Chapter Text
Did you break in to Nanami’s apartment?
Because I have a hard time believing that he invited you over.
Especially to talk about food allergies.
Which I'm pretty sure you don't have.
Wait, do you?
You got drunk. Wow. Just… wow.
Why would you do this to yourself? Or him?
Or me, while we’re on the subject? I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with the fallout. And I can’t just teleport wherever the fuck I want to avoid shit.
Did he kill you? Are you dead?
Nanami’s not answering. Did you kill him?
Gojo.
Pick up your fucking phone, Satoru!
I’m coming over there.
Call me in the morning.
Idiot.
Her phone rang far, far too early the following morning, at least, far too early for how late Nanami had been texting her, and how drunk Gojo had supposedly been.
“You're a moron,” Ieiri answered when she flailed a hand from under her blankets to grab her phone and saw ‘Gojo 2 - backup’ on the screen.
“Hello to you too,” Gojo answered.
“Why are you awake, and more importantly, why did you wake me?”
“You asked me to call you!”
“In the morning, you ass!”
“It is morning! I’m looking at the sun right now!”
Ieiri pulled her phone away long enough to look at the time.
“Five thirty is not morning, Satoru!” she snarled. “That’s the middle of the night on a regular day and bedtime on a good one!”
“Picky. See if I give you a proof-of-life call again.”
Ieiri groaned.
“I wasn’t worried about you,” she sighed, flopping onto her back like a three-armed starfish. “You’re always alive. I was worried about Nanami.”
Gojo went quiet. Ieiri let him sit in the silence, and finally, he said, barely audible,
“I would never. You know that.”
“Not sober, no, but you were also drunk without meaning to be, and I know how Nanami gets. You might’ve accidentally killed him in self-defense.”
“Never,” Gojo repeated. “You don’t have to worry about that. And!”
Ah hell, Ieiri thought, here comes a plan.
“I’m going to make it so you have to worry about him a lot less!” Gojo declared.
“…what did you do?” she asked.
“Nothing, yet! I just left his place; he’s still asleep, but I’ve got it all worked out. Did you know he doesn’t know how to do a simple domain, even?”
“Neither do I,” she pointed out.
“You’re a genius in other ways; he’s a grade one who regularly goes into combat against multiple grade ones, and now apparently against unregistered special grades. On top of that, he’s also mentoring Yuji, which means the potential for Sukuna to try to take over and get a piece of him.”
She waited as his speech got muffled, probably getting dressed.
“I didn’t hear anything after ‘get a piece of him,’” she interrupted.
“Oh, I was just saying that I’d teach you too, if you wanna learn!” Gojo repeated.
“He’s never going to let you rope him into this,” she sighed.
“Nanami can’t say no to me.”
“Nanami lives to say no to you. And extra, unpaid work? No chance. Or he’ll half-ass it until you give up. Unstoppable force, immovable object.”
Gojo blew a raspberry into the phone like the toddler he was.
“I’m both of those; Nanami is neither.”
“You’re not the unboreable object, Gojo.”
“When have I ever been bored with Nanami?” he laughed. “Besides, it’ll be fine. Worse comes to worst, I’ll just binding-vow-trap him.”
“Gojo. No.”
“Ohoho, Gojo yes! Gotta go, bye-ye!”
“Go—”
But the call had already disconnected.
Ieiri stared at her phone, then at the pale light outside her window. For a moment, she considered calling Nanami to warn him, not that it would do much good against the force of Gojo-with-an-idea.
Then, she remembered that Nanami had allowed Gojo to get drunk on his watch, silenced her phone, and went back to sleep.
Gojo was courteous enough, this time, to warp into Nanami’s apartment with his shoes in hand, not that Nanami was there to witness it. Besides, Gojo’s feet never really touched the ground, what with Infinity. If anything, it was Nanami’s shoes that had gotten his rugs dirty. Gojo would pay for the cleaning.
He set his shoes in the genkan and crept quietly into Nanami’s bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed.
It was weird to see Nanami’s face relaxed. It made him look twenty-seven instead of forty-five. His hair was all over the place, and his shoulders were bare; he’d apparently just shucked off his clothes and gotten into bed.
Gojo just sat there and indulged for a bit, and let himself listen to Nanami’s even breaths, far different from his usual harsh sighs. It was like a meditation, every inhale and exhale a mantra to Nanami being alive, alive, alive, warm and safe (safer than anyone else in the world with Gojo to watch over him) and not trudging towards death like a man condemned from birth.
On one hand, Nanami might be more amenable to Gojo’s suggestions if he woke up on his own, well-rested. On the other, a well-rested Nanami would be on his game, alert and logical, and that settled it.
“Nanami,” he called softly. Nanami’s nose scrunched, and he tilted his face further into his pillow.
