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Jae-eun's heart doesn't race; it thuds along, heavy against his ribs, sharp and hard as stone. The jagged edge of it claws at his throat, the siren ringing in his ears. Some time has passed since it went off, and he knows, logically, it's unlikely anyone is going to come to their apartment and cause trouble. They've locked and barred the door, and they're not on the first floor, readily accessible. People are more likely to target stores than homes, or at least to go to the wealthier parts of town than to come to an apartment complex. Chances are they're completely safe as long as they stay inside.

That doesn't make it too much better, really. Even if it's unlikely, it's not impossible that someone might come here. More than that, the very fact of this Purge scares him, skin prickling with anxiety and repulsion. Every now and then, shouts and the sounds of glass breaking or tires squealing cuts through the darkness and he flinches. He's done terrible things. Perhaps he has no right to judge. But he didn't enjoy them. He can't say that there wasn't a certain thrill in killing, sick though it makes him feel even to think it; but that was the point, really, if one ever existed, a way to jolt his creativity awake. It was cruel and meaningless, but he had a reason, however deluded it may have been. This... he can't say this does. This is just people taking pleasure in harming others for no reason other than because they can, and it makes him feel like his insides are trying to fight their way out through his skin. And to think that someone could go out on a night like this and hurt people and then go on with their lives like nothing happened — it upsets him on a fundamental level and it pisses him off, too. He can't imagine it. He can't even begin to imagine how anyone could walk away unscathed by having committed such violence. He carries it with him every fucking day, nearly every moment. He'll never be fully cleansed of it. How could anyone choose it so deliberately?

He sits in the living room curled against Sihyun's side, the lights out to avoid drawing attention to their home, his eyes shut tight. If he's quiet and still, maybe he can will peace into his body. Maybe he can keep himself breathing somewhat steadily. Maybe they should have gone out to the countryside; there was a nice woman at Pride who offered them refuge, but in the end, leaving this home had felt frightening too. Was that a mistake? But they're safe here probably. He doubts anything will hurt them here.

But tomorrow they have to go back into that world and not know which strangers they encounter will have done what terrible things. Maybe that's just. No one here knows what he's done, after all. He's not much better, whatever he wants to believe. It's wrong to try and cut himself some slack just because others do terrible things. People are no less dead at his hands just because others will die tonight at someone else's.

"I hate this," he murmurs into Sihyun's shoulder, so agitated he's already become exhausted. "Ah, what to do?" He doesn't want to just sit here for hours, paralyzed, but he doesn't know how to do anything else.

( text )

The strangest thing to J — at least, the strangest sometimes — is how normal it all is. It catches up with him sometimes, the thought fluttering up out of nowhere, that he shouldn't still be alive to celebrate another Christmas in Darrow with S. But he is. In spite of everything, himself included, he is. Another birthday, another anniversary, another Christmas. Soon another new year.

It would be a lie to say it's that simple, that he never takes it for granted, that he never even wishes it away. As happy as he often is, there are still days when it feels to him like he'd be better off no longer existing, like the world would be better for it. There are still days when it's nearly, nearly too much, waking up from the millionth nightmare or getting hit with some horrifying image — memory or imagination, sometimes it's too hard to tell them apart — when he's just trying to shower or cook dinner.

He's wary, too, of the coming weeks, remembering how hard it hit him last year, how bad it got before he had any real understanding of how far he'd spiraled. He's not sure awareness will be enough to keep it from happening again, and that gets exhausting. He doesn't really know what's wrong with him still or why it never goes away. It's hard to accept that it may always be like this, but, at the same time, he can't pretend some magical cure will arrive all of a sudden, a Christmas miracle to restore his mind to a more peaceful state. In any case, he was an anxious child before he became a haunted young man. If nothing else, at least he's fairly certain he can't ever get as bad as he did before, if only because there's no one here to poke and prod him into murder.

Which should be a sobering thought for Christmas morning. It should slow him down, drag him down. Instead, it throws the gray morning into relief, reminds him of how vividly, if groggily, alive he is. S is warm and solid against him, entangled together in sleep. J usually sleeps later, drowsy even as S prepares for work many days, but since coming here, Christmas is exciting again. Much of the money he gets from the city, he puts into helping pay for expenses, but it's more than enough when they're sharing the bills, enough he can actually set aside funds to buy S presents. He has one, too, that he's been eager to give, trepidatious about handing it over even as he knows S will love it, because what if he doesn't? It's enough to make him stir early, though at least this year he didn't get up early to bake what turned out to be some overwhelmingly salty desserts. He made cookies last night, not needing to surprise S this time, and he used sugar, so they actually taste like cookies. Instead, he can lie in, watching S for a few moments, soft in sleep.

