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Gojo presses the heel of his hand against his eye socket as he shuts his laptop. One last grating notification dings before the sensor picks up that he’s done, and it makes him want to throw the thing.
He grits his teeth as his temple throbs. It’s hard to tell if it’s a result of asthenopia, dehydration, hypoglycemia, or the endless demands of every surviving bureaucrat that he must bear the responsibility of rebuilding a whole underground society that’s been brought to the international limelight. It’s quite the task, considering he’s not even old enough to seek election in the House of Councillors.
He properly lowers his sunglasses from the precipice of his forehead to his nose, then flops back on the couch to stare up at the ceiling. The edges of his vision have a mild blurriness to them. It’s not a huge deal, just vaguely inconvenient, especially when coupled with the transient tinnitus that crescendos with changes in elevation.
A bottle of Gatorade and some granola bars would surely do him wonders right now, but the kid’s barely scraping by, so Gojo’s resigned himself to the same nutritional habits, more or less. It feels wrong to eat as Megumi wastes away on the couch, and their shared mealtimes have become something of a struggle.
He probably should’ve been gentler with him earlier. All those demands and scornful glares, just for a spoonful of rice and a few sips of chicken broth, before Megs decided to spit right back into the bowl and Gojo gave up. He needs a new tactic because playing the bad guy is getting nothing done, and it’s making him feel like shit.
It’s not that he wants to guilt the kid, or threaten him into selfcare. He’s just losing enough weight that he’s starting to look like…
Gojo holds his breath. Megumi’s been in the bathroom for a while. The shower’s not running, so he assumes he’s just in need of a little alone time, or maybe nauseous. He did say that Gojo’s constant pestering made him sick.
He should probably check on him soon. Megumi will snap at him, but leaving him to dry heave alone, small and shivering, doesn’t sit right.
He’s not sure the last time either of them had a full night’s sleep. It had to have been before Shibuya; not counting blood-loss induced comas.
When Megumi actually goes to bed, he wakes up within an hour or two, gasping and pleading in terror. He’s never out long enough that Gojo trusts him to stay that way and catch some shuteye himself, so he’s always awake already, rubbing his back and murmuring unhelpful reassurances, until he settles down enough to snap at him, or throws up from the unimaginable villainy that lives on in his dreams.
Gojo naps in short bursts when the kid does, only during the day. The alarm on his phone does a fine job of waking them both up, but in the event that Megumi does before him, hopefully, he won’t be as scared.
RCT does an okay job of keeping him functional enough. It’s not perfect. First of all, because perpetuity is theoretical, so its efficacy is determined by the resources it has to go off of, and he’s been hardcore shirking that stipulation. Secondly, it only repairs physical damage…
There’s a soft clang across the living room. It’s the sound of metal striking ceramic, if he had to guess. Although it’s muffled behind a wall-
“Megumi?” Gojo shouts, springing to his feet. “You okay?”
He’s at the bathroom door in a matter of seconds, trying to turn the knob. He’s met with bolted ineptitude, so he goes for a knock, but he ends up violently rattling it on its hinges.
“Open up,” he demands. “Megumi.”
He throws his sunglasses to the ground, then rips the lock mechanism off the door with blue as soon as his eyes give him a glimpse of what's behind it.
Megumi’s passed out on the floor in a crimson puddle spreading from his wrists. The chef’s knife Gojo recognizes as one he bought from some allegedly famous katana-kaji that jumped businesses as swords became antiquated. It just looked kind of cool, and he didn’t mind being upsold at the time. He didn’t think–
Now that he visualizes the kitchen, it’s clearly missing from the shiny wooden storage block, but nothing stood out besides Megumi’s sunken cheeks when he tried to feed him this morning…
“Megumi,” he barks, crouching beside him. He presses two fingers to his neck, feeling the racing, thready pulse beneath them. “Megumi, can you hear me? Megumi-”
The kid’s chest rises and falls shallowly. He minutely curls in on himself, twitching.
“Megumi,” Gojo repeats, cautiously shaking him. He cringes when it thins the blood on the tile, beginning to smear a thick streak. “Megumi.”
“Mm…” He whimpers.
“Look at me,” he instructs, taking him by the shoulders and rolling him onto his back. “Open your eyes.”
By some miracle, he complies, eyelids fluttering.
“Megumi-”
He blinks. His gaze unfixedly shifts a bit before landing on Gojo, who’s surely scaring him as he stares.
Megumi’s head then falls limply to the side like he lacks muscle tone, like he lacks any will to hold himself up at all. Red rivulets continue to emerge from the wounds and run down his forearms as he tries to close his eyes again.
Gojo quickly hooks his hands under his armpits and pulls him over to the bathtub as carefully as he can, sitting him against its outer wall. Megumi remains limp like a ragdoll.
He shakily pulls on the towels hanging on the rack, without letting go of the kid, and picks up the first one that falls. He hesitates for a hardly perceptible length of time, trying to recall the mandatory crisis training Yaga implemented after he became principal. Vertical cuts are more dangerous, no?
