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anonymous-dentist · 7 months ago

Text

Or: a PJO AU

Cellbit hasn't been a demigod since he was eight years old staring a snake woman in the eyes in downtown Manhattan. It's been almost ten years since then, and he hasn't bothered with the gods since. (Good riddance.)

But then, of course, Richarlyson.

And then, of course, the spiders.

Oh, the spiders...

So now Cellbit has Richarlyson in the back seat of a stolen car with Pac and Mike on either side of him, Felps riding shotgun and shouting insults at the dozen or so dog-sized spiders chasing them down the highway. They're just under five minutes away from where Cellbit vaguely remembers camp being, which means Richarlyson is just under five minutes away from what is going to be the worst day of his life.

(Cellbit never got claimed, thank the gods. Mike says that he doesn't believe in divine authority, so he won't recognize whoever his parent is. Pac is long-claimed by now, but this also isn't his camp or pantheon. And Felps is... Felps.)

Richarlsyon has his headphones on, and he's watching The Lorax on his tablet (also stolen.) This is probably why the spiders are chasing them, but Cellbit doesn't have the heart to take it away from them.

Spiders... eugh. Of course, it just had to be spiders.

Cellbit watches a spider lunge for the driver's side door via the side mirror.

With a grimace, he takes one hand off of the wheel and slams his door open with his free hand.

The spider goes flying, and it's immediately run over and squished into a spider-shaped mass of goo on the road.

"Ewwww," Pac complains.

Cellbit wrinkles his nose in agreement. He pulls his door shut and stabilizes the car and tries not to think about how the squished-up spider is going to reform in a second and come after him and probably, like, murder him in his sleep after he drops Richarlyson off.

(The downside of refusing to associate with the gods for a decade is a distinct lack of celestial bronze weaponry. Except for...)

"Keep an eye out for a sign," Cellbit tells the others. "It's... strawberries? Something about strawberries."

The car jerks as a couple of spiders leap onto the trunk and start hissing.

Cellbit swears and sharply turns the car to the left, sending the spiders- and Mike- flying.

Mike shouts, and then he screams as a spider jumps up onto the window next to him.

"What the fuck?" he yells. "Pac!"

"Got it!" Pac cheerily says.

With only a little hesitation, he unbuckles his seat belt, leans across both an unbothered Richarlyson and a freaked-out Mike, rolls the window down, and stabs the spider through with the blade of his gladius. The spider screeches and dissolves into dust.

One down, so many more to go.

Pac grins and sits back in his seat. He ruffles Richarlyson's hair as he does so, retracting his sword back into his watch and re-buckling his seat belt.

Cellbit turns his attention back to the road. No signs yet... but it's also been ten years since he's been in New York, let alone at camp. Things could have changed. Things probably did change, and probably not for the better. Maybe the campers lost the war. Maybe the Titans won (but probably not considering the world hasn't been destroyed in the years since 2009.) Maybe Bagi-

"Delphi Strawberry Service," Felps hums. He looks at Cellbit. "Is that it?"

Cellbit answers by jerking the car so hard to the right that everybody inside, himself included, is pulled to the side. He grits his teeth and tries to stay as upright as he can.

(Why is he the only one who can drive, again?)

The car pulls onto a familiar gravel road. There's a tall tree on the hill ahead of them. Even through the windows, Cellbit can smell the scent of sweet, fresh strawberries and bonfire smoke. There are people on the hill braiding flowers.

The spiders continue giving chase. One must manage to puncture one of the tires with its fangs, because one of the lights on the dashboard goes red, and the car starts to wobble and slow down.

Cellbit groans and presses his foot to the gas. "Nooo, come on!"

They're so close! He can see the Golden Fleece waving in the wind.

He can also see a very large statue of a woman towering above the treeline. She looks... familiar. In a bad way.

Cellbit shudders and tears his eyes away from the statue. It's none of his business, anyway; he's just dropping Richarlyson off, and then he and the others are leaving before they're noticed.

Another tire is popped. The car stops.

