It would be easy to retreat, to pretend he doesn't see the message, or that he isn't around to answer it. It would protect him from the raw wound of his own feeling. But instead he pulls himself up from the bed and lumbers to his feet. The Geto who appears from the wrong door is not the same one Megumi will be slightly used to. Dark circles under his eyes, hair limp, frame heavy. This is an older shape, a grief renewed. Now his gaze swivels almost unseeing until it settles on the boy. )
Has something happened?
( Voice creaky with disuse, but telling that there's concern there. )
[ megumi's surprise at geto exiting from gojo's door is momentary, quickly shuttered away and behind a flat affect. but even that lasts briefly, as megumi's brow creases into bemused worry at the pallor wearing itself on geto's frame. ]
Yuji told you. [ it's possibly the most rude megumi's been towards an adult since he arrived. ] You sent me to find him. I'm—
I meant it when I offered my condolences. Your daughters were killed trying to find peace, however they understood it. That's— Children shouldn't be carrying the responsibility of adults.
[ the words are echoed, not just from gojo's mouth but from nanami's, kusakabe's, ieiri's. megumi still doesn't quite believe it, but he's starting to understand why they keep saying it. ]
And I know Gojo-sensei won't fight with you about it. Yuji would, but it's not his fault, right? So... So fight me instead.
If it still itches under your skin, that grief and that feeling of powerlessness and everything seeming like it's your fault for not doing what you should've done — I understand what that's like. I really do.
[ start by saving me, itadori. ]
So please fight me instead. Please let me help you carry some of that weight.
( It's too many things all at once. Geto blinks into the fluorescent light of the corridor, a pulsing behind his eyes, and tries his very best to listen to Megumi speak. About halfway through he might begin to wish he hadn't, but by then it's already a little too late. The earnestness is frantic, and everything he'd begun to suspect about the boy crystallises quickly. He knows what this is, he knows what Megumi has become.
Suicidal.
Is that just how it is for the people like them? Spend enough time narrowly avoiding death and you start craving it instead? Something twists inside of his chest, and he wants to focus on it, but everything else hurts too. Is there even a single sorcerer in this place who truly wants to live? He doesn't think so. )
Megumi-san. ( Strained, and maybe shaking a little. His hand tightens on the doorframe, knuckles blanched white. ) Ha. Oh, it really is awful to have the shoe on the other foot. ( Hasn't he just done this to Gojo? Albeit more honest about the outcome. An end by other hands so he didn't have to be the one to do it. There's only one thing keeping him from even trying to force the issue now, and that's the memory of his old friend's blank eyes. His thoughts spin, but he can't quite catch any of them. ) Didn't you just tell me that children shouldn't be carrying the responsibility of the adults? So what, exactly, are you trying to do here?
Trying to save the world and all the people in it is for adults. What I'm trying to do— I—
[ hands raised, palms up; megumi looks at his too-soft hands, too soft for what they've done, who they've killed. ]
Maybe if we did things differently in Shibuya, then Yuji wouldn't have been left alone. Maybe if I'd been strong enough, or fast enough——maybe it would've been different. But it happened the way it did. We lost that night. We lost so many people.
[ how do you carry the guilt that comes with knowing you alone were chosen to be saved by such an evil being? that your blessing is the favour of the king of curses? ]
It doesn't change the fact that it hurts. Knowing it's not your fault. Wishing it actually was, so that people would stop forgiving you for what you couldn't do.
[ let me handle it for you. you don't have to do anything more. let go. he could have said yes. some nights, he wonders if he should have. ]
Yuji's my reason to live. After everything that happened, I promised him that I would, and I have no intention of breaking that promise any time soon. But promises don't change the past. Your daughters are dead. Sensei is dead. Nanami-san and Choso-san and Yuki-san and even yourself — we fight, and then we die. That's the life we have.
So fight me, then keep fighting. I'm pretty sure Gojo-sensei would be lonely without you.