That’s what his instincts tell him, so he puts pressure on that one first, specifically with his left hand, for fear that his right may not have healed to full strength, but he also wraps another towel around Megumi’s other wrist as fast as he can.
He stiffly clutches the kid’s arms as toward him as possible without dislocating his elbows as his weight sinks back against the tub, fighting with stillness.
“Get… off me…” Megumi begs, his voice wet and hoarse like it would be when he cried as a kid.
“No,” Gojo breathes, tightening his grip. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
He hangs his head as Megumi’s glossy, red-rimmed irises float toward him.
“Stay awake,” he whispers as Megumi helplessly tries to tug away. “Don’t fight me.”
He lets out a pitiful wheeze in response, squirming like he’s six years old and refusing to go to school again. It almost makes Satoru want to smile: how juvenile he looks.
But he’s bleeding beyond what his starving youth can take.
“I am going to hold these right here until the bleeding stops. Do you understand?” Gojo asks seriously.
“Fuck… off…” Megumi rasps. His language has always been beyond his years.
“No,” Gojo forces himself to say. “Suck it up, kid.”
“I hate you-” he snaps thinly, cut off by the threat of a sob, presumably.
“I know.” Gojo exhales heavily, tucking his chin further toward his chest apologetically.
Megumi stares up at the ceiling like his soul could just float away. Gojo focuses on the bloody towels. He counts to sixty fifteen times, and only then, can he finally bring himself to peek underneath them.
The cuts are still oozing slowly, but they’ve clotted to a manageable level. He should be okay to sit for a minute, as long as Megumi keeps some amount of pressure on the cuts…
Gojo tosses the towels to the side and grabs another from the pile beside him. He flips one of his wrists on top of the other, sandwiching the cloth between them. He squeezes; a hopeless effort to get the kid not to let himself pass out again.
“Stay like that.” He lets go. His hand hovers over Megumi’s for a moment too long, considering taking it and leading him alongside him like he were that same little kid he brought home a decade ago, but he drops his palms to his thighs and pushes himself to his feet.
“I’ll be right back,” he tells him, internally wincing as he picks up the knife. He flings it across the room as soon as he crosses the threshold. The blade strikes the back of a mostly decorative manga on the bookshelf, embedding itself in the pages and dragging it to the ground.
“Sorry,” he wheezes under his breath. He holds out his palm and uses a very fine-tipped blast of blue to compress the homunculus of deadly disappointment into a tiny, compact sphere. He throws it out in the kitchen trash as he grabs the first aid kit from under the sink.
“Did you clean the blade?” He softly asks Megumi as he returns to crouch in front of him, opening the plastic box with a heavy click.
Megumi looks up at him, then away, blinking back obvious wetness. “No.”
So Gojo takes a tube of neosporin out as well. He’d never seen much use for it until Megumi figured out his dirty little fingernails made great biological weapons. RCT doesn’t treat infections, only seals them in so you have to beg Shoko for oral antibiotics at three in the morning when the scratches all over your face and chest won’t stop itching.
He doesn’t think as he examines the kid’s arms. He lets his eyes do the work, studying the depth, path, and severity of each wound, until practice and instinct determines the proper course of action.
He’s not aware of what he’s doing until he’s patched him up.
And that’s that. They can deal with the rest later. No one’s dying yet.
“You might need stitches, but that’ll be fine for now,” Gojo says, throwing away all the sterile medical packaging and shutting the first aid kit again.
When he stands again, he realizes his sweatpants are soaked through with blood. It’s coagulating around the knees, irritating the skin beneath and assaulting his sinuses with the smell of iron. The metal band around his skull tightens dangerously.
He opens the cabinet over the sink, intending to grab himself Advil or something, but he’s quickly distracted by making sure all the bottles inside haven’t been emptied. He doubts it, since Megumi’s too full of regret to bear the long, aching wait that death by overdose brings, but better safe than sorry.
Gojo lets out an exhale once he’s shaken them all and gotten a hearty rattle from each. He rinses his, noticing the red fingerprints he’s leaving all over the place.
“I’m assuming you don’t wanna drive all the way out to the school,” he guesses. “I’ll call Ieiri and see if she can stop by-”
“No-” Megumi sniffles.
“No?” Gojo turns off the faucet. “Should I take you to some random urgent care?”
“No.” He holds his breath, but he clearly can’t stifle the pained, high-pitched noise that escapes him.
Something unpleasant wraps itself around Gojo’s heart, gripping tightly, threatening to rip it right out of his ribcage. His lungs contract, pushing all the air out through his nose until he has nothing left.
“What am I supposed to do, kid?” He forces himself to say, grabbing a fistful of his hair as he leans against the counter, staring up at the ceiling lights that burn his pupils. “Walk away and let you slit your throat?”
For a split second and only a split second, that same sensation he had as he bled out before Sukuna’s face and Megumi’s eyes returns, and he almost vomits right then and there. He chokes it back, swallowing bitter venom that won’t stop pooling beneath his tongue.
“Gojo-”
“I’m not blind,” he states, crossing his arms, if only to protect Megumi from the crushing pressure beneath them.