Finally, Richarlyson takes his headphones off.

"Where are we?" he asks.

Cellbit tries to smile at him through the rear-view mirror.

"We're going to summer camp, remember?" he attempts.

Richarlyson- six years old and too smart for his age- does not appear to be too happy about that statement. Makes sense, he didn't want to leave California in the first place. Cellbit doesn't blame him; the weather is much more tolerable there than it is in New York.

The car shakes as spiders start climbing it. They start trying to break through the windows using their evil little spider legs and their absolutely horrifying spider fangs: enormous pointy things oozing a purple liquid that bubbles as it hits the glass.

Cellbit bites back a whimper. They're so big...

Pac's mouth narrows. He presses the button on his watch and only flinches a little as his gladius pops out of it.

Mike steels himself. He clicks his seat belt off, and he picks his bag up off of the floor and puts it in his lap- ready to run.

Felps, though, smiles wide and turns around in his seat to look at Richarlyson.

"Are you ready to run again?" he asks.

Richarlyson is good at many things, but he's best at running away from his problems (just like everyone else in the car), and the killer spiders are definitely problems.

So Richarlyson nods and clutches his tablet to his chest. He should really leave it behind, but...

"On the count of three," Cellbit tells everybody.

He takes his seat belt off and gets his backpack from the floor by his feet. He checks his boot and lets out a tense breath. Okay. It's there.

"Um," Cellbit says.

The spiders manage to crack the back windshield. Richarlyson gasps and rushes to take his seat belt off.

"Dois."

Pac yanks his seat belt off and grabs the door handle. His eyes flicker between the spiders and Richarlyson and Mike and Cellbit and Felps, though they linger on Felps for just a moment too long to be normal.

(Oh, Pac...)

"Três!"

Cellbit shoves the door open and jumps out of it, pulling his knife from his boot and stabbing it right into the abdomen of the closest spider.

"Wait, you meant on three!?" Pac screeches, tumbling out of the car and swinging his gladius at the nearest group of spiders.

"Yes!" Cellbit snaps. "What did you think I meant?"

He rips the knife out of the spider, panting heavily from both fear and exhilaration. The edges of his vision are red and dripping with blood, but the spider simple crumbles into dust at his hands.

Mike stumbles out of the car, Richarlyson in his arms and his bag on his back.

"I thought you meant after you counted to three!" Pac shouts.

He spins in a neat circle and manages to decapitate two spiders at once. They dissolve, but two more spiders take their places immediately.

Mike takes off down the road towards the hill, grumbling about Richarlyson's weight as he goes. Richarlyson starts talking about Mike's weight in return, and there are spiders.

There are spiders.

Oh fuck.

Knife's effects be damned, Cellbit screams and jerks backwards in sheer terror as a spider scrambles onto his side of the car. He falls onto his ass on the gravel and scoots away, eyes wide. His hands shake and his vision flickers back into something resembling normalcy and he can't breathe- fucking spiders, of course they're spiders! What else would they be? Fucking spiders, of course!

"Cellbit!" Pac cries.

"I've got him," Felps says, finally getting out of the car.

He calmly raises his arms above his head and stretches. As he does so, he walks around the side of the car and crouches by Cellbit's side.

"These things suck," he tells Cellbit, voice so low that Cellbit is convinced that only he can hear it. "Let's just run away."

There's just that smallest hint of magic in his voice, but Cellbit isn't worried about it. No, he's used to it. He's known Felps basically since he ran away, he's more than used to it.

His body stands. Cellbit only comes back to himself as he's approaching the hill, Felps and Pac close behind.

He skids to a stop just in front of the camp borders. He can seen Mike and Richarlyson already safe on the other side, and he can see a group of campers gathered around them and attending to Richarlyson, whose fake tears are convincing enough to get three or so campers to give him all of their flower crowns and chains.

Pac crosses the border and shivers. He immediately runs to Mike's side, clicking his gladius away and taking Richarlyson from him.

Felps stops next to Cellbit.