He doesn't want to wake him. He probably shouldn't just lounge here, tucked against S's side, staring at him. It's probably creepy, no matter how long they've been together. It's just that he's beautiful. Everyone's a little messy in sleep, but S is relaxed, too, sweet, and the fan of his eyelashes against his cheeks makes J want to kiss him awake and let him sleep all morning if he likes, all at once.

He settles halfway between, leaning close to press a gentle kiss against S's cheek before he draws away. There's no point in disturbing S when he could enjoy the chance to sleep in instead. When he wakes, J decides, he'll have tea ready, the lights on the tree switched to flickering life. Sometimes he has trouble handling that the rest of his life will undoubtedly be riddled with the same inconsistency and dread and horror as it has been thus far. Right now, glancing at S from the doorway as he pulls a sweater around himself, it makes him oddly proud to have survived this long.

The three days J has to wait are very long indeed. He's thankful he didn't end up deciding they should try to play the piano next week, because he might have gone insane again if he'd had to wait that long. As it is, he keeps thinking.

It feels ridiculous, if he thinks about it closely. He's played the piano since he arrived in Darrow. Granted, it was much easier when the lodge up at Kagura remained open, because he could go there and use their piano. It was a bit of a trek and it gave him room to feel the anxiety in the pit of his stomach all the way up the mountain, but he could do it, and he did so often enough that he began to feel more at ease again. The trouble isn't, anymore, actually sitting and playing. There was a time when that was part of it, because he'd sit and be so focused on what he wasn't doing — the music he wasn't writing, the pieces he wasn't talented enough to compose or even play — that he'd be too worked up to play much of anything. It's a state of mind that doesn't lend itself well to playing anything. Too tense and overcome, the simplest of songs would trip him up, fingers turned clumsy by distress. Now that he doesn't write, now that there's no one to impress, now that his sole aim is to win back what once was his by sheer dint of determination, that isn't much of an issue. If he plays so much as a scale, he's won. And so playing became easier.

No, it's the anticipation that's the real battle. The days leading up to a chance to play, the moment he walks through the door, the slow journey to the bench, those trembling seconds he lifts his hands but hasn't yet begun to play — every moment of it has become a fight. Every time he wins that fight, he makes another memory of a time he played and didn't hurt anyone, not even himself. It's no less a fight for that. And all those memories aren't yet enough of a shield to keep him from fretting. What if next time is the time? What if the process is as slow now as it was before, a long silent trek from everything being as it should to everything falling apart? And it's absurd when he knows he's doing better. The things that made everything worse before... well, they're not all gone. If they were, he wouldn't worry so much. He was always a bit anxious, but nothing like he is now. But everything else is either gone or faded. There's no one to impress, no prize to win, no one pushing him or scolding him. It's unlikely that simply sitting down and playing a bit of Schubert is going to cause any trouble beyond making him a little homesick.

Still, three days is more than enough time to make himself nearly sick with worry. He wants this, too stubborn to back down, but he can't stop the tiny, insidious voice in his head murmuring that perhaps he wants this too much.

It's not just for him, though. He wants it for both of them. He wants one more thing opened between him and S again, one thing that should be theirs restored. He wants to watch the man he loves make music and he wants to weave melodies together. Making a new life, he thinks, shouldn't have to mean giving up everything that came before. They've just had to learn which parts to let go of. This doesn't have to be one of them.

He's shaking a bit as he approaches the shop, glancing at his phone to check the time. They should have closed just a few minutes ago. By the time he gets down the block, S will probably be the only one left. Swiping the screen, he pulls up their messages and sends a new one. Almost there.

There was a time when J dreaded summer. Cramped though it was, he loved their studio, those early days when they first moved in together some of the happiest of his life. They were hard, too — S was freshly grieving then and making ends meet was a struggle when few people were willing to hire J. He was determined to make the summer count, knowing it would be worse when they went back to school, his hours limited. Even so, they were beautiful, the pair of them free to be utterly themselves, and maybe that's what finally pushed them from platonic into romantic love. There was plenty to weigh them down, but they were free. Seeing S in every stage of the day, knowing him even more intimately than before, having long stretches where there was no one to pretend for, J was in love well before he realized that was true. But aside from that, the home he grew up in and then their tiny studio were sweltering in summer, no air-con to cool them off, nothing but a fan sputtering weak gusts across the room, windows flung open as J sprawled on the floor. Summer was a time of hard work, saving what he could, working when he could, and melting away in all the moments in-between.

