#this is wonderful and magical and feels like taking a bite of my favorite funfetti cake

[kedsandtubesocks]

I NEED TO INJECT THIS INTO MY VEINS

now we're partners in crime—

gojo x f!reader wc: 4k+ tags: modern au, no smut but it is a mentioned subject throughout, intoxication to the point of slight memory loss (referenced), gojo being gojo, f!reader (referred to as 'wife' and 'bride', etc.) takes place in you guessed it las vegas, so there's some american stuff in here inspired by the katy perry song 'waking up in vegas'

many things are immediately concerning when you wake up.

the first being that you're laid up in a bathtub and not entirely naked, wearing some ridiculously scandalous lingerie you would never buy for yourself while in your right mind — though you think that might be precisely the problem. that you weren't.

you have no recollection of getting into this...outfit, which is little more than too-tight ribbons and misplaced pasties and strips of crotchless, white material. it's so open and exposing that you are horrifyingly embarrassed, hands clumsily rushing to cover the bits of you that are all out even if you are in a hotel bathroom by yourself.

the thought of anyone seeing you in this nonsense nearly has you sinking further down into the tub and turning the faucet on high until the water runs up and over your head, but someone would come to find you eventually, and they would catch just as much of an eyeful as whoever tied you into this crap.

and someone certainly did, because there's no way you could have gotten into this alone, either stone-cold sober or sloshed out of your mind. which you're quite sure you were. had to have been.

there are faint and distorted memories tickling the sensitive skin of your throat, of cherry-stained lips and rushed, slurred whispers. "y'look so sexy," he says, and the little giggle pressed into your neck is innocent, childish compared to the wide hand gripping your ass cheek too hard.

the terribly concerning thing about this isn't that you don't know who that man is, but rather that you do. all too well. and now your head is pounding and your stomach is turning and your hangover is coming in full force at the realization that you may have, in fact, fucked your best friend.

but even that isn't the most concerning thing. no, waking up in a bathtub with few memories of your wild, first night in las vegas has nothing on the glittering, heavy diamond ring on your finger.

you don't know anything about carats but someone — that you hope and pray is not gojo satoru — has bought you a whole crop of them.

it seems as if an eternity passes before you can haul yourself up and over the edge of the tub, though it probably only takes about 10 minutes in total. on all fours, you feel like a little show cow, with fabric everywhere except for where it should be, and you're almost so overcome by your embarrassment that you turn back for the tub.

but there's a faint ringing coming from outside the door. an annoying, too-cheerful noise that you realize is what's woken you up in the first place, because it hasn't stopped for ages. a ring-tone that, again, has your stomach dropping from the familiarity.

maybe it's getou, you try to tell yourself, come to find gojo's phone because the clown ran off without it too late last night and is now panicking. maybe shoko and suguru and satoru are all sober as can be and you've just made a big fool of yourself, all by yourself, and everything is totally fine; you'd happily be labeled a sloppy drunk rather than...whatever it is your brain is trying to piece together right now.

you're not actually any more covered on the ground like this, but it gives you some semblance of comfort as you open the bathroom door and peer out down the hall — which is made of marble flooring and a crumpled-up white, mink rug, gold picture frames lining the pristine white walls. you can see clear across the room, and the floor-to-ceiling windows are all city skyline and a cloudless blue day.

and this is absolutely not the room the four of you booked.

not that it was some backwater, mysteriously-stained-carpet-esque motel room, but it was a bottom-floor rental, and definitely not on the strip, as this king-fucking-suite seems to be. definitely not littered with rose petals and pictures of greek goddesses (?) and a cardboard cut out of elvis presley.

the first piece of real clothing you come across while crawling along the floor is a black blazer that had clearly been tossed into a haphazard clump last night; you hate to imagine why. you yank it on as quickly as your lead-heavy limbs will let you and button it up as far as it will go. a good portion of your chest is exposed, still, but it goes to nearly your knees, because it's fitted for some stupid, tall idiot.

— and said stupid idiot is passed out in the middle of the hotel room, half of one leg kicked up on the couch. there's a sticky, splotchy puddle — of old champagne, you guess, if the empty bottle in his hand is anything to go by — right next to his stupid idiot head, and if he were to only turn his face a little, it'd get all in his hair. you wish it would.

satoru is also entirely shirtless, with the button of his slacks undone and a peek of his black, expensive briefs staring you in the face.

for a moment, you're surprised; all his dumb designer clothes make him seem too slinky, like a limp string-bean, and you didn't expect him to be as...thick as he is. still lean, moreso than even suguru, but there's a soft roundness to his shoulders, which have never looked so wide beneath his fancy shirts.

he has pecs. smooth abs that you want to poke, maybe bite. you're also trying not to care about the snow-white happy trail underneath his belly button.

the first thing you do is whack him in the head.