"Come on," he whispers. "The spiders, man."

Cellbit gulps. He feels all tingly; the statue of the woman stares angrily down at him, furious over his very existence.

A spider hisses, entirely too close to Cellbit for his comfort.

He yelps and rushes across the border, and it feels like his first breath of fresh air in a decade as he does so.

He hates it.

Felps follows, sticking close to Cellbit's side. He smiles and waves politely at the campers staring at the two of them.

Or, well. Staring at the air over Cellbit's head.

One of the campers, a taller boy with messy brown hair and a blue bandana loosely tied around his forehead, looks positively befuddled. Why?

"Don't get any bright ideas," Cellbit warns the campers. "I'm not staying. None of us are."

Richarlyson raises a dejected hand. "Except for me. They're abandoning me..."

He bursts into a fresh round of crocodile tears. Most of the campers coo and gather around him and Pac and Mike; Cellbit watches as Pac steals the watch off of a girl's wrist, and as Mike snags a solid handful of golden rings from several different campers. (Nothing ever changes.)

But the boy with the bandana keeps staring at Cellbit.

Slightly unnerved, Cellbit shuffles closer to Felps, who ignores him and looks up at the statue with his hand acting as a visor over his eyes.

"Oh, look. The Athena Parthenos," he comments. "When did that get here?"

Athena...

He nudges Cellbit in the side with a grin. "Look, Cellbit. It's your mom!"

...What?

"No," Cellbit firmly says, completely ignoring the various puzzle pieces clicking into place in his head. "I don't have a mom. Now, come on, we need to take care of the..."

He trails off as he turns around and sees the gaggle of spiders pressed up against the camp's barrier hissing and quivering and oozing.

His voice trails off into a whisper: "...spiders."

He can't help it. He drops his knife in shock, and, as he does so, an ice-cold needle jams itself into the side of his brain.

Cellbit immediately drops to his knees and scrambles to pick the knife up. He wipes it on his jeans, holds it, looks at it, loves it.

His reflection in the blade is clear. The glowing golden owl symbol floating above his head is even clearer.

"Told you," Felps says.

Cellbit reaches back and smacks his leg. Felps kicks at him. Cellbit smacks him again.

Richarlyson starts crying again. This time, he sounds serious. (He is only six...)

Cellbit sighs and stands, carefully tucking his knife back into his boot as he does so.

As he raises his head, he's met with the boy with the bandana standing only a foot or so away from him with his hands in his pockets.

"Hey," he says, "so if you don't want to stay, keep away from the training grounds. The Athena cabin is down there, and I... well, let's just say the head counselor is gonna want to see you."

He winks, and he walks off to join the other campers.

The Athena cabin's head counselor... who? If he's, then... oh, fuck.

Cellbit grabs Felps' arm and looks up at him desperately.

"Kill the spiders," he begs. "Please. We need to get out of here."

Felps pats the back of Cellbit's head reassuringly.

He smiles. "No."

And then he goes to squeeze through the campers to get to Richarlyson, who immediately brightens upon seeing him.

Cellbit looks at the spiders. He looks at the- what did Felps call it?- Athena Parthenos. He looks at the campers.

He looks at the hill as there's a scream from it, a screechy: "What the fuck? Are those spiders?"

The boy with the bandana looks up at the girl on the hill and offers a wave. "Bagi! Hey! I thought you were training?"

"I heard screaming," the girl explains. "I came to help."

She has a sword in one of her hands and a shield in the other. She's gotten her nose pierced in the last ten years. She looks... happy.

Quietly, Cellbit starts backing away. If he can make it into the woods and then run, he might be able to outsmart the spiders before they can catch him.

The girl looks at Richarlyson. She looks at Pac and Mike and Felps.

And then she looks at Cellbit, and she drops her sword.

Yeah, no.

Cellbit turns on his heel, and he books it into the forest.

He hasn't been a demigod in ten years, and he sure as hell isn't going to start again now.

