't look too threatening to human eyes except for the facial scars. Late teens or early twenties, a muscular build hidden by loose pants and a hooded sweatshirt.

Harmless if not for the Six Eyes, which locked in on the mass of cursed energy sitting at the center of his abdomen. That wasn't a beer belly the man had, but something much, much worse.

"I didn't mean to, I promise," said the curse user. "I didn't, um, know exactly what the cursed technique would do. It wasn't supposed to land me here!"

"I don't suppose you did," Satoru agreed. The guy looked panicked enough. "Is this the part where you attack me about it?"

The curse user shuffled his feet. "I was actually hoping you could just let me go."

"Wow, brazen. That pleading look is doing nothing for me." That was a lie. It was pretty cute, curse user or not. He pointed his fork in the guy's direction. "Did you have some kind of evil plan that went awry?"

"Not a one! I didn't have a plan at all, actually," the curse user replied. He sounded too upbeat about it. "I was kind of making it up as I went along. Do you think that stain's going to come out? My shoes were muddy."

"Forget about it," Satoru instructed.

"Okay!"

"What's your name?"

"Itadori Yuuji."

“Do you know who I am, Itadori?”

“Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer!” Itadori didn’t spit it out like a proper curse user, but like an overeager student. To a teacher, this was unfortunately charming behavior.

"Where are you from?"

"Sendai."

"Hm." He didn't seem to be lying, Satoru decided, and he'd not heard any reports of suspicious activity from Sendai. Still, his cursed energy… The mass in the curse user’s chest pulsed like a heartbeat. It was horrendous, fused with its host in a way that had Satoru reflexively checking himself for creepy crawlies. Satoru couldn’t look away. “Are you aware you have a parasite?”

“It’s not a parasite,” Itadori replied, breezily. “I’m pregnant.”

“Congratulations.” Bland was the best Satoru could do with his tone. “A birth and a funeral on the same day. Cursed wombs aren't supposed to be literal, you know.”

Itadori patted his distended stomach; the cursed womb gave a malignant flutter of energy in return. "He'd never do anything to harm me. I know how it looks, but I chose this."

Satoru couldn't say too much about some people's choices, considering many of his own, but he gave the cursed womb a judgmental look anyway, dragging his gaze up to meet Itadori's resolute expression.

With a sigh, Satoru set the remains of his curry on top of his dresser. “Follow me. I’ll escort you off Jujutsu High property."

Itadori sent him a pleased, startled look. "Really?"

"I just know that if I took you to the council, I’d be the one having to deal with you, and I’m all out of fucks this week. I'm not dealing with all that." He made a motion that encapsulated Itadori, mostly centered around his stomach.

Satoru was no stranger to killing, but Itadori hadn't attacked him. All he'd done was drop into his bed and that wasn't a capital crime, shoes or not.

Itadori's voice gained a touch of sympathy. "Has it been a rough week?"

"Long."

Satoru escorted Itadori down the hallway, noting Itadori's curious looks through open doors. Curious, but not deeply so, still no sign of malice despite the noxious cursed energy inside him. He spoke of the trip in broad strokes and didn't feel as though he was being pumped for information. It made the choice to let Itadori go easier.

Itadori didn't try to run, only walking next to Satoru through the grounds of Jujutsu High.

"I've never been to Taiwan," Itadori was saying. "Never been out of the country, actually."

"You should go before the cursed womb eats you alive," Satoru said, helpfully. "Visit Busan. Make it their problem."

"I'll be fine, really," Itadori said. It wasn't as assuring as he likely meant it to be.

"You're very trusting. I could be taking you straight to the containment chamber."

"Nah, we would've gone the other way for that. There's the steps down the mountain right there!"

"So they are. Have you been here before?"

Itadori looked over to him before looking away, back toward the stairs down from the school. "Yeah."

Unusual, that, but not in a way that gave Satoru more understanding. The jujutsu world was too small for Itadori to have attended the school; even without overlap with Satoru's schooling or teaching years, he would have known him. Rarely did someone unaffiliated with jujutsu society visit the school. And with the weight of Itadori's cursed energy, the malevolent cloud of it, you didn't need Six Eyes to bar him entry.