That was before — before a new start, before an apartment with air-conditioning, even if they have to be thoughtful about the electric bill. Before he spent autumn and winter committing atrocities, before he came here in spring, marking half a year with darkness and guilt and despair. Winter was shaky. There were days he had to do anything but think, because he knew, if he stopped, if he let himself mark the days, he'd lose his mind again. Even under the best of circumstances, it would have broken him if it weren't for S's love and care. Even spring has been difficult, taking his time to stretch his limbs, his mind, reaching gingerly out to see if he can still handle the world. But as the days get longer and the sun gets hotter, he finds himself slowly feeling more at ease. It's new — he used to look forward to winter more, to weeks off from school and then their anniversary, not summer — but he'll take what he can get. Summer was a time of freedom last year, too, a chance to learn all over again how to be himself and what that means now and how to let himself be loved. Summer means Pride is around the corner and, even if J still doesn't like crowds, he looks forward to going, at least for a while. Summer means a span of months without a single terrible anniversary to mark, no way to look out the window and see the falling snow, some shadow fear encasing his heart that spring would never come again, as if sometimes his heart and mind forget everything else has moved forward.

So he looks forward to summer, even if he still doesn't much like the heat. These days it's even more of a problem, all the more reason to be thankful for air conditioning; he wears long sleeves constantly when he leaves the house. He wears them inside a lot too, of course, but S has seen J's scars enough now that it's not such a shock to either of them. Much of the time, J doesn't think about it, but he doesn't want anyone else to see and ask what happened to him. It isn't worth it. As it is, he could use something new to wear. He's gotten good use out of what he got before and he's fairly accustomed to making things last as long as possible, but even so, he'd like to find something long-sleeved that isn't too warm, if such a thing exists. Besides, even if he feels a bit guilty about it, he gets bored wearing the same things all the time. Maybe it's a good sign, he tells himself. For a long time here, he really didn't care much what he wore, even when he went out, because he spent so little time outside and it stopped feeling like it mattered. He used to enjoy it, though, picking things out that felt like him. Maybe it's good that he wants to again.

In any case, it feels good, wanting to go out and do things, wanting to run errands that aren't strictly necessary. Even if that's the case, of course, or maybe especially because it's so, J doesn't want to spend very much, so when they head out, he points them toward a secondhand store in a quiet part of town. It's on the other side of the park, and though the ocean is blocks away, he can still smell the salt on the air as he opens the door for S.

He found this one after a search online trying to figure out somewhere he could get clothes that aren't painfully expensive but also aren't annoyingly bland. It's quiet and cluttered in a way that still manages to look somehow organized, daylight filtering through the large windows. J lets out a small breath as he walks in, thankful it's not full of glaring bright lights like the department stores he's gone to on previous shopping trips. Even if he doesn't find much, it won't be so anxiety-inducing, he hopes. There are only a handful of other people, which helps, too. Squeezing S's hand, he smiles, cautious, as he so often is on outings, but still pleased. "Come on," he says, "help me find something nice."

It is, J thinks, one of the finer places he's been in his life. The university had a sense of grandeur to it, but it was old and some buildings were kept in far better shape than others. Kagura, by all rights, ought to be the kind that stays worn down and forgotten. J didn't know anything of it, or not enough to think about the place, until he heard something about Halloween, and then about this place opening up for the winter season. Poking around on the internet out of curiosity told him almost nothing at all except that it's very pretty up here.

It's more so in person, though, everything bustling and beautiful, and his heart aches a little at every turn. He's not used to this, has rarely encountered such places except, perhaps, briefly after winning the Gloria Artis, something he tries not to think of much anymore. And then there's the snow, and he thinks of last winter, unable to help hearing himself ask if spring will still come. Passing by an open doorway, he realizes it's the bar, and that makes him oddly uncomfortable in ways he doesn't want to think about.

Still, it's not a bad place. He just clings tight to S's hand as they wander, taking in the sights, trying to let himself be distracted by all there is to see and by his boyfriend's presence. After he's had some time to relax a little, it really is interesting.