"gojo!" you hiss, hugging the blazer closer to your body as he whines and, unfortunately, turns further from the mess on the floor. "wake up!"

his glasses are nowhere to be seen, hopefully broken or lost for good, and he only manages to crack a single baby-blue open before covering his face with his hands and groaning out in pain. "did you hit me?" he asks, muffled and delayed, so you do it again to be more clear. "ah!" he cries, "why are you hitting me?"

"b-because! where are my clothes?"

you can see the brush of his light eyelashes against his fingers as his eyes open beneath his hands, and then he's sitting straight up, interested, smile growing at the sight of your bare legs.

gojo has the nerve the laugh, infuriatingly similar to the one haunting your memories. "noooo clue."

"satoru," you grit, and the use of his first name has his face falling into something more serious. "this isn't funny. what—" you hold up your hand and point to the ring on your finger, face burning up when his eyes go wide. "—happened last night?"

but — you know what happened, don't you? because, try as you might to ignore the silky white dress draped across the back of the couch, you're looking into gojo's eyes and you can see them staring back at you underneath the cheap light in some shitty little chapel.

you gasp out loud as your hands go to twist in the roots of your hair, the realization a physical assault on your sanity. "what the fuck have we done?"

a small crease forms between gojo's brows, courtesy of his own hangover headache, and his lips press together evenly as he blinks in the sunshine pouring through the window. he's startlingly less bothered by this than you are and you think it's driving you even more crazy; sitting as if has hasn't just dropped who-knows-how-much on a giant, ugly ring and a suit and this honeymoon-esque-fucking-suite.

the lack of frenzy from him is only driving your anxiety up tenfold.

the annoying little ring-tone splits the air again and that finally prompts him to leave the floor, stumbling around to the kitchen as he knuckles at his eyes. he brightens for a moment and holds up a hand-written note left for you both that says "congrats newlyweds!".

satoru answers the call without a care, voice light and amused. "mr. and mrs. gojo speaking!"

the only very little, teeny-tiny upside to all this is that shoko and getou look just as hungover as you.

ieiri is still laughing, however, into her eggs and then into her mimosa and then fully, into her hands, when you glare at her from across the table. suguru seems unphased for the most part, though you didn't miss how big his eyes got at first sight of the ring on your finger.

there had been no choice but to slip back into the dress you'd worn last night, as it seems the rest of your clothes were in the hotel room where you should've been; gojo at least lets you keep the blazer. most of the buttons on his shirt are gone and you'd both spent too long, too much brain power, trying to figure out how to get it to stay closed before meeting up with getou and shoko in one of the restaurants on the bottom floor of the hotel.

they confirm the worst.

the diagnosis? terminal. 'til death do you part.

"i can't believe you let me do this," you moan, dropping your head to the smooth, cool surface of the table; it doesn't alleviate your headache whatsoever. "why did you let me do this? how could you let me do this to myself?"

"oh, you both were very adamant about it," shoko snorts, downing the rest of her drink in one shot. you don't know how she does it; the very thought of alcohol makes you want to be sick. "wouldn't take no for an answer."

your face falls back into your hands, all doom and gloom. you want to refute such a claim, vehemently disagree that you would want to marry gojo satoru under any circumstances — but there apparently are circumstances that have led you right here. beside gojo, who is drenching a fat stack of pancakes in syrup.

he only grins. "i always knew you found me irresistible."

"look what you've let me do," you cry, digging your hands back in your hair as you send ieiri a pleading look, as if she could go back in time and stop you from ever getting into this mess. "you've let me ruin my life!"

getou sighs, head falling back against the booth you're sitting in. "it can't be that hard to undo. must happen all the time."

gojo chokes at that. "what? you would dare suggest the d-word on our first day as man and wife?"

you smack him again to shut him up, though he only frowns at you, cheeks full of food. "we are undoing this!" you hiss, glaring at your own reflection in the over-sized glasses shoko has let him borrow. "and you're paying for it!"

gojo chooses violence in that moment, by reaching out to catch the attention of the waitress walking by. "excuse me, do you mind getting my bride a cup of coffee? she gets a little grumpy in the morning without her caffeine, you know how it is."

you launch forward in the seat to strangle him, but he's quick to deflect by looping an arm around your shoulders, just before you get your hands on his throat. he yanks you close to his side, hard enough that you feel the phantom pain of his grip on your sore ass, from the night before, and then you catch sight of all the purple hickies just under his collar.

the unshakable reminder has you shrinking back into yourself, unintentionally nestling deeper against his side due to your blazing hot shame. it's mortifying suddenly, to realize it's public knowledge that you've married and screwed your best friend in the same night. maybe even the same hour. and he's seen you in that ridiculous lingerie.

