Work Text:
“Why do you always choose bars for our dinners together?”
Satoru lifted his head from his phone to see Suguru standing over him. The low lighting of the establishment did wonders in expanding the bags under his eyes with shadows. Much of his hair had fallen out of that tightly wound bun of his, barely contained when tucked behind his ears.
His colleague placed a hand on his forehead and shook his head.
“I’ve never seen you even taste an alcoholic beverage.”
“Izakayas are quite unlike any other form of restaurant. To sit at one end and watch the bartender mix all those fancy drinks while other people knock themselves out from having one too many—It’s the atmosphere I appreciate most.”
“But we always end up sitting at a booth or table.” Suguru gestures at the aforementioned booth Satoru had claimed for their evening, waving his hand over the entire table only to then point at the bar at the far end of the room. “I’m positive this is the farthest seat from the bar in this place.”
“The people then.”
“You only ever talk to the ones you drag along. Which always ends up being myself and Shoko when she’s visiting.”
“Ok. Fine— But have you considered the food?” Right on cue, the young man serving them tonight had excited the kitchen, carrying a tray filled with the bar staples Satoru continued to order at every place they went. Yakitori for himself and a bowl of Motsu Nikomi for Suguru, accompanied by two waters and a bright-blue fizzy drink Satoru had seen when perusing the menu. Common foods that never changed no matter which city they ended up in.
“I can see your point. I have yet to tire of this.” Suguru got to work taking off his coat, folding it gently and placing it beside him with his scarf to follow in stark contrast to the bundled up fabric of Satoru’s own jacket. “I think I’ll stick with just water tonight. Tomorrow’s slated to be another rough day, and I’m not taking my chances with a hangover in the morning. Even without Shoko here to join me, you’re an awful enabler.”
“Sometimes, the best thing for your health is to let loose and live a little.”
“Live now, die of liver failure in a decade or two. What a dream that is.”
The pair raised their glasses and drank, embracing the small moments of respite they could scrounge up when not drowning at work.
And speaking of work…
“So?” Satoru grabbed one of the skewers in front of him, placing the burning hot chicken between his teeth and pulling without an ounce of regret. “How’s it going with the Kraken?”
Suguru slid the menu Satoru left out toward him, skimming its contents before tapping on the item that caught his interest. “I’m thinking we should order some fried calamari while we’re here.”
“That bad, huh?”
“That octopus is a demon! Never in my career have I encountered something so ferocious and spiteful.” Given how rare they were to find, let alone capture to study, that statement could very well be true.
The movements of merfolk were spontaneous. Their places of preference were hidden, and the locations they could track down varied so heavily from pods even of the same species. For the research center to come across two of them out in open water, there had to have been some patron of luck on their boat that day.
Or one of the merfolk had been cursed with misfortune. Hard to say.
“You know, I would be angry too if I was yanked from my home and dropped into a fish tank. You also interrupted his hunt. Bastard’s pissed. And you, my friend, have made an enemy for life.” Satoru did not hold back his laughter.
“It’s not as though we are starving him. I wonder if research has been done on their memory because if this grudge lasts for the entirety of our time together, then the next several years are going to be taxing. I might have to hire a couple more assistants to lessen the workload.” Suguru finished off his water, waving to the server with a request for a refill. “And speaking of the hunt we interrupted… How’s the smaller one? What are you calling him? Yuji?”
“My little Yuji!” As a fawning parent would, Satoru placed a hand on his cheeks and smiled. “A cute name for a cute fish. And far cuter than the nickname you gave yours.”
Suguru crossed his arms defensively.
“That was intentional. Cute and Sukuna should not and will never be associated with one another.”
“Harsh.” Back to the original question. “Yuji isn’t doing the best he could be. It’s not my first time working with mermen, I practically raised Megumi from a guppy, but being brought in from the ocean directly…”
Satoru hated to admit this, but his assignment wasn’t without its own share of troubles.
“Most of the time, he’s hiding as far out of sight as he can get. If he does look around his tank, he’s skittish. Always glancing over his shoulder. I think he knows Sukuna is being kept in the same facility. Like a sixth sense sort of deal.”