( It's a long list. He can hear the grief in it. Megumi reminds Geto of himself, and that clawing, terrible desperation that had existed in him at sixteen, seventeen, and all the years that happened since. He knows it as well as he knows himself. He does not like to see it in anyone else. What was the point in the suffering if it has hooks in someone else now too? )
It is my fault.
( A curious lilt to his voice, devoid of all charm. )
If we're assigning blame shouldn't we be clear about things? Shibuya was where Satoru was sealed, no? By the thing wearing my face. My daughters wanted me back. I didn't plan for the eventuality that they'd be left alone despite knowing full well how my campaign would end. I went looking to die. Even then, how many sorcerers fell to my curses at the Night Parade? Bodies that might have helped against Sukuna, people that had lives. I could have stayed Megumi-san. I could have took those girls somewhere safe, and come back to the school and been there. Instead I thought I knew better, that I was stronger, that I could fix things. If what happened needs someone accountable then surely it should be the one who pushed down the first block?
( His free hand lifts, rubbing at his temples. )
Even now, after everything, I haven't even changed. Your sensei would be better off without me.
By your reasoning, I killed my sister. If I have to believe that you're responsible for Sukuna killing thousands in Shibuya, then you have to accept that I—
[ oh, it sticks to the throat, doesn't it? it always will. it's a carousel and mirrorhouse in one, horrifically spinning, blinding. the blame is the last person and it started ten years ago, or a thousand — they've reached a point where it doesn't matter.
who cares where the needle was resting when it always points itself back north? ]
You have to accept that I killed Gojo Satoru. You have to look me in the eye and tell me it's my fault.
Geto-san, it doesn't end. Guilt doesn't end. So please just fight me and let it bleed out.
( His whole expression flickers. It's a curious thing. Blank to raw grief and back. His nostrils flare, his fingers twitch. He feels ill. The laugh that springs up is wildly unwell. )
With that face too.
( Are his eyes wet? He presses his fingertips into the socket, nails chipped. )
I'm not - what do you want from me? A fight I understand. But it would not end well, Megumi-san. I've been as well behaved as I can be, but I remain a violent man. Don't encourage the muzzle off if you're not sure where my teeth would set. ( He can't do anything here. Sukuna is gone, humanity is not the blot, and Gojo Satoru will not kill him.
...
Would he, if Geto hurt something he loved? Bile rises. )
What do you think might happen? I'm not him, but I'm strong. Do you think if I hurt you, you'll be absolved?
Does it absolve you, Geto-san, when you hurt yourself like this?
[ he points the question inward as much as he aims it between geto's eyes. grief begets misery; misery begets curses. on and on the carousel spins until all megumi can taste is the bile of his stomach and the blood of the dead.
fists up, wrists up, a look of boyish determination. stubbornness, more apt; in many ways, gojo satoru had been prophetic. ]
The muzzle has to come off eventually, right? You won't be putting teeth anywhere I haven't already been bitten. You can't hurt me any worse than Sukuna already has.
Exorcise your grief through me. Isn't that what we do?
( He's moving before he says anything, right up into Megumi's guard, his shoulders tense and his body briefly radiating nothing but rage. A hand lifts -.
Only to flick Megumi once, hard, on the forehead. )
No.
( God, but he's tired. )
Listen to me, Megumi, because I will not repeat myself. ( That same hand drops to his shoulder, a heavy weight, fingertips squeezing. ) I know what it's like to lose him.
( He is not talking about here, discovering Gojo's death on a badly frosted cake. He is not talking about leaving him behind on a busy street. He is talking about a man with this boy's face, his nonchalant voice, and a wound tearing open in Geto Suguru that never truly went away. )
I know how impossible it feels. Because I've felt it. I thought he was dead, and it was like someone telling me the sun had gone out, or that the ocean had dried up. I know how it is to have failed him because I did it first. I got him back, and yet I could not put that horrible grief down. It led me further, and further away in the end. And now my daughters are dead, because I could not perfect a vision in which to keep us safe, and so I wanted only for him to kill me. Do you see? I know what this is. I know what you want. I'm not going to do that to him.
