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

Five Years Ago...

In the night, the sounds of gentle waves swaying against the docks hums as a frigid air settles within one of the barren trailers.  A muffled wail bounces off the walls with a sickening crunch of bones like broken twigs.

But it didn't just break—it snapped.

More came after another, such ungodly sounds like a music box that was being pulled taut.  Jagged shards of bone protrude out from the finger at such unnatural angles you couldn't tell where it started and end.

The metal pliers latch onto another, and bone fragments splinter as skin and muscle rip like fine yarn.  The man convulsed, another howl from his throat behind the cotton gag lodged deep in the crevices of his mouth.  The wooden armchair had begun to soak of the remnants of his blood like an offering to its alter.

From clenched and tear stained eyes, the man peeks them open through his blonde bangs, strands stick to his forehead like glue that have long been drenched from sweat.  He stares back at his captor who lead him out from the midnight cold.

Eyes as red as his own blood, feral and unblinking, stare back at him.

The Devil, wrapped in skin and silence. 

How he had got into this situation?  He touched what didn't belong to him.

"Nero, correct?" Sukuna coos like a blade wrapped in silk, tilting his head in a study, eyes trailing over the carnage.

Nero's auburn eyes flicker to the side as the one with snow white hair, who had been plucking his fingers like tomatoes on a vine, moves to the side to place the pliers down on a nearby metal table.  He darts back at Sukuna's unrelenting gaze and nods quick in response based on dread.

"Mm," a low hum purrs in Sukuna's throat, the corner of his lips twitching—not quiet a smile nor a snarl, but something far more crueler in between—from Nero's whimpers.  The crazed fear in his eyes, and how his body trembled all over.  Plus the odor of the man pissing himself that burned Sukuna's sinuses.  It was revolting, truly.

But the terror?  It was delicious.

Sukuna drapes his fingers over his mouth in contemplation as he stares back at the man.  He studies him like some lost creature pulled from another dimension.  He found it amusing.

With a hiss of breathe between his teeth, he removed his hand to grab another wooden chair.  Like unrelenting nails on a chalkboard, it scrapes against the metal with a screech, causing Nero to jolt from the sound as his senses heightened.  

"Do you understand the reason of why you're here?" Sukuna asks, slumping into the chair with an ankle propped on his knee.  His fingernail taps impatiently at the armrest, eyes filled with a calm storm, narrowing.  But beneath it was pure rage for his claws to sink into flesh.

Nero could only shake his head in absolute fear, to which, only made Sukuna's twisted mockery of a smile grow.

"Come now, think long and hard." Sukuna jests.  "How about—oh, I don't know.  Three days ago, an afternoon on Bones and Willow street." 

Nero's brows flickered at the names, gaze shifting, but as soon as Sukuna sees the man's head leering and violently shaking back and forth, he couldn't help but bare his teeth in a grin.  Nero had finally caught on to a mistake he didn't even know.  He couldn't even verbally defend himself, let alone, physically.

"You laid your hands on what is mine." Sukuna says finally, a little too eager.  "So, you'll pay with your fingers.  But," he rolls his eyes to the side, perching an elbow onto the armrest, and plops his chin onto his knuckles.  "Considering how...perversive of a man you are for daring to do so..." He looks back at Nero, his stare growing cold—devoid of all emotion that swirl with such void.  "I find your life far more of a fitting price."