“Hush,” Nanami murmured.
Nanami Kento talked in his sleep. Gojo had not thought that it was possible to be more endeared.
“Hushing me in your dreams?” he asked, leaning in to lounge on his elbow. He was over the covers, Nanami was under them. Surely this was still fine. “Is there anywhere you’re not rude to me?”
Nanami smiled in his sleep, blow upon blow to Gojo’s fragile sensibilities.
“Hush, Gojo,” he said, just a little slurred. “This is a place to be peaceful.”
So, Gojo hushed for a moment, and enjoyed the peace as well. Nanami’s brow furrowed.
“You’re supposed to put a towel down before you sit,” Nanami scolded him, which, well. Nanami couldn’t see that Gojo was atop his blankets, but still.
“I just showered!” Gojo answered him, surprised that Nanami was capable of having a whole conversation without waking. He’d figured him for a light sleeper. “How filthy do you think I am?”
“‘sthe principle.”
The only possible response to that was to risk waking Nanami by blowing a loud raspberry. Principle. Honestly.
“Don’t expect any sympathy when you burn your ass,” Nanami said.
“How am I going to burn my ass, hm?” he giggled, subsiding when Nanami’s face turned mournful.
“Using Limitless in a sauna,” he muttered. “What a waste.”
A sauna!
“Is that where we are?” Gojo asked him. “A sauna? All naked and sweaty?”
Apparently Gojo was, at any rate. Nanami was probably all toweled up.
“You’re not here,” Nanami sighed, eyelids fluttering.
“What do you mean I’m not here?” Gojo whined. “I’m right next to you.”
“I’m not here either. I’m dreaming. You went home, probably embarrassed about being a drunken jackass, and we’ll never speak of it further, and it’ll probably happen again.”
Nanami had to be awake, Gojo thought, but… no. Nanami’s eyes were still moving, REM sleep, still dreaming. Despite this, Gojo was still in denial about Nanami’s denial.
“Nuh uh. You may be dreaming, but I am right here next to you.” Gojo lay down fully, hand flat on the bed right next to Nanami’s, a hair’s breadth of space between their pinkies. “I’m right here.”
“You’re not here,” Nanami repeated. “Even when you’re here, you’re not here.”
What the hell did that mean? Gojo was never more present than when he was with Nanami. The only time he was more single minded was within Infinite Void, and Nanami was there then, as well, a bright, steady fleck among the chaotic miasma of everything.
Gojo was here. It was Nanami who always had one foot out the door, in the grave.
“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this,” Gojo said as he shoved himself up to sitting again. “C’mon, wake up.”
“No,” Nanami said, like the stubborn, impossible, adorable ass that he was. Gojo didn’t bother to stifle his laughter.
“Don’t be a baby,” he tutted. He couldn’t get the leverage he needed from where he was, so he straddled Nanami’s shins and pushed him fully onto his back to grab his shoulders and shake.
Finally, Nanami’s eyes popped open and locked onto Gojo’s. Gojo stopped shaking to reward him for waking up, but didn’t let him go yet.
“What are you doing?” Nanami asked in baffled confusion.
“Waking you up, dummy.”
Gojo punctuated this with a little shake, barely a jostle. Nanami smacked his forearm, which would’ve been a disproportionate response in Gojo’s opinion, if it hadn’t been for Infinity.
“Why?!”
Well, Gojo had wanted him off-balance, but the betrayed despair in Nanami’s voice was a little difficult to bear. They could just start that afternoon instead; Gojo could tuck Nanami back in, then warp to Paris, fool around for a few hours, do a little patisserie tour, pick up a croque madame for Nanami, warp back, and then serve him breakfast in bed. If he could say no to Gojo after that…
Well. He'd be Nanami Kento.
So, instead, Gojo answered:
“Training!”
“What training? It's too fucking early for this Gojo.”
Which was, of course, bullshit, because this training was late, so late that Nanami had nearly died for not knowing it.
“I'm going to teach you how to do a domain expansion,” Gojo said like a promise. In response, Nanami pushed himself up like a threat.
“The only domain I care about right now is my bed. Get out.”
“Make me,” Gojo smiled, but none of this was funny, and Gojo wasn't teasing. “Oh that's right. You can't.”
“You say that like I’d be able to even with a domain!”
Gojo recoiled internally. Nanami had thought about fighting him. Nanami had thought about Gojo harming him, and had just decided that he'd die.
He forced himself to snap out of it. Nanami had just stated the reality that he would not be able to beat Gojo in a fight because no one could. It wasn't personal. Nanami didn't seriously think that Gojo would hurt him; it was just… hypothetical.
“You wouldn't,” Gojo admitted, “but at least a simple domain would keep your brain from melting into goo if I expanded mine.”