( He could hurt Megumi. He could hurt himself. What good would any of it do. No matter how badly he wants it to end, he has to keep fucking going. )
You and I have to understand each other on this. I don't think he could go through it, otherwise.
[ of all the actions megumi was expecting, it was not — that. ]
Yuji would've— [ done the same. came as close to it at the very end, before that almost-farewell. it'll be so lonely without you. so lonely, and hadn't megumi been just as lonely? he hadn't realised the depth of it, the absence of warmth he'd lived with until yuji shouldered his way through the shadows.
sukuna hadn't known it then, back in eishu, but in ripping yuji's heart out, he made sure megumi was flayed wide open too. y-incisions matching soul to soul; yuji was dead at his feet and the sky openly wept.
that yuji came back and kept coming back — how could megumi ever regret choosing him? again, and again, and again. if yuji died and stayed dead, megumi knows he would follow.
it's both terribly difficult and endlessly easy to reach for geto's wrist, to hold on and leave his mark there. ]
Then don't do it to yourself, either. Just because you're not the same person as before doesn't mean you're not— That no one—
[ it was like someone telling me the sun had gone out, or that the ocean had dried up. ]
It's been a terrible week. Geto feels crumpled up inside, heart squeezed tight like an empty can. It feels impossible. He's been passively seeking his end for almost as long as he can remember. Even here, in LILITH's servitude, has he even really tried living? He gets up, he goes about his day, he does not think about anything at all. Now this?
His girls, dead. Gojo's bleakly blank face. The wealth of broken children between them.
He doesn't want to, not really. But he sighs either way. ) I'm here, aren't I? I'm trying. Either way it isn't your responsibility to fix this, Megumi-san. It isn't something that can be mended easily. But I won't hurt anyone, and that has to mean something.
[ it's a child's insistence, the way megumi rushes to deny geto-san; he bites his tongue and reels himself back in before he oversteps far beyond forgiveness. ]
I understand that it's not my responsibility, [ he amends, gaze turned to the floor now. ] And I understand that it takes time. Grief isn't something people get over easily, I get it, but if I could help ease some of it, I have to try.
I want to try. You matter, and not just because of the people we both know who care about you. Would it be so bad to let someone like me try to help, Geto-san?
Everybody's hurting. Being alone makes it worse, doesn't it?
It's all I've ever done, Megumi-san. ( It sounds dryly mocking, a little self-inflicted ridicule. Geto knows he has never been very good at managing his own pain. His death, and the subsequent growth here has thrown it starkly into relief. He'd been a child drowning when he'd decided on his own path. Someone should have stepped in. He hadn't let them. He retreats, he knows that. Licking his wounds and letting infection set in. ) And I really don't want to take out the way I feel on someone undeserving. You can thank Yuji-kun for that.
( He might see-saw on that later. For now he's clinging to it. )
Do you think it would help you? A fight? Do you believe it would exorcise some of your agony?
I don't know if it will help, and I don't know if it's more helpful for you or for me or any of this, I— I don't know anything. I just know that I should try, because that's all I know how to do even when—
[ he's making it all about himself. pity the young master, with his riches and his named power; what makes him an orphan worthy of great regard? there are orphans left with nothing, fathers without daughters, sons without mothers. what gives him the right to stand before geto suguru and insist on what he should do?
the man is right. who is this really for, in the end?
megumi bows again, and this time he keeps his head bowed, his back straight. if it wouldn't be insulting, he'd bring his head to the ground and kiss the floor. quieter, and pained; ]
I'll excuse myself, Geto-san. I've inconvenienced you enough.
