#like... i'm a sucker for gojo having scars from his near-death experience

[aza-trash-can]

The Mitski's gotten to me, sad and serious headcanon/mini-fic/whatever the fuck this is ahead

Basically, I thought "no way in hell Satoru was fine after Star Plasma Vessel mission, he absolutely had some fucked up coping mechanisms/thought processes before he buried them in the slightly less unhealthy coping mechanism of 'train and go on missions until he can't think'" and my mind went down some darker paths

Please pay attention to the tws and feel free to skip this. To those who want to read, godspeed soldier

TW: Self harm, blood, graphic depictions of injuries, unhealthy coping mechanisms

After the Star Plasma Vessel Mission, Satoru can't stop feeling… wrong. It's not because of his awakening. Sort of. It's not that the powers he wields feel too burdensome or heavy or unwieldy in his hands. It's that he botched the first time he used them.

Suguru says he didn't. Shoko says he didn't. But he knows he did. The rough, jagged line that had split him open tells him so. The four deep marks on his thigh tell him so. The thin line under his bangs tells him so.

He botched it. Didn't heal it properly the first time. Shoko says it's a damn miracle he's even alive, but he feels so wrong. So… imperfect. So weak. And he can't fucking stand it.

So he practices. Over and over and over again, small scrapes and bruises at first, injuries gathered from carelessness. Then gashes on rocks from… clumsiness. Yeah, clumsiness. Then clean, deep lines from a knife he had stolen. There's plenty of knives in the shared kitchen of the dorms, a single one going missing doesn't mean shit.

He practices and practices, watching intently as his blood oozes and pours, as his muscle and flesh stitch back together as if nothing had happened and blood now only stains perfect porcelain skin. And he's crazy, he knows he's crazy, you need to be crazy to be a sorcerer, but the blood is comforting. It hurts, of course it hurts, but it's familiar to him now after being bathed in it as he teetered that near atomically thin line between life and death.

It's night when his final test begins. He can heal himself so perfectly now, so beautifully, even when the injuries are severe. Sitting in front of his mirror only in shorts, he takes the knife he'd stolen weeks ago and carves into his thigh with the precision and patience of an artisan. Around and under each scar, blood dark as ink in the dim light of a room only illuminated by the moon. It coats his thigh, his fingers, makes his grip on the flesh he's cutting away slippery and loose. But he focuses, his grip firm but not too tight, each movement calculated to perfection because he is perfection, he must be perfection, he is the pinnacle of jujutsu society so now more than ever he must be perfect. And if this goes right, which he's almost sure it will, then he can fix his mistake. He can fix his botched attempt and heal himself back into perfection.

He atomises the chunk of flesh in his hand as soon as the final strand connecting it to his body is cut, uninterested in keeping a reminder of imperfection when he has already learned and grown from it. His blood drips onto the floor, his thigh a slick mess from it all, but he's healed it. It should be perfect now. His final test should prove a success so he can move on to riskier endeavors.

Except it's not. Fingertips coated red feel the same rough skin he had just cut away, mocking him and the perfection he tried to carve. That's not what was supposed to happen. That's not what was supposed to happen.

He slams a fist into his mirror with a scream, raw and ragged and tearing out of his throat as frustrated tears well in his eyes. The mirror shatters, shards slicing into hands already smeared with his own blood. This isn't what was supposed to happen.

Trembling hands pick up the knife again, now slippery in his bloody grasp, and he plunges it deep into his thigh. Tears it along the crimson expanse, watching as more blood spills from the jagged edges he rips over and over and over and over.

He doesn't even hear the footsteps pounding down the hallway, the muffled call of his name, the slamming of the door as it bursts open and brings in a frazzled and quickly horrified Suguru.

"Satoru…” The words don't reach him. Nothing reaches him. It can't, not yet, he hasn't fixed it yet, he needs to fix it and get rid of these disgusting, ugly scars and be perfect again.

