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Gojo wakes up to the subtle feeling of HVAC airflow running over his belly.
His shirt has risen up in his sleep.
Before, Gojo would emerge from the fogginess of dreams in an instant, brain immediately assailed with a deluge of information about his immediate surroundings and distant environment alike as soon as he opened his eyes. Now, he wakes up disoriented and aching with stiff muscles, and months may have passed but he still experiences that split-second of confusion where he expects his vision to adjust to darkness before he remembers sight is a luxury he sacrificed.
Gojo brings a hand to his chest, tracing the faded scar immortalizing his first brush with death with the pad of a finger. He follows its old, familiar path from sternum down to its intersecting point with the newest addition etched into his skin: this jarred line carved into his abdomen and arms, a band of tight new skin circling his trunk and biceps just above the elbows.
Collagen matrixes had bridged the sheared pieces of himself back together like slotting puzzle pieces, but there's no hair follicle or sweat glands to be found in the junctures left behind, just smooth and stiff scar tissue that stings and tingles.
The itch is mostly psychosomatic, that much Gojo realizes.
The phantom sensation of pain radiating from his core is unpleasant, but it's not something Gojo can actually remember ever feeling — not when he was bleeding in fragments on the ground and not when was reassembled. His system had been flooded with adrenaline and beta-endorphins as he expired, hormones dulling visceral agony into a muted and distant ache, and he'd been too busy bargaining with himself in purgatory to register any real pain.
His mind fills in the blank now.
Gojo digs his fingers into his stomach, scratching roughly at the seam of himself to alleviate some of the prickling sensation. His nails bite into his skin hard enough to leave indentation marks; but unlike the one eroding his lower limbs, this pain is one he can control.
Control has become a rare commodity for Gojo ever since he awoke from his coma without the most fundamental parts of himself.
A palm curls around his wrist, stilling his hand.
Gojo sighs at the interruption, a little miffed despite its well-meaning intentions, but doesn't jerk his arm away. Reintroducing spontaneous physical intimacy is something they've been working on lately.
"Morning," Gojo says instead. "Is it morning?"
"It is — 06:15," Nanami supplies, voice scratchy from sleep. After a beat, he adds in an explanatory fashion, "You were about to draw blood."
It's stated in that carefully level tone of his — the one Nanami adopts when he's trying be inconspicuous about his concerns.
"Scar's itchy," Gojo clarifies before Nanami can draw his own conclusions, false or not.
A considering hum echoes next to him, followed by silence. Gojo is bracing himself for a lecture on self-harming behavior when the press of a mouth onto his belly makes him flinch in surprise.
"What are you doing?" He asks, perplexed, hand hovering hesitantly over Nanami's head.
"Soothing the itch," is the laconic answer he gets.
Gojo has always been ticklish, something secreted away behind his infinity, but now that physical touch is no longer an optional setting he can turn on-and-off at will, the simple feeling of warm breath ghosting over his ribs is enough to startle a giggle out of him.
"You're kissing the boo-boos away?" Gojo can't help but tease.
"Did you know that human saliva can stimulate pain relief?" Nanami asks against his skin, lipping a line over his scarred midsection.
"Don't try to science your way out of this one, pal," Gojo dismisses the fact easily, and reiterates with genuine mirth: "You're kissing the boo-boos away."
"Fine. I am," Nanami concedes with a huff, and Gojo can picture the embarrassed frown wrinkling his forehead with startling clarity, an expression forever searing into his memory.
He relaxes under the affection, spine melting back against the mattress. "That's cute," Gojo coos, and feels a bubble of laughter escape his lungs despite the pain and powerlessness and regrets still rolling like turbulent waves beneath his skin. "Alright, give me my morning dose of smooches, nurse."