“Satoru, that’s absurd. It would be more reasonable to say he could smell Sukuna on you from making contact with me, but we both go through decontamination when entering or leaving those rooms.” Suguru finally started to poke at his soup. “He must be still getting acclimated to the foreign environment. It’s a process.”
“I know. I know! You’re right! I’m just getting antsy over it. Yuji hasn’t eaten since he arrived, and I know that’s too long for a merman to go without. I’ve left food out for him to grab when he’s alone which he hasn’t touched. And then I thought to eat my lunch with him and offer to hand feed him to get him comfortable, and he just hid away! He even rejected my candy bar!”
“For your sake, I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear you say you broke at least three violations because we aren’t currently on the clock.” Suguru tried to ignore the way Satoru moved his hand open and shut to mimic his words in playful mockery, but he quickly gave up and shooed the hand away. “Seriously, quit it. You’re going to lose your hand if you keep sticking it in the tank.”
“Only if I stick it in Sukuna’s tank—”
“You’re hopeless.” His colleague rested his chin on his palm, his judgmental look still present on his face. “But I digress. Yuji’s condition is concerning. If he doesn’t eat soon, we may have to force feed and that could cause only further distress.”
“Better than dying.”
The pair let out a sigh, lamenting how easily their mood had turned sour.
“How about we shelve the work talk for a bit?”
“No arguments here.”
Satoru’s pocket vibrated in tandem with the alternative rock blaring from his phone, partially drowned out by the music already playing in the bar.
“I thought we agreed to silence our phones during dinner?”
“Hush, Mom. It’s Ijichi.”
“Shouldn’t he be at work right now?” Speak of the devil…
Without wasting additional time, Satoru swiped his finger along the screen and answered the call.
“Yo. You know who it is—”
“G-Gojo-san! Is Geto-san with you? W-We have an emergency!”
Crap.
Suguru jumped to his feet and moved to Satoru’s side of the table, practically shoving him further in the booth so that both their ears could press up against the call. The ambiance of their location worked against them twofold, interfering with their ability to hear Ijichi as well as preventing them from putting the conversation on speaker to avoid the potential prying ears of those around them.
Their work wasn’t exactly in the public eye.
“Ijichi, I’m here. What happened?”
“T-There’s been a security breach! The cameras in Sukuna’s sector were malfunctioning. I made the call to reboot them, and when they came back online, the merman was nowhere to be found! The door to his tank has been busted open, we’re tracking his movements and—”
“—Busted open!? By who? How—”
“—Sukuna! We knew there was a risk he’d possess an adaptation to move on land, but the amount of strength behind his strikes—He just broke through the first security door!”
What?
That’s impossible.
The ones installed by their tanks were military grade.
Satoru got out his wallet and tossed a stack of bills on the table with little care to count how much he overpaid as Suguru grabbed this coat and rushed to the door. He followed after him, content with leaving his car in the parking lot in favor of sticking together so long as Suguru held his phone.
“Satoru and I are on our way. We’ll be there in ten. What you need to do is double-check to make sure no personnel are currently within the SG branch, then lock down the building if you haven’t already. If he can break through the security doors… God. Have you called for additional security?”
A sharp turn almost sent the both of them flying out of their seats. Neither had thought to put their seatbelts on, leaving Satoru to grab the phone and hold it between them while the two struggled to secure themselves in.
“They’re twenty minutes out. The system we have in place was to ensure we lock intruders in long enough for backup to arrive. We’re not equipped to handle anything more than the usual human break-ins.”
“I know. You should remain safe in the security office, but evacuate if you feel that you must. I have a tranquilizer gun in the back of my car for emergencies like this.”
Immediately after hearing those words, Satou craned his neck far back as it would go in search of it, only for it to click that Suguru had meant his trunk. “Just tell us which exit Sukuna is heading towards, and we can see about cutting him off. The higher-ups will have our heads if we let him escape.”
“B-By the looks of it, the merman is heading northeast, but Geto-san, he’s not going looking for the exit!”
“How can you tell— No. Just tell me where he’s going.”
