Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cotton sometimes grumbled about his nickname. Just sometimes! Sure, he was …childish and made up of an idiot (no matter what Syuuya says!!! He’s biased ok!!), but to be named after one of his- uh. admittedly embarrassing moments? 

Kind of a ‘Hm, maybe I should fix that,’ moment, you know.

Cotton blinked as Syuuya slid unceremoniously into the seat beside Cotton with their orders of coffee in hand. The taller man bumped his shoulder into Cotton’s, “What are you thinking so hard about, my dear?”

Syuuya was, at all times, amazing and cool and levelheaded. No, Cotton wasn’t biased, what are you talking about?

Cotton scrunched his face (it was not a pout, ok?), “I think my nickname’s kinda dumb. Like, you’ve got a proper name and everything- why did I name myself after that time I choked on practice dummy stuffing?” He reached for the small ceramic cup of mocha, rubbing a thumb into it’s warmth.

Syuuya paused, taking a sip of his (eugh, is that really-) black coffee, “I think it suits you just fine, Cotton.”

“In what way??”

Syuuya is silent. It’s not mean, Syuu could never be mean to him. It’s closer to something considering, like he’s trying to figure out how to phrase it in a way that Cotton will get. Not because Cotton is dumb, but more so because Syuuya clearly wants to convey the truth.

“You… You are soft.” Syuuya begins, “Softer than I could ever imagine being. In kindness, in the way you light up my room, in the way I can hold you and you let me.”

His cup tinks against it’s saucer as he places it down, to free up both hands. Both hands to cradle Cotton’s face, gently, soft in the same way Syuuya seems to think himself incapable of. Syuuya’s eyes seem to be searching for something in Cotton’s expression. He seems to find it, even though Cotton feels as though his face is showing something sorely out of depth.

With eyes roaming adoringly across Cotton’s face, Syuuya speaks, “You are soft, my dearest Cotton. And your namesake is perfect for you.” 

A gentle, calloused thumb rubs Cotton’s cheek, and Cotton can feel the flush on his face rising. Syuuya was always so supportive. (Love so unconditional, it barely felt real.)

“…Alright.”

Syuuya adored Cotton.

That was a fact. In every universe they existed together, whether it began that way or Syuuya (or Cotton!!!) broke through the barriers of the multiverse, Syuuya adored Cotton.

It was simply how the world was made to turn.

Syuuya could remember how they met, clear as day. Cotton’s fluffy, shorter spikes of hair in comparison to Syuuya’s longer, sleeker style; Cotton’s pinkish-red eyes widened–

“Syuu!” a familiar voice called. Cotton, of course. 

They’d both decided to go on a date where they were actually visible to the world’s inhabitants. As a result, Syuuya was treated to the rare sight of Cotton in modern dress; a soft pale peach sweater, dark jeans and white sneakers. Syuuya himself wore a black turtleneck, light trenchcoat, jeans and black sneakers. 

“Damn, Syuuya, how long did I make you wait?” His dearly beloved asked, after seeing Syuuya’s empty takeout coffee. 

“Not long. Never too long.” ‘Just an hour or two,’ Syuuya brushes off, pushing off the wall he was leaning on to stand closer to Cotton.

Cotton would, and will always be, his most beloved across the universes.

Cotton, with his proud smiles after accomplishing admirable tasks. Cotton, with his ever bright demeanor. Cotton, who threads his fingers through Syuuya’s and squeezes to show love. Cotton, who holds him when the dark thoughts creep up. Cotton, who snuggles into his side for comfort. Cotton, who reminisces with him about their worlds and lives before they’d met by dragging him through tears in the worlds’ fabric to reunite with Yuuji and the others.

Syuuya had fallen quickly in love, and Cotton remained oblivious before Syuuya had made his affections rather overt. 

“Syuu?”

Syuuya snapped to attention, realising Cotton had walked a little ahead, “Apologies, dearest. I was thinking about us.”

“Wha- Syuuya!”

Syuuya adored Cotton.

“...and you’re handling Kenjaku well?” 

The voice across the phone grumbled in response to Syuuya’s question, “Urgh you know he’s a bitch—“ “Language,” “—Why can’t I just kill him and be done with it??” 