Rather than continue to complain, or try to break free, Nanami clamped his hand around Gojo's wrist.
“As I understand it,” Nanami said, and if he noticed that Gojo had gone very, very still, he didn't mention it, “Infinite Void doesn't affect anyone touching you.”
The touching sure as hell affected Gojo.
“That's true,” he said. If he could keep Nanami with him always, on the safe side of Infinity, he would, but Nanami would never allow it.
Besides that, Nanami was assuming rules that didn't apply to the actual situation which had thrown Gojo's whole worldview into chaos, which had nothing to do with Infinite Void.
Gojo placed his free hand squarely where Mahito landed his first hit on Nanami, just below the sternum. Gojo could still make out the faint residuals of the blow like a handprint. He fanned his own fingers to cover the whole mark.
“But we’re not actually talking about me, or your bed, are we?” he murmured, tilting his head. “We’re talking about that curse. Touching that thing— Mahito, was it? —would be suicide, not salvation.”
He hated the feeling of that horror's energy, however faint, on Nanami, hated that it had ever touched him at all, and pushed his own warding energy in its place, trying to make it so that near death experience had never happened.
Nanami had nothing to say about that, and Gojo was terrified that that was the actual damned problem, that suicidal actions had become second nature to Nanami, no longer a last resort.
“No clever comeback?” Gojo needled him.
Push back. Please.
“C’mon, no fun last words for whoever has to watch you die?”
Get angry. Please.
“You could at least give Yuji a pithy one-liner to remember you by before you get turned into a monster and try to kill him.”
You fucking asshole, give me something, please.
Finally, Nanami lashed out, trying to break Gojo's grip. Normally, Gojo would've let him, but not that day, not that morning. Nanami was going to understand that Gojo was not letting him go without a fight so long as letting go of him meant letting him die.
“The transformed humans repeat things, don’t they?” Gojo continued, having to reinforce his stance with his cursed energy to avoid being thrown off. He wasn't in control of his own tongue anymore, pouring out the nightmare of what could have happened, what could still happen.
Nanami deserved to know how goddamned cruel his indifference to his own death really was, so Gojo gave it to him, in equally cruel, vivid detail.
“That’ll be hilarious. You’ll probably keep saying those last words over and over when Yuji has to kill you, so he’ll never forget them!”
That last remark landed, brutal and final as Hollow Purple, and Nanami's muscles went slack.
“You’ve made your point, you asshole,” he sighed.
Nanami let him go, arms falling back to the bed. It wasn't exactly the rage Gojo had hoped for, but Gojo's cynicism and optimism were so at war that his expectations were entirely unmanageable.
“Now get off me,” Nanami added.
The resignation was suspicious. Something of a case in point regarding Gojo’s internal war of outlook.
“If I do, will you stop sulking and come train?” Gojo asked, sitting back as well. “You’re being brattier than Megumi when it’s time to go to the dentist.”
“I’ll train with you, yes,” Nanami snapped at him, but there was still… something.
Sometimes, with some people, Gojo could use Six Eyes to determine if they were lying. Nanami wasn't one of them, usually, but there was something off about his agreement just then.
“I don’t believe you,” he said at last.
“So you’re just going to sit on my shins until I get so angry at you that I learn domain expansion?” Nanami grabbed a pillow and shoved it over his own face.
“I would if I thought it would work, but I'd get bored and you'd starve.”
With Nanami unable to see him, Gojo was briefly free to let his facial expression reflect his own frustration and fear. Gojo wasn't allowed to despair. Despair had gotten hold of Geto, and look where that had gotten them.
Was Nanami stubborn enough to smother himself? Was that even possible?
He snapped back to his carefree, annoying-but-adorable mask when the pillow started to shift, only to have it collide none too gently with his head.
“Domain Expansion: Pillow Fort?” Gojo cackled, because how could he be stern in the face of Nanami starting a pillow fight. “Nice try, but no.”
The pillow fight was one sided and short lived, a single opening salvo in a pillow war that wasn't meant to be.
“You won't leave,” Nanami growled, “and you won't believe that I'll come train with you, so what the fuck do you want from me, Gojo?”
Oh, you know. Everything.
“A binding vow.”
He’d been mostly kidding when he'd said that to Ieiri.
“You’re serious,” Nanami said. Gojo felt him still underneath him, all the little twitches and squirms that had persisted after Nanami had tried to throw him off finally subsiding.
Gojo wasn't kidding now, no, so… yes. He was serious.
“I’m surprised you didn’t tack on ‘for once,’” he smiled, because if Nanami sensed how serious Gojo was, he would find a way to bolt.
From the way he rubbed at his eyes and then just pinched the bridge of his nose like he was trying to stave off a nosebleed, Gojo was pretty sure he'd deflected well enough.
