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Gojo can see it all, no, he’s there again. Standing right over his one and only, his best friend, as he’s covered in blood and taking his last breaths. He can smell it, feel it, everything except move. He’s paralyzed and as much as he wants to reach out to hold Geto’s face in his hand as the life slips out of him, he can only stand and watch. He wants to say something—wants to do anything but no matter how hard he tries he just can’t.
A loud gasp escapes him as he sits straight up in bed, covered in sweat even though he’s thrown the covers away from him. It’s still dark out, and when he picks up his phone to check the time it’s only 2:56 a.m.
He sighs, wiping some of the sweat from his forehead as he takes in his surroundings. He’s in his bed, in his room, with the same pile of laundry in the corner that he’s been meaning to put away for days now. Everything is as it should be, but he still feels as if part of his soul was still in the dream. Or rather that it was still in that alley with Geto. Right before he killed him.
His thoughts are disrupted by a faint knock at his door. Shit, he thinks, he must’ve woken up the kids with his nightmare.
“Come in,” he mumbles, his throat still feeling a bit choked.
Megumi opens the door timidly, peeking his head through. His hair is more of a mess than usual and Gojo can see the sleepiness in his eyes.
“What’s going on, Megumi? You’re supposed to be asleep,” he says softly.
He’s partly expecting some snarky comment about how he’d been trying to sleep before being woken up by Gojo, but Megumi just takes a few steps closer to the bed, so that he’s standing next to Gojo.
“Couldn’t sleep,” the boy mumbles softly, rubbing his eyes.
Gojo looks at him for a moment, guilt shooting coldly up his spine. He knows he woke Megumi up, and he’ll feel even worse now if he can’t go back to bed.
“I’m sorry, Megs. C’mon, I’ll tuck you back in,” Gojo replies, pushing the blankets the rest of the way off his legs to stand up to take the boy back to his room.
Megumi grabs Gojo’s fingers to stop him, and Gojo looks back to see his wide, tired eyes looking up at him.
“What’s wrong, buddy?”
Megumi bites his lip for a moment before speaking softly, “I had a nightmare.”
Gojo’s eyes and heart soften at the boy’s admission. Megumi had always been more closed off, determined to figure everything out for himself, but it was times like this when Gojo was reminded that he was still a little boy.
Gojo sits on the end of his bed so that he’s closer to eye level with Megumi.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Megumi shakes his head slowly, and Gojo tries to think of what to do next. He never knew how hard it would be to take in the two kids, but especially now he felt helpless. He couldn’t even comfort himself after his own nightmares, but now he had to figure out what to do to help Megumi.
“You know, I have nightmares too sometimes,” Gojo says. He knows it doesn’t really help Megumi’s case, but it’s the only thing he can think to say.
Megumi just looks up at him, his eyebrows furrowed slightly.
“They really suck sometimes, especially when they feel real,” Gojo continues. “But, the good part is that they’re not real.” Anymore. “We wake up, and they’re gone.” Even though they haunt your every waking moment. “You’re very brave, Megumi. It’s hard to have nightmares and see things you don’t want to see or even think about, but they’re over now. Not forever, but they’re gone now.”
“Besides, there’ll be good dreams, too.” He thinks about the dreams of his childhood, before Toji happened and before Suguru left. “And even though those are just dreams, too, they’re nice. They can make you happy. But then we have to go back to real life, which can be just as scary as nightmares sometimes, huh? But they can also be just as good as those nice dreams, right? It’ll all pass, eventually.”
Megumi nods his head in understanding, processing what Gojo was telling him.
“Do you want me to go get you some water? Help you calm down some?” Gojo offers.
“Yeah,” he replies quietly. “But… Can I come with you?”
Gojo smiles at the boy before standing up again, “Sure. Let’s go.”
Megumi follows Gojo intot he kitchen like a shadow, silent but present. Gojo hands him the glass of water and watches sleepily as Megumi takes a few sips.
“Think you’re ready to go back to bed, now?” Gojo asks softly.
Megumi holds the water in his hands, taking another sip before murmuring something that Gojo can’t quite hear.
“Hm?”
“Could I…” Megumi stalls for a second. “Could I sleep in your bed? With you?”
Gojo feels his heart melt in his chest. Maybe he wasn’t so bad at this parenting thing.
He smiles at Megumi and ruffles his hair, “Sure thing. Let’s go.”
They both wake up in the morning peacefully, the nightmares having stayed away for the rest of the night. Megumi, at some point in the night, had curled up nearly on top of Gojo’s chest, and Gojo’s hand had fallen onto the boy’s back, keeping him safe from any harm that could come his way. Megumi couldn’t have known that Gojo had had a nightmare that same night, but Gojo thinks that maybe Megumi comforted him just as much as he’d tried to for Megumi.