Gojo's lounging out in the sunlight in the garden when Fel comes out, and he glances over at his lover with a grin, propping himself up on his elbows. "Hey."
There's a calm energy around him, far more than usual. He's lacking both his mischievous, almost manic energy and his sharp, calculating guardedness. Instead, he just seems ... content.
"C'mere. Talk to me."
Gojo nods him over. He's got a picnic blanket laid out, and it's large enough for there to be space for Fel to sit near him.
Sitting up a little more, he reaches out for Fel as his lover comes close, draping his arms around Fel's shoulders and leaning in to kiss his cheek, then pulling back just enough to meet his eyes with a smile. "My name is Gojo Satoru. My given name is Satoru." He doesn't think Fel knows that.
Hoping to find some peace in the garden in order to clear his mind, Felwinter very nearly turns and heads back inside when he sees that Gojo is already out here. Gojo, of course, notices him before he can. And perhaps there's a little spike of dread at talk to me, because nobody ever asks to talk to him for good reasons, but he heads over obediently nevertheless.
He's used to Gojo draping on him by now, so that doesn't strike him as anything particularly out of the ordinary. And yet there's something different. He can't quite put his finger on what. It's almost a little too sincere, that kiss a little too unguarded, no motive behind any of it. Gojo tells him his name and...
Well, he doesn't really know what Gojo expects him to do with this information.
"I see. I'd assumed it was the other way around." An awkward pause. "You're in a good mood."
"Mm." A thoughtful noise, not quite confirmation. His mood is ... something, for sure. Not a good mood, he doesn't think. His heart aches with grief and guilt over some of the topics he recently discussed with Choso. But he feels freer, and he knows that looks on the surface like a good mood. Maybe it is. It's just a very complicated good mood.
"People mostly call me Gojo back home. And here. I'm more comfortable with it. It has a lot of power behind it--I'm the head of my family, and it's a very, very old and very, very wealthy family. When I am Gojo, I wield all of that. Plus, in my culture, it's much more common to call acquaintances by their family names. I have trusted friends I've known for years who call me Gojo. I don't like people calling me Satoru, with very few exceptions." He remains draped on Fel as he talks, tucking his cheek against Fel's shoulder, wanting the comfort of having him close.
Letting himself get lost in thoughtfulness as he talks, Gojo stares into space, gazing vaguely at some of Choso's plants. "Back home ... I've told you about my powers. I'm the strongest, by far. And I bear so much responsibility because of that. I don't ever let myself rest, because no one else can do what I can. And it's so horribly lonely to be the only one who wields that kind of power. To be a god-thing without equals."
They've touched on these topics before, but never with this kind of vulnerability. And he offers it up relatively easily, even the parts of it that are such deep wounds.
"But I'm not." His eyes lift to Fel's. "The strongest." His lips quirk, a little bit challenging and a little bit playful. "Not here. Am I?"
He doesn't want an answer. He's not done talking. Letting go, Gojo stretches, lifting his face to the sky and then leaning back on his hands. "I'm still top-tier. No doubt." The curve of his lips widens into a smirk, all cocky confidence. "But maybe ..."
Tipping his head to look at Fel again, Gojo holds his gaze for a moment, expression sly and guarded, shameless and goading. "I'm going to say something horrible. Don't storm off on me just yet. But I've never really thought of you as my equal, Fel. Because back home you wouldn't be. And that's the real Gojo Satoru. Back home. All that power. Without equal."
He drops down onto his back, eyes on the sky again, voice thoughtful and distant. "Gojo, the avatar of his family. Gojo Satoru, the Strongest. I've just been acting like this version of me doesn't count. Like all of this doesn't matter. It's all just an amusing diversion until I resume my real life."
Twisting his middle and index fingers together in front of himself, just below the level of his chin, Gojo gazes up into that limitless blue sky.
"I don't think I'm going home, Fel. I think this is my real life. And I think I might like to just be Satoru. Who isn't the strongest." Eyes sliding back over to Fel, warm and fond and wry, Gojo lets that hand drop beside his head, against Fel's thigh. "And who has a very patient and very forgiving Exo for an equal."
Ah. So this is one of those times where Gojo talks at him and he has to try to figure out the point to all of the rambling. So he listens, as attentively as always. The weight of expectation and responsibilty he can understand. Family matters less so, though he thinks that's not really the point. He opens his mouth to answer the question— Gojo keeps talking, so he closes it again. And when Gojo warns him that he's going to say something horrible, he only stares.
Felwinter is hard to read at the best of times, but while Gojo seems to think the admission will make him angry, there is in fact no reaction whatsoever. He's not annoyed. He's not even surprised. It's been pretty clear from the start that Gojo thinks himself above everyone else. Not entirely unlike a certain Warlord who had believed himself so strong, so untouchable, that he could protect his people from the end of the world alone. There was a reason Fel had told him that story.