( It feels like an unfair cosmic joke, that he should feel fatherly now, but he's not so far gone that he can see someone twisting themselves up in a noose of their own making and not do something. Geto keeps his sigh in check, it would be too devastating otherwise. )
You're fine. You haven't. You wanted to help. It's all right. ( His hands move to pull the boy up from where he's bent, keep him there. ) When you're raised as a weapon it's hard to remember that there is something human there too.
( Isn't that funny? Human, like he hadn't distinguished himself away from those monkeys. Ah, he hates himself a little. That's fine. That's not new. )
But I don't think I'm in a place to keep that at the forefront right now. And I don't really want to hurt you. So I'm saying no for my own reasons. Satoru would not forgive me. I wouldn't either. Let me be sensible for once, no?
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no subject
please come outside?
[ he's stood in the hallway, standing between the two doors and uncertain which one to knock upon. but he said he would try so here he is, trying. ]
no subject
It would be easy to retreat, to pretend he doesn't see the message, or that he isn't around to answer it. It would protect him from the raw wound of his own feeling. But instead he pulls himself up from the bed and lumbers to his feet. The Geto who appears from the wrong door is not the same one Megumi will be slightly used to. Dark circles under his eyes, hair limp, frame heavy. This is an older shape, a grief renewed. Now his gaze swivels almost unseeing until it settles on the boy. )
Has something happened?
( Voice creaky with disuse, but telling that there's concern there. )
no subject
Yuji told you. [ it's possibly the most rude megumi's been towards an adult since he arrived. ] You sent me to find him. I'm—
I meant it when I offered my condolences. Your daughters were killed trying to find peace, however they understood it. That's— Children shouldn't be carrying the responsibility of adults.
[ the words are echoed, not just from gojo's mouth but from nanami's, kusakabe's, ieiri's. megumi still doesn't quite believe it, but he's starting to understand why they keep saying it. ]
And I know Gojo-sensei won't fight with you about it. Yuji would, but it's not his fault, right? So... So fight me instead.
If it still itches under your skin, that grief and that feeling of powerlessness and everything seeming like it's your fault for not doing what you should've done — I understand what that's like. I really do.
[ start by saving me, itadori. ]
So please fight me instead. Please let me help you carry some of that weight.
tw: suicidal ideation
Suicidal.
Is that just how it is for the people like them? Spend enough time narrowly avoiding death and you start craving it instead? Something twists inside of his chest, and he wants to focus on it, but everything else hurts too. Is there even a single sorcerer in this place who truly wants to live? He doesn't think so. )
Megumi-san. ( Strained, and maybe shaking a little. His hand tightens on the doorframe, knuckles blanched white. ) Ha. Oh, it really is awful to have the shoe on the other foot. ( Hasn't he just done this to Gojo? Albeit more honest about the outcome. An end by other hands so he didn't have to be the one to do it. There's only one thing keeping him from even trying to force the issue now, and that's the memory of his old friend's blank eyes. His thoughts spin, but he can't quite catch any of them. ) Didn't you just tell me that children shouldn't be carrying the responsibility of the adults? So what, exactly, are you trying to do here?
continued tw;
[ hands raised, palms up; megumi looks at his too-soft hands, too soft for what they've done, who they've killed. ]
Maybe if we did things differently in Shibuya, then Yuji wouldn't have been left alone. Maybe if I'd been strong enough, or fast enough——maybe it would've been different. But it happened the way it did. We lost that night. We lost so many people.
[ how do you carry the guilt that comes with knowing you alone were chosen to be saved by such an evil being? that your blessing is the favour of the king of curses? ]
It doesn't change the fact that it hurts. Knowing it's not your fault. Wishing it actually was, so that people would stop forgiving you for what you couldn't do.
[ let me handle it for you. you don't have to do anything more. let go. he could have said yes. some nights, he wonders if he should have. ]
Yuji's my reason to live. After everything that happened, I promised him that I would, and I have no intention of breaking that promise any time soon. But promises don't change the past. Your daughters are dead. Sensei is dead. Nanami-san and Choso-san and Yuki-san and even yourself — we fight, and then we die. That's the life we have.