the truth is that you don't know how to take this. you don't know how you feel about this. being married to him, having been bedded by him. you know he's not the reputation he tries so hard to uphold, as some playboy douche-bag; satoru is nothing but a goofball, a bit of a nerd about mathematics while also shouldering a substantial amount of emotional trauma.

you've known him since college, when you and shoko shared that crappy little apartment off-campus and spent too many nights playing beer pong with your only other two idiot friends — who are conveniently sitting in this booth with you.

he's slept in your bed more times than you can count, because he's too stubborn to sleep on the couch, and you were the link between he and getou when they stopped talking for a while. you don't know what the real deal is with megumi and tsumiki, but you've housed them, too; brought their lunch to school and washed their clothes when gojo forgot to pay the water bill, after he decided to stop living off his family's money.

you don't know how you feel being married to him, even if it's only for 24 hours. you don't know how you feel about crossing such an intimate boundary, or how you feel about not remembering any of it.

gojo, on the other hand, seems to feel great about all this, though the look getou gives him across the table doesn't go unnoticed; disappointment, almost. an are-you-serious kind of look.

"i'm never drinking again," you whine, frowning down at the diamond in your lap, sitting bright and sharp on your finger. it's too big for your taste, a bit gaudy, all for show; definitely satoru's style.

"good idea, peach," gojo nods, "let's agree to go sober."

"you didn't even drink that much—"

gojo interrupts suguru by raising a quick hand. "but we all know i'm a lightweight, so it doesn't take much to begin with."

shoko pokes through her phone and you notice the odd way she's angling it, almost like she's just snapped a picture of you and him snug together. you consider kicking her under the table, or throwing her phone in the obnoxious fountain blubbering over by the bathrooms.

she snickers. "i can't wait to tell utahime."

"you will not!" you squeak, suddenly wrenching yourself from gojo's grasp to scooch down to the other end of the booth, as if that could erase the evidence somehow. "we're getting divorced, like, right now!"

gojo — still seems unbothered, which only has your nerves flaring up again. "you know peach," —he pouts when you hiss at him to stop calling you that— "i'd move heaven and earth to make you happy, but unfortunately i can't find my credit card, so you'll have to put a hold on breaking up our family."

"you what?"

"yeah, what?" getou screws his face up, crosses his arms. "who do you think is paying for all your food?"

"suguru," he gasps, scandalized, "you would make the newlyweds pay for—"

"oh my god, get out!" you fuss, reeling your leg back to literally kick gojo's ass out of the seat. "get out, get out now! we're going back to that room and we're not leaving until we find your stupid card!"

"honey," gojo laughs, sweet and light, sending a chill down your spine as he is gladly steered by you. "don't be so forward in front of our friends."

"shut up!"

you re-tear apart the already torn apart hotel room.

there's not much to sort through, which is both good and bad for your pending annulment; helpful, because it means there isn't much in between you and gojo's credit card, but also unfortunate, because you rip the place to shreds and still can't find the stupid thing.

you're met with plenty of other things, though, that only serve to make your body hot and your brain fuzzy.

all the buttons of gojo's shirt, for one, which are scattered in various places across the floor, where they must have flown when one of you ripped it open. there's a ridiculous assortment of chocolates that, at one point, spelled out something —married!; gojo digs into them immediately with an excited little "oh!" as you crawl around on the floor.

whatever it was you woke up in gets shoved in the trash, and you don't even speak about it to satoru.

it eats away at you, though, the flitting images that cycle through your brain, the muddled memories you have of this ridiculous hotel room. the more you look, the more comes back to you, and you eventually can't stop replaying the way he'd thrown your dress up over your head, or the hand you stuck down his pants.

to no surprise at all, gojo isn't really helping. instead lounging on the couch, shoes kicked off, little foil wrappers in his lap. when he notices you staring at him, remembering, he smiles his coy little smile. "c'mon," he starts, "being married to me can't be that bad, can it?"

it's only been a few hours, but it feels like the day has drug on, far too long; you only shake your head, raise a hand and say, "don't."

"i can take care of you," he continues, turning to prop his chin up on the back of the couch as you pace back and forth. "i can—"

"i don't need to be 'taken care of'—"

"—you know what i mean." he has the audacity to roll his eyes at you, but the smile on his face is dimming. "i'll do the cooking and cleaning."

you huff out a laugh. "satoru, you've never cooked anything in your life."

he ignores the diss. "is it because i've got kids? you don't have to be the step-mom—"

"god, stop," you groan, digging the heels of your hands into your eyes. they sting, suddenly, and you tell yourself it's only because of the migraine. "what are you—you can't be serious. why are you—i mean, what the hell?"

the hotel room goes entirely silent, and maybe it's because a phone isn't ringing in the background, but it feels like a completely different room. there's pink and red everything, bouquets to go with the petals littering the floor. the ring around your finger fits just right, but you force it to spin around and around, pinching at your skin because you can't keep your hands still.

satoru's face betrays nothing. you have no idea what he's thinking. why he's going so far, if this is all just another joke of his.

