Work Text:
There was a precedent for a Ten Shadows user and a Six Eyes user to have killed each other. There was no precedent for someone in the Gojo clan to have taken care of someone in the Zenin clan.
Their bond was complex, forged from blood and casted by the words of a dying man to a god.
Guardian and ward. Teacher and student. Sorcerer and sorcerer. More. Things that cannot be gleaned from the dictionary of ordinary people.
Megumi, amongst other things, was his moral compass at times. A reminder that, despite the power Gojo held in his hands and his eyes, he was human too.
Megumi was somewhere there still. Two souls in a body. Gojo really shouldn’t get distracted while fighting Sukuna.
Sukuna huffed out some mocking words. Gojo grinned. Whatever they said, whatever anyone said, Megumi was his greatest blessing. Failure was never a possibility in this fight.
~
In hindsight, he had spoiled Megumi too much. It was easy to be fond of the boy’s prickly but considerate nature. Megumi’s nonchalance but his desire to protect. His lack of greed. Gojo should’ve discouraged it. But watching Megumi with his shikigami, he wanted to nurture that softness still. In a world of death, bloodlust, and regret, it was nice to see a young jujutsu sorcerer pet a dog and nap with a bunny curling next to him.
In hindsight still, he wondered if he should’ve taken him away from Tsumiki at the earliest. Maybe he should’ve been harsher, made Megumi harder so someone like Sukuna couldn’t have taken advantage.
He took a deep breath. Right now, there was a fight and a person he needed to save.
Gojo was tired. He was drained. He didn’t know what interfered with the fight, didn’t care really. It didn’t matter if it was a good or a bad thing. If he lost or he won. Megumi’s body was here and it needed healing. He couldn’t see Sukuna’s soul inside anymore.
It was enough, for now, to be able to bring Megumi home.
Home, was the Gojo clan’s residence. Shoko and Yuuta were working on Megumi and himself. Time didn’t pass by the same when he was sealed. But he had missed the people. The noise. The chatter.
He clung to Shoko’s words. Megumi would recover physically, but he might choose not to wake up.
Their world was a hard one to choose to come back to, after all.
~
A year passed and there was still hope.
Two years, the hope was dimmer now. Megumi was still breathing but he wasn’t waking up. Megumi was breathing, but only because of external support, not in his own capacity. Not yet, at least, not yet. In the darkest of nights, Gojo would think, I did this.
Gojo had withdrawn from Jujutsu High, refused nearly all projects, except when Shoko or one of his previous students requested for help. Because he would think, Megumi would be disappointed. What would Megumi do?
But he couldn’t keep that up for long. Because if he did, sooner or later he would go insane with worry. What if Sukuna comes back for Megumi’s body? What if Megumi wakes up and no one was there and he was hurting somewhere? Because over and over and over again it happens. What use was being the strongest when he couldn’t keep the people he loved alive?
~
Megumi opened his eyes almost three years after Sukuna took over his body. His limbs were not cooperating. His chest was heavy.
There was darkness and a steady breathing near him that he knew to be Gojo.
“Megumi?”
“Gojo-sen —“ His throat ached, so many questions stuck in the dryness of his mouth.
“Easy now.” Gojo said, helping Megumi sit up.
“Let me get you some water.”
Gojo was muted, Megumi thought, unnaturally somber. Was he injured that badly? He barely remembered anything.
“Megumi,” Gojo whispered, giving him a glass. Then, to Megumi’s surprise, pressing his lips against his temple.
Gojo was affectionate, touchy, but almost always in a joking way. When Megumi was a child, Gojo would sometimes cling to him quietly, treating him like a living teddy bear, whenever he remembered something difficult. Later on, he found out that the memories were related to Geto Suguru.
“I’m here, Gojo-sensei.”
“You are, you are.” He whispered, lips still pressed against Megumi’s temple, needing the touch to confirm Megumi’s existence.
Megumi knew that something went horribly wrong. Memories flashed through his mind unbidden. He pushed them back. Right now, he was alive. This moment was laced with Gojo’s heat seeping into Megumi’s body. He didn’t know what they are, didn’t know what it means, didn’t know the past, didn’t know what the future would be. It was strange, to be floating, to feel like something intangible even though his body felt so so heavy.
He pressed his eyelids close. There were too many questions, too much pain lingering and waiting to be unpacked so they could be given a chance to heal. He was awake. He leaned towards the body beside him, slotting his head on the groove of Gojo’s shoulder. They could all wait. He would steal this moment -this little fragment of the world to pretend he was an ordinary person.
They were born being unable to choose their futures. So he would steal, fragment by fragment, little moments of peace.