The mistletoe is unnerving, too, come to that. He's lucky enough to avoid it himself, but witnesses some other poor soul get trapped beneath it, indignant and fussing until someone — a friend or partner, he doesn't know — comes over and bestows a kiss that puts the whole thing to an end. It's strange, and he's curious, but not enough to make him stupid, at least not in this particular way.

At some point in the day, he's separated from S, wandering idly as his boyfriend goes to obtain drinks (better S than him, finding something sweet and non-alcoholic for J, another thing to ignore as much as possible). He glances out windows and down halls, and through an open doorway into a lounge, his heart thudding at the sight of a piano. For a moment, he doesn't know if he wants to move toward it or away, utterly aching without having words for this feeling. It's been so long, almost a year, and he's somehow managed to keep from ever being around one, even with S working at the music store, and he misses it and it scares him. In his wavering, he draws in a slow, shaky breath, glancing briefly upwards to collect himself as he steps forward.

He pulls abruptly back, spotting the mistletoe mere moments before he would have stepped beneath it, backing away quickly only to collide into some poor other patron. "Ah, sorry, the mistletoe," he says quickly, flushing as he looks to the stranger. "I... didn't want to get trapped."

This time last year, J had a lot on his mind, and presents didn't play into it. Everything was, very literally, a matter of life or death. He barely even remembered to get something for his mother, lost in a haze of despair and desperation, losing count of the days.

The stakes are, admittedly, quite a bit lower this year, but it's still very important, as far as J is concerned. Because, this time last year, he was alone — not just single, but utterly, painfully alone and extremely aware of his isolation. He'd thought he did that to himself — and to an extent, he did — but S has helped him see how that isn't entirely true, how he was coaxed and manipulated into solitude, made malleable by one of the only people he trusted. And now, well, he's still isolated, that's true. He doesn't know anyone in this city other than his boyfriend, but S is everything to him. This is the first time in a long while they've had Christmas together or their anniversary, and he needs gifts for both, good ones. Even if he knows this year will be special no matter what they do, if only because it shouldn't have been possible to spend it together (or for him to have another Christmas at all), he still wants to get this right.

Out on the streets of Darrow by himself, he wanders past stores with brightly lit windows. It's cold out and he bundles up in his coat and gloves and scarf, huddling into the warmth of them. There are so many people out tonight, many of them doing the same as him, peering in shop windows, thinking about gifts. This entire year has been a process for J of regaining his footing, slowly adjusting to being alive, being back with S, to moving forward after what he did. Less than a year ago, he killed himself, and he killed others before that, and it seems like another lifetime — it was another lifetime — but it's still all too vivid in his mind.

He was already primed by a lifetime of being on the outskirts of society not to be very good at making friends. After last year, after the revelations about the professor, after the way he's had to fight himself every step of the way to reconcile himself to all of it, he's even less fit to be among people. That he finds himself a touch wistful watching other people go by in groups surprises him a little. It would be nice, he has to concede, to know someone. He may have all he needs in S, but it would be helpful to have someone to talk to now, to help him figure out what to get for S, something he certainly can't go to his boyfriend with. And, too, since Pride, he's felt a little more curious about other people. He spent so much of his childhood and adolescence hiding in so many ways, and there's a certain relief in having one less aspect of himself to keep in shadows, but that's all theoretical thus far.

But then, how could he ever make friends? How could he open himself up to anyone new when he'd have to hide so much?

Everything he can think of feels either too expensive or too boring. Sweaters are comfortable and practical, but not exactly romantic. Jewelry might be nice, but S really only ever wears the one ring from his parents, and if J starts thinking about rings, he knows what path he'll go down, but they've never actually talked about that as a real thing they could do, because it never was before Darrow. Music is a possibility, but he barely even knows what music is out there these days, his approach to the subject still terribly tentative.

It feels to him as if his head is full of thoughts, eddying wildly through his mind, too quick to hold onto, so he winds up thinking of nothing much at all. It's cold out, enough so that he wouldn't be surprised if it started to snow, and standing around outside a shopping center, too on edge to join the crowd, is pathetic even by his own overdramatic standards. But that's where he finds himself, peering through the doors of the mall. It might be better in there, with a wider variety of shops to look through, a good way to get ideas. But it also seems absurdly overwhelming.