The one part of all of this which really catches his attention is I don't think I'm going home. And for just a moment his mind is elsewhere, contemplating the exact meaning of it, until his attention is drawn back to Gojo by the hand against his thigh.
Even then, he still barely reacts.
"I think you misunderstood what I meant by equal." His tone is flat and gives away next to nothing. Now that Gojo is done talking he looks away, at Choso's flowers, perhaps, though he's not really focused on anything. "Are you saying that you can't go back, or that you don't want to?"
"Both, to some degree." Gojo sighs, gaze slipping back to the blue sky, though he shifts a little closer to Fel. "I've met so many people here who remember dying, Fel. You included. I still don't know why I don't, but I still feel like ... statistically, the percentage of people here who have told me that--and it's hardly as though I'm going around asking 'hey, are you dead?' to everyone I meet, so it's just coming up in conversations naturally."
He sighs, part of him still attached to his life back home, but most of him eager to leave that all behind. The life he wants is the one that has Suguru in it, in whatever capacity he can have him. "I don't think any of us are going home, Fel. And if it comes to what I want to live for, more and more that's come to be people here. With you and Choso both very high on that list."
Sitting up again, Gojo slips his arms back around Fel, tucking his cheek against Fel's shoulder. "Anyway. Call me Satoru, will you?"
Part of him wants to say that he doesn't remember dying, not this time. That there's still a chance for him, slim as it might be, because he still has his Light. Which means his Ghost is still alive, still able to bring him back from death. Which means he might still might be able to change things, to fix things, if he could only get back home...
But Petra had told him they had all died, hadn't she? All except Saladin.
He wants to say I can't give up and I don't belong here and I don't deserve this, but Gojo drapes on him again, and he looks down at that mess of white hair on his shoulder and decides against it.
This isn't about him.
"Satoru," he says, like he's trying it to see how it fits. "I can do that."
"Thanks, Fel," Satoru murmurs, lifting his head enough to give him a soft smile. It's fond, but it's also vulnerable. The prospect of being 'Satoru' more readily to more people is a strange one, and he's still not sure how it feels. But he thinks he can offer that to Choso and Fel, at least.
Stating aloud that he's not the Strongest and letting go of the idea of going home is strange. It rattles his entire self-identity, but that's part of the point. Let the old self die. Become someone new.
That's incredibly hard to do.
But he's already been learning to trust and rely on Choso and Fel, to calculate for their strength rather than thinking of anyone other than himself as simply being in the way and needing to be protected. For years, the challenge in his fights has never been the ability to destroy his opponents, it's always been the necessity of minimizing collateral damage. He had to learn pinpoint accuracy because he's not allowed to just level a city to destroy one enemy.
He already knows that he's going to frequently slip into old habits. His emotional defenses and habits are very deeply ingrained. But the resolution to change is there.
He nuzzles his cheek against Fel's shoulder and then releases him and straightens up a little. "You here to meditate? Want me to watch your back?"
It's not something that Fel needs, he knows. They're safe in their own garden, as safe as it gets for any of them. But it's still something that Satoru wants to offer, the warmth of his back pressed to Fel's and the unseen protection of his Infinity spread over them both.
Edited (had an additional concept i meant to include) 2025-07-07 15:20 (UTC)
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exterior; garden - late afternoon
There's a calm energy around him, far more than usual. He's lacking both his mischievous, almost manic energy and his sharp, calculating guardedness. Instead, he just seems ... content.
"C'mere. Talk to me."
Gojo nods him over. He's got a picnic blanket laid out, and it's large enough for there to be space for Fel to sit near him.
Sitting up a little more, he reaches out for Fel as his lover comes close, draping his arms around Fel's shoulders and leaning in to kiss his cheek, then pulling back just enough to meet his eyes with a smile. "My name is Gojo Satoru. My given name is Satoru." He doesn't think Fel knows that.
no subject
He's used to Gojo draping on him by now, so that doesn't strike him as anything particularly out of the ordinary. And yet there's something different. He can't quite put his finger on what. It's almost a little too sincere, that kiss a little too unguarded, no motive behind any of it. Gojo tells him his name and...
Well, he doesn't really know what Gojo expects him to do with this information.
"I see. I'd assumed it was the other way around." An awkward pause. "You're in a good mood."
no subject
"People mostly call me Gojo back home. And here. I'm more comfortable with it. It has a lot of power behind it--I'm the head of my family, and it's a very, very old and very, very wealthy family. When I am Gojo, I wield all of that. Plus, in my culture, it's much more common to call acquaintances by their family names. I have trusted friends I've known for years who call me Gojo. I don't like people calling me Satoru, with very few exceptions." He remains draped on Fel as he talks, tucking his cheek against Fel's shoulder, wanting the comfort of having him close.