So fight me, then keep fighting. I'm pretty sure Gojo-sensei would be lonely without you.
no subject
It is my fault.
( A curious lilt to his voice, devoid of all charm. )
If we're assigning blame shouldn't we be clear about things? Shibuya was where Satoru was sealed, no? By the thing wearing my face. My daughters wanted me back. I didn't plan for the eventuality that they'd be left alone despite knowing full well how my campaign would end. I went looking to die. Even then, how many sorcerers fell to my curses at the Night Parade? Bodies that might have helped against Sukuna, people that had lives. I could have stayed Megumi-san. I could have took those girls somewhere safe, and come back to the school and been there. Instead I thought I knew better, that I was stronger, that I could fix things. If what happened needs someone accountable then surely it should be the one who pushed down the first block?
( His free hand lifts, rubbing at his temples. )
Even now, after everything, I haven't even changed. Your sensei would be better off without me.
no subject
[ oh, it sticks to the throat, doesn't it? it always will. it's a carousel and mirrorhouse in one, horrifically spinning, blinding. the blame is the last person and it started ten years ago, or a thousand — they've reached a point where it doesn't matter.
who cares where the needle was resting when it always points itself back north? ]
You have to accept that I killed Gojo Satoru. You have to look me in the eye and tell me it's my fault.
Geto-san, it doesn't end. Guilt doesn't end. So please just fight me and let it bleed out.
no subject
With that face too.
( Are his eyes wet? He presses his fingertips into the socket, nails chipped. )
I'm not - what do you want from me? A fight I understand. But it would not end well, Megumi-san. I've been as well behaved as I can be, but I remain a violent man. Don't encourage the muzzle off if you're not sure where my teeth would set. ( He can't do anything here. Sukuna is gone, humanity is not the blot, and Gojo Satoru will not kill him.
...
Would he, if Geto hurt something he loved? Bile rises. )
What do you think might happen? I'm not him, but I'm strong. Do you think if I hurt you, you'll be absolved?
no subject
[ he points the question inward as much as he aims it between geto's eyes. grief begets misery; misery begets curses. on and on the carousel spins until all megumi can taste is the bile of his stomach and the blood of the dead.
fists up, wrists up, a look of boyish determination. stubbornness, more apt; in many ways, gojo satoru had been prophetic. ]
The muzzle has to come off eventually, right? You won't be putting teeth anywhere I haven't already been bitten. You can't hurt me any worse than Sukuna already has.
Exorcise your grief through me. Isn't that what we do?
more tws
Only to flick Megumi once, hard, on the forehead. )
No.
( God, but he's tired. )
Listen to me, Megumi, because I will not repeat myself. ( That same hand drops to his shoulder, a heavy weight, fingertips squeezing. ) I know what it's like to lose him.
( He is not talking about here, discovering Gojo's death on a badly frosted cake. He is not talking about leaving him behind on a busy street. He is talking about a man with this boy's face, his nonchalant voice, and a wound tearing open in Geto Suguru that never truly went away. )
I know how impossible it feels. Because I've felt it. I thought he was dead, and it was like someone telling me the sun had gone out, or that the ocean had dried up. I know how it is to have failed him because I did it first. I got him back, and yet I could not put that horrible grief down. It led me further, and further away in the end. And now my daughters are dead, because I could not perfect a vision in which to keep us safe, and so I wanted only for him to kill me. Do you see? I know what this is. I know what you want. I'm not going to do that to him.
