Under the Overpass ~ SatoSugu

Finale.

It didn't take him long to find Geto. He could always sense his residuals. Even long after death that continued. That was when they started to taunt him the most. He knew that half of his soul was dead and yet he sensed Geto had been somewhere at a certain place or time. He knew him to be dead, after all, he'd killed him, but it felt like he was losing his mind how fast and fleeting it was in disappearing and reappearing around the bustling city.

He squatted down a few paces away from the wall.

"Fuck..." Geto groaned, not yet having seen Gojo. He seemed panicked but slowing down. There was then a glance, "You're late... as always, Satoru."

Geto only ever truly smiled around Gojo. When his face finally cracked into that position all those years later, it unleashed a flood of suppressed memories for them both.

"Were you waiting for me?" He kept his composure straight and almost light-hearted.

Geto's head lolled around from side to side against the rough, concrete wall, becoming a heavier weight upon his neck with every passing second. Not even aware he'd gone blind in his right eye. It was agonizing, searing, electric pain from nerves cut and neurons severed across his shoulder. He grimaced, bearing teeth and a tongue that wanted to scream out in pain for help.

"Your bangs need trimming, you know." It was at the recollection that Gojo finally choked up, but forced it back down, "That was the first thing I noticed about you. Your dumbass bangs." He couldn't bear the sight in front of him and yet worse still were the massacring tragedies this person had unfolded onto humanity time and time again.  It made everything more complicated.

Gojo once again found himself asking a mighty, worthy sorcerer if he had any last words, only this time, he was fighting two halves of his heart.

"Can I see your eyes?" Geto had requested almost panicked at the inevitability of what was to come. 

"Of course." Gojo's heart raced, seeing death hover above his shoulders with a gruesome sickle hesitating against his neck.

"You should be angry at me." Geto winced.

"Well I'm not." And it was true. Even after everything, so much of Gojo believed this wasn't him, not the path they should have taken, and that one, one that's better, waits for them, even if only in death. He'd join him there one day and sensed it would be premature for himself too.

Geto panicked. Feeling what it meant to die. How many souls must have felt this at his hands? He felt what they meant when they said your life flashes before your eyes.

Satoru. It was all Satoru. It was always all him. Every fiber of his being belonged to him in love. He could never have been a hero. Flashes of Satoru replayed over and over. It was silent, just fast-moving visuals like the windows of a passing train, each holding remembered or forgotten moments. Without realizing it, his mouth upturned into a smile as he gazed off, knuckles going white from the grip on his shoulder.   

Momentarily he was pulled back.

"I love you."

Geto let out a wheezing laugh; "Couldn't you have cursed me at the very end?"

"That is." Gojo noticed Geto's feet squirming and straining to hold on and he clumsily rushed to him. Instinctively, he let down his Infinity, and Geto sunk into his arms, wrapping his own with what little strength he had left around Gojo's torso.

"I can take all your pain away?" Gojo whispered tenderly, no malice or hate in his voice, they were both crying now. And all Geto could do was nod into the crook of his neck as he slumped his whole body weight into Satoru.

He made it painless and quick and did it before he could change his mind.

The weight became heavier and heavier as the minutes passed and Gojo was morbidly aware of how fast a body cools.

He'd forgotten about any mission and shuffled around the dead heaviness to find his phone crammed in the opposite side pocket. Bloodied fingers smudged on the attempt to call.

"Shoko..." It was as if his voice switched off, unable to force through a brick wall, but she understood based solely on the tone. It was one she'd never heard before.

Gojo worked him around to be held almost in a bridal style across his lap. The pity of what happened strung from his face in silence. He dropped a tear onto the sallowing face and quickly wiped it before it ran down Geto's cheek as his own. Even in death there was a dark, somber beauty to him.

It was something that he regretted, not seeing Shoko. It pained him because her face showed happy times for so many years, but when he saw her again, stories of sadness stained her. She believed hair holds memories, and never cut it after the news of Suguru's downfall. She too didn't believe that to be him, but instead some mal-manifestation that overrode his intentions.

She couldn't bear to look at the body and went through all the motions of her job without registering that it was one of her best friends out of fear of breaking down entirely. She could tell that at that moment her keeping it together was the glue holding Satoru from falling apart as well, as he visibly choked back a breakdown.

When none was said and all was done, a silence hugged its way around them.

She turned around to the sound of agonizing, pained cries. Her heels clicked across quickly and she hugged him as they sunk to the floor, giving out from weakness.

She smoothed his hair and she felt the expectations he upheld for years come crumbling down in an instant.

With a voice that grew more and more hoarse from years of a bad habit, she tried to comfort him.
"It's okay," she croaked, knowing it wasn't, but that it was okay to cry.

Gojo pushed his blindfold up and off with shaky hands and the sobs became more muffled into her clothes.

Shoko held him close and cried just a tear too.

"I can't," he took more than the usual number of syllables to get the short words out. 

She hadn't seen much of Gojo before then, and she didn't see much of him after that Christmas Eve either. But she understood. She knew how much she had to use what little strength was left in her reserves for him and the bond they'd once shared, because only a love like what they had could beckon such a guttural response in the aftermath of death.

It was bitter outside and quiet for Tokyo. Soft, warm festive lights strung down the streets. A choppy ice-like snow blanketed just enough of the streets to call them white.

Gojo let his feet carry him down a familiar path. One he'd taken almost every week after training and class. And this was the first time he'd walked its entirety alone.

He stopped and ignored the sharp cold in his fingers. He could almost see their teenage selves, hear the keychains on his backpack jingle as they walked by one another's side, and the bickering that always ensued from some topic or another.

Gojo didn't fully die on that night. He wasn't crucified or banished or mangled, just tired, just broken. Despite his godlike status, he didn't die on a cross. No, but in all the ways that mattered, he died under the overpass of that busy bridge.

———

Authors note: thank you all who've read so far and to anyone else who reads this in its entirety.
It's been a slow write for me but these two are the definition of soulmates and I could easily write a whole thesis paper on their pairing. Suffice to say, I think they're some of the most brilliantly written characters and I hope I did some justice to their story. Take care, I'll happily talk to or reply to anyone and their questions or remarks put here.
:] keep safe,
~organic.