Letting himself get lost in thoughtfulness as he talks, Gojo stares into space, gazing vaguely at some of Choso's plants. "Back home ... I've told you about my powers. I'm the strongest, by far. And I bear so much responsibility because of that. I don't ever let myself rest, because no one else can do what I can. And it's so horribly lonely to be the only one who wields that kind of power. To be a god-thing without equals."
They've touched on these topics before, but never with this kind of vulnerability. And he offers it up relatively easily, even the parts of it that are such deep wounds.
"But I'm not." His eyes lift to Fel's. "The strongest." His lips quirk, a little bit challenging and a little bit playful. "Not here. Am I?"
He doesn't want an answer. He's not done talking. Letting go, Gojo stretches, lifting his face to the sky and then leaning back on his hands. "I'm still top-tier. No doubt." The curve of his lips widens into a smirk, all cocky confidence. "But maybe ..."
Tipping his head to look at Fel again, Gojo holds his gaze for a moment, expression sly and guarded, shameless and goading. "I'm going to say something horrible. Don't storm off on me just yet. But I've never really thought of you as my equal, Fel. Because back home you wouldn't be. And that's the real Gojo Satoru. Back home. All that power. Without equal."
He drops down onto his back, eyes on the sky again, voice thoughtful and distant. "Gojo, the avatar of his family. Gojo Satoru, the Strongest. I've just been acting like this version of me doesn't count. Like all of this doesn't matter. It's all just an amusing diversion until I resume my real life."
Twisting his middle and index fingers together in front of himself, just below the level of his chin, Gojo gazes up into that limitless blue sky.
"I don't think I'm going home, Fel. I think this is my real life. And I think I might like to just be Satoru. Who isn't the strongest." Eyes sliding back over to Fel, warm and fond and wry, Gojo lets that hand drop beside his head, against Fel's thigh. "And who has a very patient and very forgiving Exo for an equal."
no subject
Felwinter is hard to read at the best of times, but while Gojo seems to think the admission will make him angry, there is in fact no reaction whatsoever. He's not annoyed. He's not even surprised. It's been pretty clear from the start that Gojo thinks himself above everyone else. Not entirely unlike a certain Warlord who had believed himself so strong, so untouchable, that he could protect his people from the end of the world alone. There was a reason Fel had told him that story.
The one part of all of this which really catches his attention is I don't think I'm going home. And for just a moment his mind is elsewhere, contemplating the exact meaning of it, until his attention is drawn back to Gojo by the hand against his thigh.
Even then, he still barely reacts.
"I think you misunderstood what I meant by equal." His tone is flat and gives away next to nothing. Now that Gojo is done talking he looks away, at Choso's flowers, perhaps, though he's not really focused on anything. "Are you saying that you can't go back, or that you don't want to?"
no subject
He sighs, part of him still attached to his life back home, but most of him eager to leave that all behind. The life he wants is the one that has Suguru in it, in whatever capacity he can have him. "I don't think any of us are going home, Fel. And if it comes to what I want to live for, more and more that's come to be people here. With you and Choso both very high on that list."
Sitting up again, Gojo slips his arms back around Fel, tucking his cheek against Fel's shoulder. "Anyway. Call me Satoru, will you?"
no subject
But Petra had told him they had all died, hadn't she? All except Saladin.
He wants to say I can't give up and I don't belong here and I don't deserve this, but Gojo drapes on him again, and he looks down at that mess of white hair on his shoulder and decides against it.
This isn't about him.
"Satoru," he says, like he's trying it to see how it fits. "I can do that."
no subject
Stating aloud that he's not the Strongest and letting go of the idea of going home is strange. It rattles his entire self-identity, but that's part of the point. Let the old self die. Become someone new.
That's incredibly hard to do.
But he's already been learning to trust and rely on Choso and Fel, to calculate for their strength rather than thinking of anyone other than himself as simply being in the way and needing to be protected. For years, the challenge in his fights has never been the ability to destroy his opponents, it's always been the necessity of minimizing collateral damage. He had to learn pinpoint accuracy because he's not allowed to just level a city to destroy one enemy.
He already knows that he's going to frequently slip into old habits. His emotional defenses and habits are very deeply ingrained. But the resolution to change is there.
He nuzzles his cheek against Fel's shoulder and then releases him and straightens up a little. "You here to meditate? Want me to watch your back?"
It's not something that Fel needs, he knows. They're safe in their own garden, as safe as it gets for any of them. But it's still something that Satoru wants to offer, the warmth of his back pressed to Fel's and the unseen protection of his Infinity spread over them both.