Syuuya huffed in amusement. He never could break Terasu’s profanity habit; only receiving multiple judicious applications of a four-eyed kicked puppy face (that Syuuya admittedly fell for, often) and some vague arguments about respecting Terasu’s culture. Cotton, behind him, tugged on Syuuya’s hair at the movement.

“You can kill him, of course, but do you want to deal with the consequences of doing that?”

“Why are you always freakin’ right? Eurgh, well, love ya, gotta go, bye!”

“Love you too, goodbye.” Syuuya smiled, glad that they’d managed to find a Curse capable of interdimensional communication. He liked calling Terasu.

“Was that Chompy?” Cotton asked, not looking up from braiding Syuuya’s lengthened hair. His fingers combed through the pink spikes.

“Cotton, you know Terasu doesn’t like that nickname unless he’s actively biting someone.”

They’d (cough Syuuya) picked up Terasu during an Incident and revisited Terasu’s world often to check up on him. Somehow (cough Syuuya’s unavoidable adoption tendencies), they’d ended up becoming pseudo-parents for the Sukuna Alternate.

Terasu barely even tried to fight the sudden kidnapping adoption.

Cotton and Terasu made a gremlin of a pair, and Syuuya was glad they got along.

“Hm. Well, maybe he shouldn't chomp people all the time if he didnt wanna be called Chompy,” Cotton said, as he tilted Syuuya’s head back to look up at him, brushing some shorter hairs that weren’t long enough to be a part of the braid out of his face.

Syuuya laughed. Cotton certainly wasn’t wrong, Terasu did have an awful penchant for biting. 

(“Well if people stopped putting their fucking limbs near my goddamned mouth, maybe i’d be less fucking inclined to bite their–!” said one irate Terasu at some point, despite that, more often than not, he lunged towards the mentioned limbs)

Cotton grabbed his phone, snapping a picture of his work on Syuuya's hair. “Here, look! Didn’t I do good?” he grinned.

“Amazing as ever, my dearest.” He’d have to ask Cotton to send that to Terasu, sometime. Maybe they could do a hair day, and let Cotton do both of theirs’ hair.

Kissing Syuuya was like bathing in the rays of the sun. He’d press gentle, warm lips upon Cotton’s forehead, the corners of his eyes, the tip of his nose. Soft. Gentle. He’d kiss Cotton’s cheeks, the corner of his jaw and, finally, Cotton’s lips.

They’d be so, so warm, and it brought a sense of peace unlike anything else.

Cotton liked being kissed by Syuuya.

When he pressed back— let his lips gently move against his lover’s— Syuuya would smile into it.

It was so easy to tell that Syuuya, too, loved kissing Cotton.

Sometimes, Cotton would be too giddy, too high on some accomplishment, that each kiss tickles as Syuuya does them. He’d laugh, and Syuuya’d smile exasperated, but continue to kiss over and over and over again; hands pressing against Cotton’s nape to keep him still.

Syuuya-kisses were, admittedly, one of Cotton’s favourite things.

Cotton had a tiny niggling feeling that Syuuya knew that.

It’s a good thing that Cotton knows that Syuuya loves being kissed by him, too.

Cotton, reaching up to wrap arms around Syuuya’s neck; on his toes to kiss Syuuya on the cheek. Pulling him down by the folds of his kimono (and Syuuya lets him, because he would do anything Cotton asks of him) and kissing him on the forehead. Cradling Syuuya’s head to kiss him on the nose, quickly, and press a firmer kiss to his lips.

Syuuya loved it.

They kissed often. Both chaste and… scandalously, but oftentimes they’d kiss whenever they felt like it. 

Cotton would pass by Syuuya sitting on a couch, and press a kiss to the side of his face. Syuuya would shove his face into Cotton’s stomach during a lap pillow and press his lips to the skin there.

(Cotton does the same, too, but usually just blows a raspberry instead)

(Sometimes, love is having your lover blow (useless) raspberries into your stomach)

The gentle days, the ones of basking in each others’ presence… Perhaps they all might blend into one memory; of a long, blissful time with each other. Perhaps, it might not be the happiest memory they have (because surely, they will be happier).

Perhaps, it might be the most content.