Since Itadori didn't seem to be continuing on the subject, Satoru prodded him some more as they made their way down the stairs. "So what's your deal?"

"Uh. It’s a secret." A flush poked out from under Itadori's sweatshirt. He had to know how ridiculous that answer sounded.

"Is it."

"Big secret. What’s your deal?"

Satoru tapped his blindfold. "Six Eyes. Limitless. Strongest sorcerer alive. It's a good deal." Nothing to complain about except for all the times he did.

Itadori nodded. "I always thought that the Six Eyes was misnamed. I mean, it's not like you have six actual eyes." A pause. "Right?"

"I have four more eyes on my chest."

"You do not."

"Sure I do." As they walked, Satoru tapped his nipples and then twice more toward the center of his abdomen. "Right here. They're usually covered by clothes."

"It would serve you right if I spread that rumor, Gojo-s—" A stutter, then, "Satoru."

"Tell your curse user buddies all about it."

"I will, first one I meet," Itadori replied, laughing. "I'll tell them: I met Gojo Satoru and he was really cool and he didn't try to kill me and he personally told me about his nipple-eyes. Are they the same color as your regular eyes?"

"They match my hair."

"Freaky. Do you have to close them when you shower or do they have a third eyelid?"

A ridiculous conversation, but one that lifted Satoru out of his previous flight-induced irritation. "Third eyelid. I keep them open. The moisture keeps them from getting too dry. What about you?"

"I close them when I shower along with my regular eyes. But when I go swimming, I can keep all four open! I taught myself how so that I wouldn't have to worry about carrying goggles around."

"I bet you're properly creepy when underwater." Satoru hummed. "Are they natural?"

"They're mine," Itadori replied, which didn't clarify the question. "Hey, what's Taiwan like?"

Satoru considered ditching him for that blatant change of subject, now that they were past Tengen's barrier and proceeding along the path down the mountain. It was either that or regale Itadori with his gastronomical adventures up and down Taiwan. The choice was made for him when the words spilled out, the Taiwanese sponge cake too good to not speak of. Itadori couldn't display a fault even then, actively listening and even asking if Satoru had any vacation pictures. What kind of person actually wanted to see a stranger's vacation pictures? Itadori, apparently.

Satoru held out his hand. “I’ll warp you the rest of the way, save you a walk in the heat.”

Itadori didn’t hesitate to place his hand on his. What were they teaching curse users these days? Honestly. Satoru warped them both, relinquishing Itadori’s hand once they arrived.

Up ahead was a small train station, the rail connecting with a larger transit hub a few towns over. From there, Itadori would be able to switch trains and return to Sendai. Convenient for jujutsu sorcerers who didn't have teleportation powers and weren't high ranked enough for a manager's attention, the poor bastards.

"Thank you for seeing me off, Gojo!" Itadori's second pair of eyes deliberately closed as they approached the station, now looking smaller, like strange flaps of skin. Someone who hadn't seen them could mistake them for scars or a skin condition unsolved by moisturizer.

“Thank me by stabbing that cursed womb before it gets anyone killed.”

“I know you don’t believe me, but it’s a lot more innocent than it seems. It’s not like the rest of them.” Itadori’s expression begged for understanding that wouldn’t come. “You don’t have to worry about me. I promise.”

“I’m not worried about you. I’d rather it not take out half of Sendai before someone alerts me.” Satoru sighed, taking one last look at that stomach. By and large Satoru let people make their own mistakes. Even when they were being incredibly stupid. "You didn’t have your wallet on you when you did the technique, did you?"

"Uh, no."

"How did you plan to get home?"

Itadori ran a sheepish hand through his hair. "I thought I’d ask everyone at the station until someone took pity on me."

Satoru slipped a card out of his pocket and threw it his way; Itadori caught it easily. It was the least he could do after showing Itadori several dozen dessert photos, captured specifically to annoy his wards. "Don’t be a pest. I have money."

Itadori's answering smile was bright, fully at war with the darkness of his cursed energy. It was a mildly unnerving sight. The pink hair didn't help, all fluffy and inviting. "I'll be right back with it."