“Just…” He sobs suddenly, but they both knew it was coming. “Go away…”
That’s all the kid’s wanted since he brazenly waltzed into his life unannounced, so he turns around and walks straight out the door.
But like always, he’ll keep pushing and pushing until he’s catching an uppercut to the throat, so he strips as he pads across the living room to his bedroom, then dresses on the way back, carrying an extra set of clothing as well.
“You didn’t say I couldn’t come back.” It feels wrong to flash a quick smile at the boy, but he does anyway, barely.
His gaze flicks down to the pool of blood on the tile that Megumi’s staring at, but he forces himself not to acknowledge it as he scoops him up.
He drops his chin on his scalp for a moment as he carries him, taking in as much of his scrawny warmth and racing heartbeat as he can, before he has to set him down on the hardwood and get to work.
“Arms up,” Gojo instructs.
He remembers going through this same process the first time Megs got sick after he took him under his care. His sister called and said he was acting weird, so he finished up his mission, then meandered down to the temporary flat he’d purchased for them. If he hadn’t taken his sweet time, he probably wouldn’t have been met with such a miserable little head of spikes that promptly threw up all over him and himself as soon as he knelt down to ask what was wrong.
It was a waking nightmare at the time; trying not to flip out as he unsurely escorted him to the bathroom, while calming down his excessively panicked sister. Bathing and clothing a very upset, very ill, very vomit-covered child you’ve hardly gotten to know while suffocating on gastric acid fumes is a deeply uncomfortable experience that he wouldn’t wish upon his worst enemy, but they survived.
As much as he hopes to never repeat such an ordeal, he would rather go through it a million times than see Megumi passed out in a pool of his own blood.
“Alright for now?” Gojo asks with an inquiring thumbs up as he pulls away.
Megumi nods.
Thank god.
“Great.” He ruffles his hair as he stands. “Give me a sec.”
He rushes through cleaning, zoning out and coming to with the bathroom in a half-finished state. It’s not that he’s satisfied with how it looks, especially when the kid will still have to look at it, just that he can’t bring himself to keep going when his legs are getting wobbly and his head is about to roll off his shoulders.
He grabs Tylenol from the cabinet, dispensing two into his palm, then tucking the bottle in his pocket alongside his sunglasses. He holds the tablets out for Megumi, who takes them uneasily, squinting like he doesn’t trust him.
“You look like your head hurts,” Gojo decides to observe. “Hold onto those for a minute, and I’ll get you something to drink.”
“I can walk…” Megumi grunts as he picks him up. He tries to shift out of his grasp, but Gojo holds him close to his chest, lightly rubbing the space between his shoulders with the side of his thumb. His spine has gotten so prominent…
“Not when I don’t want you to.” He smiles down at Megumi, who wears a downcast glare. “Do you really wanna take me on again?”
He sniffles, and Gojo instantly feels bad, so he pulls him closer, letting him drop his forehead on his collarbone for just a moment, before he reaches the couch and has to set him down, fighting the urge to curl up with him.
“I don’t really feel like letting you sleep right now,” Gojo says, dropping his hand on the kid’s head, then letting it trail down his face, cupping his cheek, until it settles on his shoulder, which he squeezes lightly.
“I’m craving good company,” he tells Megumi softly as he flinches away. Gojo shouldn’t be so clingy, but he can’t bring himself to let go, so he calmly replaces his grasp without saying anything.
Megumi swats him off though. He flips around with his back toward Gojo, facing the wrong direction on the sofa and burying his face in the cushions.
Satoru’s fingers hover over the small of his back, but he doesn’t touch him. Instead, he says: “you can have anything you want.”
Megumi hums dryly.
So he keeps pushing. “On me! Limited time offer, only for my special-”
“I don’t want anything-” Megumi snaps hoarsely.
“No, you gotta choose something,” Gojo insists. “And water doesn’t count since it’s included with the Tylenol, so pick something fun.”
Megumi sighs pointedly. He grinds his teeth before he speaks.
“I guess… something warm… ?” He tiredly concedes. “A warm drink… or something… I guess…”
“Tea?” Gojo suggests.
“Coffee…” Megumi mumbles.
“Hm,” he considers. “It’ll take a minute to get, since I think I only have some of the old instant kind around here.”
“No.” Megumi swallows a couple of times, then takes a shuddering inhale. “That’s fine.”
“Really?” Gojo bites the inside of his lower lip.
“... y-yeah…”
“If you say so,” he murmurs, starting toward the kitchen. The creaking of the floorboards hurts his ears, so he can’t stop himself from pseudo-playfully saying something else and making things worse. “I hold the power of a god, and you wanna settle for shitty instant coffee?”
“It’s not so godly anymore…” Megumi whispers.
Gojo’s heart skips a beat. He opens his mouth to reply, but his voice catches in his throat. For a good thirty seconds, he can only stare at him silently. The mug he’s just wrapped his fingers around the handle of droops in his grasp. He almost lets it strike the ground and shatter.
But he takes a breath and pulls himself together: “I’ll… get you something better once the sun’s up… okay?”