#a.d.'s fics i suppose #a.d.'s fics i suppose.#qsmppjo au #<- that's it that's the tag #idk how happy i am with this? but i love writing these types of chase-action scenes

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nariism · 1 year ago

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gojo satoru believes that all good things come in twos.

he was the second half of his best friend, after all— part of a wandering soul somewhere else in japan spouting some bullshit about retribution. he hasn't quite been the same since 2009.

it wasn't always this way. never before had he been so endeared, so enchanted by the prospect of keeping things together just for the sake of it.

he remembers clearly the day this hyperfixation started, actually: a warm summer sunday in sagae with you dragging him along through the local fruit market. you picked out a bag of cherries, holding up a twin pair of them and dangling them in his face.

"they're sweeter here," you told him with such a fascinated expression, completely enamoured by the ruby jewels held between your fingers. and he savoured that moment, as mundane as it was, because your eyes were shining in adoration at such a perfect pair of cherries.

(also, when you ate them your lips stained a pretty shade of red that made him salivate.)

he realized that things felt more whole in pairs: two hands cupping his face, two charms dangling from your neck, two cherries infinitely sweeter than one. two hearts, two souls, two people who both belong and don't belong in such a wicked world cradling each other with a shared breath.

gojo felt lonely without another— in the time between geto's defection and your reunion, he missed the feeling of being the other half of a duo. nanami buried himself into work. shoko fared no better. he was utterly, shamefully alone.

he was a new person when you returned to him. a lot of things had changed. but despite the distance and the slow untwining of your lives over the years, you knew gojo to be stubborn more than anything.

"two dogs are better than one," he argued when megumi was first learning how to control his cursed technique.

"he's just a kid. making him responsible for one, let alone two, is crazy!"

"i'm telling you, megumi is no pushover! you'll see."

he was right. sometimes (and only sometimes) he does know better. two was better than one.

you could see it in megumi's face when both dogs pounced on him, licking him and wagging their tails. in fact, it was probably the first time you'd ever seen the kid smile at all.

so you went along with gojo, indulged him whenever he reached for two things instead of one: two boxes of juice from the convenience store fridge, two fingers locked together while you walk, two earbuds split between you so you can sing together. two hearts, two souls, two blue eyes fluttering shut when he leans in to kiss you.

when he asked you to move in with him, you weren't surprised in the least. you were also not surprised to see how he set things up around the house, nothing lonely and everything in a pair. gojo feels like you think he's insane. he might be.

being with you made him feel as normal as gojo satoru could ever feel in this life— breathing no longer hurt like water filling his lungs. it was as natural as you basking in the rising sun every morning. living didn't need to be justified anymore. he wasn't obligated to be the strongest. he just needed to exist in your warmth.

things make sense in twos. the world is less gloomy with you by his side.

it's unspoken between you, but you oblige to his strange fixation anyways: two slices of peanut butter on toast in the morning, two stars atop a christmas tree, two picture frames on every side table. two hearts, two souls, two people being each other's reason to keep pushing.

he thinks he loves you a foolish amount. knows he shouldn't be putting all his eggs into one basket. he might be untouchable, but you aren't.

it's inevitable. one day, gojo satoru will be alone again.

and it's a fair exchange for power; a curse he wishes he was never born with. if he had the choice, he would have picked you over limitless power without a moment's pause.

he doesn't have the choice. unlucky.

all he can really do is let you cup his face. feed him cherries. argue over how to raise megumi and tsumiki and live in your little fantasy of pretending to be a family. all he can do is cherish the time you have left together, regardless of how long. all he can do is hope you'll say yes.

two hearts, two souls, two matching rings (one white, one black; he was poetic that way). one meant for him, and the other meant for you— a promise to keep and to break.

he doesn’t care. you and him make the best pair he can think of, no matter how fleeting.

#— whispers in the wind ✧#if you recognize this as what was supposed to be the sae fic i changed my mind #it fits gojo better #gojo satoru #gojou satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru x y/n #gojo x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x y/n #jjk x y/n

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