Suguru kneels down next to him and catches his hands as Satoru tugs the knife out of his thigh to dig in again, pressing down on his wrists to get him to let go. The knife clatters unceremoniously to the ground, and Suguru holds him back as he reaches for it.

"Satoru, what are you doing?"

"Let me go! I was fixing this, come on, let me go!"

"Fixing what? For god's sake, you're bleeding.”

"Not anymore, it's already healed–”

"Already healed?"

"– but it's still wrong, I don't know why it's wrong I'm doing everything right I'm so close to fixing it I swear just let me–" He lunges for the knife, but Suguru still holds him back. The tears welling in his eyes spill as he struggles, trying to worm his way out of Suguru's iron grasp.

"Satoru–"

"Let me go!"

"No!"

"Please!" Begging, how humiliating. But he'll beg if it means he gets the chance to fix this, or at least let this test run longer as an experiment. If he can at least glean something from this, figure out what he's still not getting, what he's still lacking, then he can fix it later. He can still fix this. He can still fix himself.

But Suguru doesn't budge. He pulls him closer, actually, and that just makes Satoru furious. He fights harder, but it’s just pathetic squirming in Suguru’s arms, he knows that, and it’s so humiliating, so humiliating, that he tries to push Suguru away, but he still doesn’t move and that just makes him feel weak.

"I just… I need to– let me fix myself. Please. Please. I can do it, just let me… just let me…"

"I'm sorry."

"Please…”

"I can't." Of course he can't. Of course. Satoru could never expect him to, it's unfair. It's unfair. It's all so unfair.

It's like that that he slumps in Suguru's embrace, tears still racing down his cheeks and dripping into the soft fabric of Suguru's shirt. The blood dries slowly, sticky and tacky on his skin, still slick on the floor where it's pooled.

At some point in the night, Suguru settles Satoru in the corner as he puts the knife in the kitchen sink and shoves the glass against the wall for them to clean up tomorrow. He brings back a wet washcloth and does his best to wipe away the blood from a listless Satoru. It smears a bit, too much to properly clean with only a washcloth, but it does the job for now. The skin below is only as scarred as it was before his test. Healed perfectly, except for that imperfection he had previously made. He wants to cry. He would start if he wasn’t already.

It’s the next morning, after silently cleaning up the glass and washing away the blood still stuck to his skin and mopping up what spilled on his floor, that Satoru goes to Shoko, Suguru already gone on a mission with an apology on his lips. He doesn’t say what he did, he knows that won’t go over well, so instead he asks around the issue vaguely.

“Reverse Cursed Technique heals in part by accelerating your body’s natural healing abilities and in part by restoring the damage to the state it was in before that damage. I mean, think about it, you can’t use it to grow extra limbs or anything like that. The first time you healed yourself, you probably didn’t find the right balance between the two.”

“But I’ve found it now. Shouldn’t I be able to fix the scars?”

“After five weeks? It took me years. You’re insane, I hope you know that.” He does. “But, no, you can’t. Scars don’t heal, and this is your ‘before damage state’ now that your body is working with. Any new damage won’t give you scars when you use Reverse Cursed Technique, but old wounds stay.”

He can’t fix it.

“You didn’t try anything stupid, did you?”

“Nothing with permanent damage. New permanent damage.” Shoko raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t push further. She’s good like that, giving him space so he doesn’t need to cast Infinity between them to keep that distance. “Well, uh, thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem.” He turns to leave, not wanting to stay a second longer, when Shoko calls out gently, one last thing to say. “Hey, scars don’t heal, but they fade. Give it time, okay?” He nods and leaves the infirmary, treks back to his room, and crashes to his bed.

He can’t fix this.

He can’t fix this.

He can’t fix this.

So weak. He’ll get stronger. He has to get stronger. Fix it in other ways. Fix himself in other ways. Time to focus on training other aspects of his technique, huh?