“You realize that a binding vow can’t be forced under duress.”
“Duress is relative,” Gojo answered, because if he was actually trying for duress, it would probably involve a great deal more imprisonment, Gojo himself being far more annoying, and certainly a better plan than just sitting on Nanami until he agreed.
“And why do you consider it necessary?” Nanami sighed, far too exhausted for someone who'd just woken up, far too resigned, like all the questions were formalities.
Gojo pressed his lips together, biting into them to keep from screaming.
Instead of because you keep talking like you're already dead, Gojo said:
“Because I want you to actually try. It’s okay if it turns out that you can’t, but I have to have your full effort.”
Nanami, a man who had enhanced his abilities by very specifically not putting in his full effort, blinked, slow and unimpressed.
“And what would be in this for me?” Nanami asked. “You can’t bargain with an education I don’t want.”
The opposite of Gojo's problem: Instead of “What do you get for the man who has everything?” the conundrum with Nanami was “What do you get for the man who wants nothing?”
Gojo would get him a loaf of bread from a different country every day, fresh from the oven, but that was the sort of suggestion that Nanami would shut down as more of Gojo teasing.
“Okay then, what do you want? Money?”
“I save more as a sorcerer than I did as a financier,” Nanami said. “Besides, since the goal of earning enough is to retire, it would make your teaching redundant.”
God damn it.
“So name something,” Gojo shrugged carelessly, privately desperate that the answer would be something even Gojo couldn't give, like Haibara Yu’s resurrection, Itadori’s unconditional freedom, Geto’s unbroken spirit.
Even if that was what he wanted, Gojo would try. The most important part was that Nanami named something.
“The truth.”
Because of course Nanami would want a concept, a broad abstraction which could mean so many different things that Gojo wouldn't have the first clue where to begin.
“What do you mean, ‘the truth?’ Are we adding enlightenment to the lessons?” Gojo asked.
“You couldn’t enlighten a birthday candle,” Nanami scowled, and the contempt was a good sign, at least. “No. The truth from you. No prevarication, no evasion, no lies. You tell me your true plans, your true goals, and the why behind your constant nonsense.”
Well. Fuck.
“And what if you don’t like the answers?”
“You know very well that I prefer unpleasant truths to pretty falsehoods.”
Gojo tried to come up with a deterrent, something unpleasant to make Nanami pick something else.
“I’d have to include something so that you couldn’t tell anyone else, in case someone tries to torture my plans out of you.”
That didn't work.
“You’ll follow my instructions exactly,” Gojo tried instead.
“If they don’t harm someone innocent— whose death isn’t necessary— then I will,” Nanami agreed without agreeing. Leave it to Nanami to turn passive suicidality into passive-aggressive suicidality.
“To save your own life is a necessity,” Gojo said, because Nice try, you beautiful asshole probably would’ve been counter-productive.
“Unless it's one of the students, or a child whose death mine would prevent,” Nanami amended. Sneaky, beautiful asshole.
“Define ‘child,’” Gojo demanded.
“I'm not going to ask for ID, Gojo. If they appear to be the same age or younger than our students.”
“Same age or younger than the second years.”
Gojo couldn't get out of letting Nanami sacrifice himself for the ones he'd met, but Gojo was pretty sure Kirara and Kinji had never been introduced to Nanami.
“Gojo–”
“Kinji is running his own illegal fight club. If you're old enough to have a complex criminal enterprise, you're old enough to fight your own fights.”
Negotiations continued for nearly an hour, by the end of which Gojo had closed nearly every loophole that would permit Nanami to sacrifice himself. Like water breaking through a dam, Nanami opened smaller ones, and back and forth they continued until they were both as close to satisfied as they were going to get. Gojo doubted that he would be able to keep track of all the finer details, but fortunately, none applied to him, and Nanami would remember all of it down to the punctuation.
Then, several insults and the discovery of Nanami’s home printer later, Nanami went to take a shower, and Gojo snooped.
A look through the fridge and cabinets reassured him that Nanami was buying food, and a glance through the trash and recycling showed he was eating enough of it to keep himself healthy, though the number of empty liquor bottles was distressing.
He found Nanami’s mundane medical records in a folder in a file drawer next to the printer, and his most recent bloodwork showed that his liver enzymes were fine, at least for now. Cholesterol was fine, even his blood pressure was excellent, despite Nanami’s constant claims that Gojo had raised it to improbable numbers.
Ieiri was his emergency contact, which was a good and reliable choice, that was fine. She was also the executor of his estate in the event of his death, which was not fine at all.
He had a living will.
He was an organ donor.
Gojo put the file away before he did something regrettable.
It was fine. The contract was on the table, waiting to be signed. He was going to fix it.