“He’s getting close to Yuji’s tank. There’s still another set of reinforced doors between him and the other merman, but if he’s determined enough—”
“We get the picture.” Satoru gripped his phone tighter, cursing at himself for something like this to even happen. Yuji must have known he wasn’t safe. He was completely water bound in a tank designed to keep him from climbing up onto the observation platform with just his upper body strength. If Sukuna were to get in— Fuck! “Hang tight. We’ll be there in five. Maybe less, depending on how many traffic laws we end up breaking. Promise not to rat us out to the police, ok?”
By some miracle, they arrived in just under three minutes.
Suguru popped the trunk and grabbed the tranquilizer gun, confirming that everything was loaded properly before rushing after Satoru, who had already made it to the door. While he was unarmed and technically in violation of policy for engaging with the situation, there was no power on this earth that was going to stop him from reaching the merman under his care. Suguru knew this and made no attempt to argue. Ijichi knew this too and reactivated both of their identification cards to bypass the security lockdown.
The halls are empty. Flashing lights dictated the building had gone into lockdown, but the sound of an alarm was absent. Instead, all the two could hear were the sound of their own footsteps barreling down the hall and the subsequent set of stairs. Satoru’s heart pounded in his ear, his breathing heavy with anxiety as he flipped through the possibilities of what they were about to uncover.
Upon skirting around the next corner, Satoru first saw what remained of the security doors. Viciously pried apart, claw marks littered what remained of the doors and walls. Sukuna had been through here, and the sound of splashing water after a large plunge kicked the two into overdrive— The bastard had dove into Yuji’s tank! Shit!
Yuji hasn’t been eating. His size may allow him greater speed and some maneuverability around his enclosure, but he’s not well. The sheer size and reach of the larger merman’s tentacles. The power on display— Satoru prayed they weren’t too late.
Resisting the urge to avert his eyes in fear of the sea of red he might witness upon rushing in, Satoru took a deep breath and charged. The goal was to have Suguru rush up the stairs beside them to the observation deck to incapacitate Sukuna from above, but by the time the pair had crossed through the doors, their footsteps stumbled to a halt as the scene on the other side of the glass.
A dark, crimson shadow hung over most of the visible area, spawning from the sheer presence of the beast that had taken over Yuji’s domain. However, where Satoru had expected to find blood swirling in the water from the smaller merman’s struggle with the piercing cries to follow when the tip of Yuji’s limp tail caught his eye from the mass of tentacles constricting around him… they witnessed something else entirely.
Yuji was not screaming in pain underneath the water’s surface. What was coming from the tank was a series of distressed chirps ringing out, full of an energy Satoru had yet to experience during their short time together. Calls that were usually equated to those who share close bonds with one another. Calls that had begun to fade into tempered whimpers as Sukuna stroked a hand down Yuji’s back and pulled the smaller merman close to his chest.
The tentacles wrapped around Yuji’s tail were not as tight as he had first believed. Merely holding Yuji in place, the smaller of the two was purposely limp, bending to the whims of the octopus who held him with all the care in the world. Lips with fangs tucked in tight and out of sight peppered kisses along Yuji’s forehead as the smaller one nuzzled his way into the crook of Sukuna’s neck.
“What the hell…?” Satoru blinked. Then rubbed his eyes and blinked again for good measure.
Suguru, with his finger off the trigger, lowered the tranquilizer gun to the floor. He was just as baffled as Satoru was at the behavior on display before casting a glance to his colleague.
“You don’t believe—”
“—That they are an item?”
The pair turned back to the tank, relieved only in the knowledge that their worst-case scenario had not played out as they initially feared.
“I think,” Suguru cleared his throat. “We may have mistaken courting for hunting behavior.”
As if Sukuna could hear their exchange with ease, the monster of an octopus glared at the researchers over Yuji’s shoulder. A tentacle rose out from underneath him, curling into a makeshift fist before slamming into the glass which kept both parties separate, and a small crack formed as a result.
The merman refrained from attacking the tank further, choosing to prioritize his apparent mate instead by stroking the fluff of hair on Yuji’s head and softly chirping in his ear. Extra care was then taken to keep Yuji out of their sight, his own body acting to shield from their gaping expressions.
When Sukuna finally bared his fangs, the snarl that came with them was not directed to the pair, but to one person in particular.
Satoru turned to his colleague and patted a sympathetic hand on his back.
“You think?”