"we didn't, by the way," he tells you then, voice low and calm. "you went to throw up in the bathroom and never came back and i passed out on the floor."

you press your thumb into the center of your forehead, trying to tide back the frustration building in your waterline. "what? what do you mean?"

a small smile returns to his face, bringing about a rosiness with it. "our marriage was never consummated, i mean. we never got that far."

oh.

satoru is your best friend, one of them, and you decide, while looking at his tired eyes and soft smile, that maybe marrying him wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. getou gets on your nerves too much, with his grumpiness, and shoko is too flighty. utahime is maybe ideal, though you think nanami would be a good, safe choice.

and gojo, too. couldn't be too bad of a choice, with him.

you heave a sigh and come around to sit beside him on the couch, slumping back into his side — which was undeniably comfortable, down in the restaurant. the affection makes him hum, warm and happy into the crown of your head.

"every marriage has its ups and downs."

you dare to laugh, finally, at the situation. "i don't think i've been a very good wife."

"that's alright, peach," he yanks away, squirming as you try to pinch him. "i'm willing to try therapy to save this thing."

"you're stupid," you tell him childishly, though he only shrugs in response. "we have to figure this out, gojo. we have to — fix this."

"megumi will be out of the house in two years, if that's really the issue—"

you shake your head with another laugh as you get up to stretch your sore limbs, to rub at the tenderness still lingering in your buttcheek. "oh my god, it's not the kids, gojo!"

he laughs, too, though it sounds a little strained, like it's being forced from the back of his throat. "then what is it?"

"we're—" you shake your head again, at a loss from the seriousness dulling his eyes. "i mean, we've never even—we can't be married. we're—just friends, aren't we?"

there's a tension that hardens his face for a moment, solid enough that you get the feeling he's going to pull away somehow, from you and this conversation — but then it's falling away just as quickly, replaced by a look of exasperation. "we can be whatever you want."

another chill shudders down your spine at his honesty, his decision to be vulnerable, here, right now, with you. you've never been under the impression he had any...romantic feelings for you, and maybe that's been on purpose, out of fear of him and what loving him could mean. what losing him could mean.

"i think," you sigh, turning your attention back to the ring—your ring. "i think i'm going to give this back to you and you can hold onto it, if you want, and maybe give it to me in the future. after you cook me dinner and clean all the dishes."

he frowns, but it isn't too severe, playful once again. "so you're really gonna d-word me?"

"yes, satoru," you nod, unable to stop from smiling when he does, too. "i'm really going to d-word you. you're just gonna have to win me back, i guess."

"oh, challenge," he grins in full at that and rises to his feet, towering over you a bit. completely without ceremony, his hands come up to cup your face, thumbs brushing over the heat that swells in them. "it's good for us to shake things up every now and then, it'll keep our marriage fresh."

"yeah, great, i'm so glad you're so knowledgeable about this,"

"i'd be a perfect husband,"

—and he kisses you. so simply, so suddenly, a small peck to your lips as if it's nothing but natural.

"also," he kisses you again, a little firmer as your eyelashes flutter against his. "my credit card has been in the pocket this whole time."

"what?" you murmur, brain struggling to keep up with whatever he's saying between the press of his mouth to yours. the sharp breath he inhales through his nose is audible, felt against the skin of your cheek, and you almost throw the conversation out the window when he steps in closer to you.

but you yank away from him at the last second, as soon as you feel his lips curving into a smile.

"wait, what the hell?" you dig around in the pocket of the blazer only to find his little metal card, sitting there and waiting to be found. this time, he accepts the smack, because he knows he deserves it. "gojo!"

"what do they say? 'what happens in vegas, stays in vegas'?" he cups your face again, but it's only to squish your cheeks together to silence you, to smush your frown. "well, we don't leave for another two days, so i don't think you need to rush into tearing my heart into shreds."

you mean to tell him to shut up, but he doesn't let you, and you decide not to fight him on it this time.

—because you are working on your marriage, after all.

you're in the bathroom, washing your hands up after crawling around on the floor, when you feel another painful throb in your asscheek. only — it's less of a throb, really, and more of a stinging. almost like you have a scrape of some kind.

from out in the room, satoru laughs, cackles, wholly elated.

"hey peach, you're never gonna guess what's tattooed on my butt!"