While Itadori turned around to buy a ticket, Satoru warped away from the train station. He deliberately shoved away all thought of that pink hair. It was something, knowing that this misguided sympathy wouldn't mean anything in the long run. Soon, the cursed womb would birth and take Itadori's life with it, feasting on his entrails, dragging his body along until the umbilical cord tore. It would go on to attack people in Sendai. Should've just taken care of it, Satoru thought, but the thought was hard to reconcile against Itadori's genial attitude. At the level to which the cursed womb was fused with Itadori, it would be his life, too. A handful more days or weeks of life wouldn't make much of a difference. Even the strongest couldn’t fix all the world’s problems before they grew. Let someone else deal with it; someone else to see that pink hair red with blood.

Yuuji clamps down tight on that instinct, breathing out slowly and sucking in air through clenched teeth. It’s cold on his tongue and does nothing to erase the scent that’s already sunk into the inside of his throat.

“It’s, uh, nice of you to say that, Okkotsu-senpai,” Yuuji manages to say without risking another breath through his nose. “But you don’t know what my scent is like. Trust me, it’s bad.”

“I do, though.” Okkotsu’s eyes flit from Yuuji’s hand to his face, crinkling around a sweet smile. “I know your scent quite well.”

Yuuji just gapes at him for a moment. “How do you—the fight? No, I didn’t—”

“You didn’t lose control during the fight, no,” Okkotsu cuts in smoothly. “It was scarily impressive, actually. But you died, Itadori-kun, if just for a moment. A corpse has no control over itself.”

“Oh. Oh, shit.”

“You went from smelling like nothing at all to drenching the entire street,” Okkotsu recalls, still smiling, and the weirdest part is that he sounds as fond as he did when he was talking about Gojou. “Caught me off guard. It’d have been quite the effective tactic if you’d done it on purpose.”

“It would have?” Yuuji asks, his mind reeling from this revelation. “No, yes, I mean—I know that, I’ve done it before.”

“You didn’t do it with me,” Okkotsu points out lightly. “I’d ask why, but I think we both know the answer.”

“It’s not because you’re an omega,” Yuuji says firmly. “I wouldn’t hold back because of something like that.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t.” Okkotsu covers Yuuji’s whole wrist with his hand; it’s warm. “You just wanted to die.”

Yuuji freezes. “I…”

“It’s alright,” Okkotsu says very gently. “I understand. I really do. It’s okay, Itadori-kun. It’s hard to climb out of that pit—but you’ll get there.”

“Thanks,” Yuuji mumbles, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. “You’re really nice, senpai.”

“Ah.” It’s a quiet, awkward sound, which is pretty funny coming from a guy who just said all that to Yuuji. “You’re really nice too.”

Yuuji laughs, some tension he wasn’t consciously aware of draining out of his body. He lazily turns his head to the side and finds that Okkotsu’s gone back to staring at Yuuji’s hand. His palm is still covering the wrist, and the warmth of his skin threatens to tear out an answering heat from the scent glands there. Yuuji’s suppressing it on pure instinct, but now—

“You really didn’t mind my scent?” he asks curiously.

Okkotsu’s silent for a long moment—long enough that Yuuji first thinks he didn’t hear Yuuji and then starts to wonder if Okkotsu was offering him a kind lie instead of the oblivious reassurance Yuuji thought his words were.

“I got a little wet,” Okkotsu says, with an unmistakable note of sheepishness his voice. “It was very embarrassing. Distracting too, which was pretty dangerous. That was the most complicated use of reverse cursed technique I’d ever attempted, and for a moment there, I was focused on all the wrong things.” Okkotsu chuckles, shaking his head as if judging his own past self. “If you’d died because of something like that, I think Gojou-sensei would have killed me when he got out.”

Yuuji opens his mouth, without a single clue about what to say, and all that comes out is a weak, wavering, “S-senpai?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Itadori-kun,” Okkotsu says, looking over at Yuuji. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

Uncomfortable isn’t how he’d put it.