( He could hurt Megumi. He could hurt himself. What good would any of it do. No matter how badly he wants it to end, he has to keep fucking going. )
You and I have to understand each other on this. I don't think he could go through it, otherwise.
even more tws; suicidal ideation
Yuji would've— [ done the same. came as close to it at the very end, before that almost-farewell. it'll be so lonely without you. so lonely, and hadn't megumi been just as lonely? he hadn't realised the depth of it, the absence of warmth he'd lived with until yuji shouldered his way through the shadows.
sukuna hadn't known it then, back in eishu, but in ripping yuji's heart out, he made sure megumi was flayed wide open too. y-incisions matching soul to soul; yuji was dead at his feet and the sky openly wept.
that yuji came back and kept coming back — how could megumi ever regret choosing him? again, and again, and again. if yuji died and stayed dead, megumi knows he would follow.
it's both terribly difficult and endlessly easy to reach for geto's wrist, to hold on and leave his mark there. ]
Then don't do it to yourself, either. Just because you're not the same person as before doesn't mean you're not— That no one—
[ it was like someone telling me the sun had gone out, or that the ocean had dried up. ]
If I'm not allowed, then neither are you.
no subject
And
But you will have to kill me first.
It's been a terrible week. Geto feels crumpled up inside, heart squeezed tight like an empty can. It feels impossible. He's been passively seeking his end for almost as long as he can remember. Even here, in LILITH's servitude, has he even really tried living? He gets up, he goes about his day, he does not think about anything at all. Now this?
His girls, dead. Gojo's bleakly blank face. The wealth of broken children between them.
He doesn't want to, not really. But he sighs either way. ) I'm here, aren't I? I'm trying. Either way it isn't your responsibility to fix this, Megumi-san. It isn't something that can be mended easily. But I won't hurt anyone, and that has to mean something.
no subject
[ it's a child's insistence, the way megumi rushes to deny geto-san; he bites his tongue and reels himself back in before he oversteps far beyond forgiveness. ]
I understand that it's not my responsibility, [ he amends, gaze turned to the floor now. ] And I understand that it takes time. Grief isn't something people get over easily, I get it, but if I could help ease some of it, I have to try.
I want to try. You matter, and not just because of the people we both know who care about you. Would it be so bad to let someone like me try to help, Geto-san?
Everybody's hurting. Being alone makes it worse, doesn't it?
no subject
It's all I've ever done, Megumi-san. ( It sounds dryly mocking, a little self-inflicted ridicule. Geto knows he has never been very good at managing his own pain. His death, and the subsequent growth here has thrown it starkly into relief. He'd been a child drowning when he'd decided on his own path. Someone should have stepped in. He hadn't let them. He retreats, he knows that. Licking his wounds and letting infection set in. ) And I really don't want to take out the way I feel on someone undeserving. You can thank Yuji-kun for that.
( He might see-saw on that later. For now he's clinging to it. )
Do you think it would help you? A fight? Do you believe it would exorcise some of your agony?
no subject
[ he's making it all about himself. pity the young master, with his riches and his named power; what makes him an orphan worthy of great regard? there are orphans left with nothing, fathers without daughters, sons without mothers. what gives him the right to stand before geto suguru and insist on what he should do?
the man is right. who is this really for, in the end?
megumi bows again, and this time he keeps his head bowed, his back straight. if it wouldn't be insulting, he'd bring his head to the ground and kiss the floor. quieter, and pained; ]
I'll excuse myself, Geto-san. I've inconvenienced you enough.
no subject
( It feels like an unfair cosmic joke, that he should feel fatherly now, but he's not so far gone that he can see someone twisting themselves up in a noose of their own making and not do something. Geto keeps his sigh in check, it would be too devastating otherwise. )
You're fine. You haven't. You wanted to help. It's all right. ( His hands move to pull the boy up from where he's bent, keep him there. ) When you're raised as a weapon it's hard to remember that there is something human there too.
( Isn't that funny? Human, like he hadn't distinguished himself away from those monkeys. Ah, he hates himself a little. That's fine. That's not new. )
But I don't think I'm in a place to keep that at the forefront right now. And I don't really want to hurt you. So I'm saying no for my own reasons. Satoru would not forgive me. I wouldn't either. Let me be sensible for once, no?