Waking up, the room lit by slits of daylight from between poorly drawn curtains. Cotton, smaller, face pressed into Syuuya’s chest and with drying drool on his face, dazed. Syuuya waking up, groggy without his morning coffee, but ever so warm from the weight of Cotton on him.

Together.

Syuuya never gets up first. He stays still, unwilling to even risk waking up Cotton, no matter the fact that he knows Cotton sleeps like a log. He waits, enraptured by the stillness of the morning, the gentle puffs of breath against his chest and collarbones.

He threads careful fingers through Cotton’s hair, resting his hand on his head.

Cotton rarely wakes up first. When he does, he’s extra extra careful, because he knows Syuuya only sleeps easily with Cotton by his side. And also, the way Syuuya sculls black coffee down like an Aussie in a bar can not be healthy.

He usually stays still, eyes open, eyelashes gently brushing across Syuuya’s skin as he blinks, luxuriating in the laziness that accompanies the sunrise.

Day after day, their day begins like this. Together.

It is the gentle days, the ones that are lazy, content and have no thinking required, that reminds them that being together can be and is something eternal. They will wake up by each other’s side.

Forever and always.

Chapter Text

+1

They’d met in Cotton’s world.

Syuuya, having been hopping worlds, had stumbled upon Cotton manifested into reality beyond Yuuji’s body.

It wasn’t quite love at first sight. Just… a curiosity for a divergent, if not completely different, Sukuna. One with fluffier hair, a bow on his obi and a general aura of joy and goofiness, at least before he saw Syuuya.

Syuuya had likened him to a dandelion. A resilient little thing, with a determination you wouldn’t have expected to see in it. And fluffy.

Cotton hadn’t reacted well to Syuuya’s presence; though, retroactively it was an obvious fault on Syuuya’s part.

(Cotton would later describe what Syuuya looked like at their first meeting to Terasu, who’d, at that point, sat through Syuuya’s retelling 60+ times.

His biggest comment was, “Ahem, ‘Dad’ maybe you should think?” in the same tone one would use against a misbehaving dog. Syuuya, in response would acquiesce, also hearing Cotton’s admittedly astoundingly horror story-esque retelling of their first meeting.)

Syuuya had watched as the smaller man froze in front of him, eyes widened and mouth agape. Something akin to horror, before the facial expression was schooled into something mildly more presentable.

“H- Hello…?” His greeting trailed off unsurely, nervous, perhaps, in front of Syuuya’s stillness. Syuuya felt like he’d spook the man in front of him into the wilderness if he breathed too hard towards the embodiment of fluff.

Syuuya tilted his head; slow, careful acknowledgment to Cotton.

The air shifted, Syuuya’s body shifting with it, and he opened his mouth-

“Hello.”

And that was it.

An inevitability of love.

For Cotton, if he were honest, he’d fallen in love when Suuuya had— after weeks of lofty noble otherworldly confidence— felt human.

It wasn’t a dismissal of Syuuya’s past, nor was it that Cotton disliked any part of Syuuya he might’ve deemed ‘inhuman’ (or, as ruder people might say, ‘monstrous’). It shone a light on shadowed areas, really.

When he let Cotton comprehend what weaker men would call incomprehensible.

What foolish men would call weakness.

What Cotton would call kindness.

(Syuuya brushed a hand across the slowly wilting dandelions crowning Cotton’s hair.

His face gentle, eyes softened like coffee with creamer, the back of his fingers tickled by browning petals. Cotton could hear the blood rushing in his ears— Syuuya smiled, then.

“Dandelions suit you, kindest Cotton.”

It was only later, when Cotton saw his reflection in the glass of a window that he’d notice that the flower crown wasn’t wilted- that Syuuya had breathed energy into the stems and petals and preserved it.

For no other reason than it suits Cotton, apparently.)

Of course, that wasn’t when he’d noticed he’d fallen in love.

(So what if he fell in love when he saw Syuuya absolutely crush a curse in front of him after dragging Cotton back into his chest with an arm around the waist because Curse barrelled past them—)

(One might say that Syuuya’s humanity made Cotton fall in love, but his inhumanity is what kept it)

Either way, being by Syuuya’s side was, is and will always bring joy to Cotton. Side by side, together.

Even if his kisses are bitter from coffee or he wakes them up at unholy times.