Yuuji smells like a slaughterhouse.

His grandpa was the one who put it like that, back when Yuuji first presented—a little early for it, at ten years old. He didn’t know at the time what a slaughterhouse smelled like, and his grandpa’s scent, which had been clean and cutting in a way that reminded Yuuji of hospital waiting rooms both before and after his own olfactory sense developed to match his newfound biology, wasn’t a very useful comparison. None of his classmates had presented at the time, and the older kids he’d run into were usually in groups that generated a confusing mixture of scents. The adults he knew all kept their scents muted, and his teachers were legally mandated to wear scent patches.

His grandpa’s explanation was blunt and curt in his usual way—but not hurtful. He talked about it the way he talked about Yuuji’s unnatural strength. Just another part of him, like the bright color of his hair or the brown eyes he inherited from his father. His strength and his scent weren’t so mundane, but his grandpa never made him feel like those were monstrous either. He was just focused on the practicalities, and even at that age, Yuuji could tell that his grandpa was more worried about Yuuji’s safety and happiness than anything else.

He’s always appreciated those lessons—the love in them. Later, once he really understood just how different he was from other people, he appreciated them even more.

Yuuji’s been to meat markets in the years since then. He has learned, intimately, the smell of blood fresh and old and sweet and rotten. He’s had it drench his hands, and he’s dreamed of spilling it with four large hands that don’t belong to him at all, even as they tear through flesh under his will.

He’s seen time and time again how people react when his control over his scent glands slips.

In all his life, there’s been exactly one person who liked it. It’s hard to wrap his mind around the possibility of that number doubling.

“Itadori-kun?” Okkotsu prods, drawing Yuuji’s eyes and attention back to him. He’s still holding Yuuji’s hand, and he’s ducked his head like he’s trying to get a better look at Yuuji’s expression.

The angle makes something deep inside Yuuji sit up and take notice.

He swallows thickly. His scent glands all pulse, the heat lurking under them trying to seep out. A dull ache blooms along his throat, his ribs, his wrists, his thighs. His cock stirs too, and Yuuji has to fight not to do something stupid and obvious like press his legs together.

He does something else stupid and obvious instead—he lets his scent creep out, just a little.

He knows the exact moment Okkotsu catches a whiff of it. His pupils blow wide, their gleaming dark eating into the flat black of his irises. He sucks in a shamelessly deep breath, his eyes fluttering and lips parting, and the faintest red streaks his cheeks. His own scent, already drenching the air, seems to become the air, filling the room with its heavy, heavenly notes.

Oh, Yuuji thinks. He wasn’t lying.

“Are you?” he hears himself ask. “Wet. Right now.”

Okkotsu’s eyes open fully, still mostly pupil. They bore into Yuuji’s for an electric instant, and then Okkotsu’s moving, swift and sudden, and Yuuji’s got a lapful of warmth and heat.

He loses the fight with his glands and his cock, groaning as the floodgates blow open.

“Senpai,” he rasps, desperately gripping the sheets with his sole free hand; Okkotsu’s still holding the other hostage, now rubbing at Yuuji’s leaking scent glands instead of just holding his wrist. “What’re you—”

“You can check,” Okkotsu cuts in smoothly, cupping Yuuji’s face with the hand not groping his scent glands.

“W-what?”

Okkotsu smiles brightly. “You can check, Itadori-kun. I don’t mind.”

“Oh,” Yuuji breathes, scorched clean through with a sudden understanding. “Oh.”

Okkotsu scoots closer, till the front of his body is nearly flush with Yuuji’s chest and face. He could just lean in and bury his face in that chest, that throat—

He could.

He really could. Okkotsu wouldn’t—

His arm winds tight around Okkotsu’s waist, almost before Yuuji’s made the conscious decision to do it, and the two of them collide with a dull thud. Okkotsu makes a noise that sounds both surprised and pleased, and Yuuji catches the tail end of that with his face shoved into the curve of Okkotsu’s throat, feeling the slight tremors there.

“Ah,” Okkotsu sighs, his hand sliding easily from Yuuji’s face to his hair. It pats, once. “You’re very cute.”