Unholy!

Echos

If madness is contagious, then we're all infected.
We only call it sanity when enough of us share the same symptoms.
And the truly mad even worship the infection and call it faith.

---

Megumi doesn't even know how he managed to get the man out of there. Sukuna outweighs him by at least fifty pounds, maybe more, and yet somehow Megumi gets him moving, step by dragging step. As if the sheer force of willpower overrides physics for once. Maybe it's true what people say. Maybe desperation really can move mountains.

It only gets a little more difficult when said mountain won't stop muttering sarcastic commentary into your ear...

They make it outside through a rear exit. For some reason, Sukuna had insisted on taking this route, and when they push through the last door, Megumi realizes they're not outside after all. They stumble into some sort of private underground garage. A ridiculously large garage.

The boy takes a brief, fleeting look around. The cars lined up between the pillars look expensive, one more than the next, more cars than any single person would ever need in one lifetime, and Megumi doesn't have to be a clairvoyant to know every last one of them belongs to Sukuna. They practically scream power and dominance, and their black viper stripes mirror Sukuna's tattoos almost perfectly.

Of course he has a garage like this. Of course he does.

Sukuna is slung over his shoulder, heavy and uncooperative in a way that makes Megumi's knees threaten mutiny, and if Megumi didn't know better, he'd swear the man is making this harder on purpose. Surely he could at least support a little of his own weight... The faint, wicked curve of his mouth, that Megumi catches from the corner of his eye, doesn't exactly argue in his favor.

„You make a damn good nurse, you know that?" Sukuna says, his voice roughened by pain and still somehow managing to sound amused.

Megumi tightens his grip on him and tries very hard not to drop him. Instead of answering, he steers them toward the red Audi RS7, which is gleaming beneath its own solitary spotlight, because apparently even Sukuna's car gets a dramatic entrance.

Megumi has no real plan for what comes next. That's becoming a theme tonight. A terrible, repetitive, deeply annoying theme.

He manages to prop Sukuna against the passenger side of the car, one hand pressed against the man's side before he can slide down too far. Sukuna has gone a shade paler by now, but his eyes are still sharp as they follow Megumi through this clumsy little rescue attempt, as if Megumi has any idea what he's doing.

„Should I..." the boy swallows, breathless, glancing toward the empty garage as if help might politely materialize from between the cars. „Should I call Uraume?"

The question tastes bad the second it leaves his mouth. He's already dreading what Uraume's reaction might be once she finds out that Megumi is the reason Sukuna is bleeding again, but he has no idea what else he's supposed to do.

Sukuna's answer comes quickly.

„No. You're driving."

At the same time, he tosses the keys, and Megumi barely catches them, fumbling so hard they almost slip through his fingers.

„M- me!?"

Sukuna gives him a withering side-eye. „No. The big, hairy guy behind you."

Megumi stares at him, confused enough that he almost turns around before the joke reaches him, and then Sukuna's mouth twitches.

„Of course you, princess!"

He yanks the passenger door open, and lets himself sink into the seat with more difficulty than he probably wants to admit. His jaw tightens for one brief moment, the tendons in his neck standing out, and Megumi catches the hitch in his breathing before the man smooths it into something meaner and less honest.