#bc it was written when i was sick with the same symptoms as original vows reader

[kenjakusbraincum]

Walls

Sukuna x Reader

A small addition to Vows

Synopsis: Two scenes exploring the first times reader and Sukuna respectively break down in the face of reader's terminal illness. Tags/Warnings: sick!gn!reader, master/pet dynamics, angst, hurt/comfort. (Chronologically takes place after reader and Sukuna talk about him taking new pets in the original fic!) Word count: 1.2k Author's note: This is probably as vulnerable as I'll ever write Sukuna :3

You tried to be strong. So long, so hard you tried to be untouchable. You knew sukuna hates weaklings. But you're in so much pain. You can barely swallow anything properly with how sore your throat is from the coughing. It takes so much out of you, physically and mentally, to pretend that this harrowing illness is nothing, and that you're somehow okay with it and ready to die. You're not. You don't want to die. You don't want this life that you've built with Sukuna to end. At least not as abruptly as it seems it will happen. One day you just can't pretend anymore.

Sukuna always asks if you're doing okay. He hopes that one day he'll hear you say yes. But you don't. You mutter a quiet no, and hope the topic would quickly. Not quickly enough. Because you break down crying. It starts small, your usual, timid little crying, but as you talk through it, the weight of your illness presses down on you like a rock - and you break. Loud, helpless. Hysterical bawling, the crying that leaves you breathless, the crying that drains you of everything you have and more.

And Sukuna doesn't know what to do - usually telling you to stop would work, because you would obey his every word, no questions asked. But this is different, this isn't your usual crying about something small, something you aren't allowed to do or something mean Sukuna said. This is a honest, heart wrenching breakdown that has been impending for a while. And he can't tell you to stop - because you can't stop. All he can do is hold you tight, and remind you to breathe.

There's nothing he can do. Healing you is a double edged sword, that provides relief, but at the cost of crashing hopes when the symptoms return. They always return. How useless of him. He can't properly comfort you because he's so detached from human emotions and interactions, he can't save you from this hardship... And he can hardly make it any easier. All he can do is sit with his guilt, little weeping you curled up in his arms, and... that salty drop of liquid that just escaped from his eye to his lip. What was that? Is he?... No, it's impossible.

Of course, reader falls asleep quickly after this. Sukuna stands up to leave, but he finds himself unable to part his stare from the bloody napkins and abandoned crochet projects by your bed. Tea gone cold and plates still full of food and sweets that you didn't have the strength to consume. Clothes untouched, folded neatly in your closet - you don't change out of your sleepwear anymore. The doorknob to the terrace, the one that leads to the garden you love so much, gathering dust after days, weeks of being unopened. You used to go into the garden every day. Your descent is slow, like that of a flower, whose petals slowly dry and detach, until none are left. His favorite flower, the one he loved to admire every day, at every opportunity. The type of flower that grows, blooms once in a hundred years and more.

And Sukuna is a stone, was a stone, stoic and unshaken for the longest time. But he is not as he was before. Love spares no one. Love leaves no one unchanged. He breaks.

You're in his lap in the garden, during one of the last sunny days of autumn. He stares into the distance, lost in thought as he often is, but... his face looks different. Tense, with his brows furrowed and his lips tight. He looks worried, almost sad. You ask him what he's thinking about, and he hesitates. There's a lump in his throat, and you hear it in his voice when he finally speaks. Nothing. He should've said nothing. What a fool.

He tells you he struggles to imagine life without you. And then he looks at you, and you feel it so vividly. A punch to your gut, a knife to your heart. Oh. You know you're dying, but if you had even the slightest of doubts, it's gone now that Sukuna is opening up to you. Sukuna and vulnerability don't exactly go hand in hand.

You sit up and plant a kiss to his shoulder. You tell him what you believe to be true - that the pain is fleeting, and that one day he will be complete again, alone or with someone else in your place. He frowns at you, once more unwilling to accept that scenario. But you want that for him. You truly, wholy believe that he is worth your - and anyone else's love. That he's beautiful, he keeps you safe, provides for you, pleasures you, listens to you - what more can anyone ask for? There's a thousand humans who would die for a chance to be loved like that, who would be just as genuine and grateful as you - and he crumbles, telling you to just shut up! He turns his head in another direction, facing you with the veins popping in his neck. He should've known you would try to make it better. He should've known you wouldn't let him wallow in his misery.

You crawl closer, reaching your hand for his face and trying to pull it towards you, but he doesn't budge. He holds his breath. He really doesn't want you to see him like this. Weak, pathetic.

Sukuna. You call him by his name. So intimate, forbidden. So personal you don't think you've ever called him that outside his bed, and even then it was pried off your lips, pulled from the depths of your conscience, out of your control. Anyone else would've paid for the mistake of uttering his name with their lives. But it's nothing new that you have privileges others don't.

Sukuna. You wrap your arms around him and lean into a hug, and he accepts it, squeezing you so tight he almost leaves breathless. You kiss up his neck, his cheek - wet, and his lips, almost trembling as they touch yours. There's so much more you want to tell him - but he shushes you. Kisses you again, tells you to forget it, it will be fine. You're not sure if he's saying it to you or to himself.

You tell him you know, that's what you've been trying to say the whole time. Then you smile at him, that angelic smile of yours, and smooth your hands over his face, wiping the frown off of his face. What a magical little being you are, he thinks to himself as he savors your beauty. You always had the power to take his anger and turn it into love.

No, Sukuna doesn't think that he could ever scoop up another little human like you out of the crowd. For a moment he thinks maybe it's better that you die, simply because he fears how far he would keep falling for you if nothing stopped him. He thinks maybe he would've become a different man. A better man. But your fate is sealed, and with it, any and all hopes for a changed Sukuna. Soon you will breathe your last breath, and Sukuna will once again be a monster, unbound by anyone or anything. Free of the confines that you've passed upon him - the heaviness of a human conscience. Closer to the man he was before he met you. But never, ever the same again.