"The Vines Between You And I" | Sukuna × Reader

The skies are scorched with a deep vermillion as the clouds cry blood. Lightning carves through above with a gutteral sound of thunder that reverberates into his bones. The waves thrash around in the distance that look almost like blood itself. The howling of the wind was almost mocking him-laughing, even.

It raises the fine hairs on his neck, hating the way it sounds as a dreadful knot twisted in his gut. He was spiraling within the confines of his mind. His eyes glaze as he takes in the scenery before him as if it beckons for his surrender.

He's been here too many times to count but this time, he's alone. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

He takes a step back with a shallow breath, only for the platform below his bare feet swallows him. Before he can register his plummeting demise, something snatches him.

Black tendrils emerge from the dark. They slide up to wrap around his ankle, crawling inch by inch up his leg till it reaches his neck. They wrap all around him like a blanket but there was no comfort in such a caress.

It was potent with a dangerous calamity.

More emerge to coil around his arms to pull him deeper into the abyss. Their grip was unrelenting as he tried to grasp at the air-for something. Anything to pull him back to safety as panic builds within him.

No, not again...

They slither up his jaw, and as he tries to scream, they plunge deep into the crevices of his mouth to silence. He gags as it presses down onto his tongue, engulfing his mouth, and chokes as it lodges into his throat he could feel it piercing his lungs. A faint gurgle rips from his throat as the ones around his waist pierce into his chest and aim at his heart.

His vision blurs as this agony takes root.

What's even worse was that he saw your face coming into view as he fell deeper, and deeper, until you were gone.

And so was he.

Then, a sharp gasp.

Sukuna's lungs burned with the intensity of the sun as he thrashes up from his bed. Beads of sweat are rolling down his forehead as he gulps for air. He does his best to steady his breath as his body showers in a cold.

Fuck.

The nightmares. They're back again.

Since your arrival, he's been having these dreams that press against his insides. He's no stranger to them, but how they appear frequent as of late devours him. They're like tiny little maggots digging into his brain.

Dreams that make him feel less of the man he is and more of the boy he was.

Days of when he was more free to roam the earth with his wings that stretched far and wide.

Ever since he was a little boy, it was as though the feathers were plucked one by one. Until one day, it was hand by hand. The way it grips and pulls as his blood stain the tip of the quills. His back smeared and trickled of his own blood, left marred and raw. With a wound left so unattended it infected with pus.

It spread like frost upon a windowpane. It rooted so deep beneath his flesh his own veins turned obsidian, down to the beating of his heart.

Sometimes, if you listened well enough, there's a faint thump. He can almost hear it when he's with you. A past he's long sown deeply, rooting it's way back up to the surface to feel the kiss of the sun.

But he knows he can't have that any longer. He has built a name for himself over the years. All well known for being ruthless. Formidable. An omnipotent man with a trail of bodies in his wake.