He considers leaving and coming back another time, but it's the middle of the afternoon on a weekday and he can't imagine it being any quieter some other time of the week. Besides, he's low on time. He left this too late. Better to go and get it over with then, so he takes a deep breath and starts through the doors.

And then turns back around abruptly, giving up at once, only to collide into someone probably more intent on shopping than he is, or else an unfortunate passerby. "Ah, sorry," he says quickly, eyes going wide, then remembers that people mostly speak English in Darrow and he should probably try that, because he's clearly short on things to be self-conscious about already. "Sorry," he says again, this time in English instead of Korean. "I wasn't looking."

It's a dream. It has to be. J knows that, tells himself that over and over until he can't make his mind form the words anymore. At a certain point, the fear and the horror are too much. That's how it always is. He never feels entirely in his own control when he does it, though he knows he is, he must be, to make these kinds of choices. Still, it feels — felt, really — like his hands do the work on their own, like he's watching from afar. It's a terrible contradiction — to need to be far enough removed from it to keep from losing his nerve, to be enmeshed enough to feel it so it has the required effect. To know the fright in the eyes of someone dying at his hands, palpable enough that he takes what he needs from it, held enough at bay he could keep himself from falling apart after the fact or from stopping before he was done.

It's a little bit different tonight. He sees them in the shadows, hardly more than shadows themselves, hovering at the edges of his vision, but there's no victim before him tonight, no murder to relive. There's just a visceral wrongness, like he's hovering on the edge of understanding, aware they're here and that they aren't. He forgets things even as they happen, and it's the last of it he'll remember when he wakes.

There's a car. It's a worn-down old thing, the best he could afford, but it keeps running in spite of that and the damage he's done to it — did to it, that night, going too fast — but it's not moving now. He's sitting behind the wheel and it's quiet and it's dark, and something is very wrong. It's the smell, he thinks, and it takes him a moment for it to click before he realizes he knows it very, very well. It's been a long time, though, since he smelled it so strongly, the sour metallic bite of blood in the air, flooding the car, inescapable. The window won't roll down, and he leans across the seat to try the other (and he wonders, in the back of his head, why he doesn't just open the door, but he doesn't), but his hands slip, the handle slick. The blood was already there, though. He knows that when he sees it, that it isn't touching the door or the seat when he slips that does it. It was already there — is still there, on his hands, on the steering wheel, mottling the passenger seat. He knows it's there when he turns to look at the backseat — too much, more than there should be, more than there was, and it won't come out, it won't ever come out. It's happening now, but when it happened before, he scrubbed at it until his hands were red, his cheeks and eyes were red, and still he felt sure it was everywhere, seeping between the fibers until the seats were soaked in it. And it's not real, it can't be real, because this didn't happen. S didn't die, he knows that, he's sure of it, but he must have, because no one can bleed that much and live.

That's the part that cuts through the panic, slices so sharp he can feel his skin crawl, his breath stop in his throat. There's too much. Is this a dream or was it a dream to think he fixed things somehow? Was he too late? Did he go too far after all? He's faintly aware of the sounds he's making, sharp gasps as he struggles to catch his breath, high-pitched whimpers of protest. When he leans further into the backseat, he's afraid he'll find a body still there, though he should be able to see it from the driver's seat, but he can't stop himself pitching forward, clutching at the armrest. He never got used to this smell. It grew familiar, but he hates it — in the same faraway manner in which he feels everything but abject despair — and he can't get away from it. The knife shouldn't be here, he knows that, he's absolutely certain of it, but then he's not really sure of anything. He left it in his rooms, he knows he did, but maybe he didn't. There's too much that he's can't say with any real confidence, too many patches of time he can't account for, too many memories he might have made up.

It's dark still and he can't breathe, bent forward instead of back, leaning over the blanket and draped over the knees he's pulled up to his chest. Clutching at the sheet, the sounds he makes are incomprehensible even to himself, almost inhuman, harsh, panicked breaths punching out of him as he struggles to get air past how tight his throat has become, past the sobs that start to shake him as soon as his body is alert enough, well before his mind catches up. He tries to call S's name, terrified he isn't there to respond, but he can't make it come out, can't force his body to turn. If he's alone, if it was real, if it's true, then he'll die like this, struggling for air like some of them did. The thought of that is enough to make some part of him want just to give up and let darkness take him again. "Please," he mumbles, desperate, unable to manage anything else. It's hardly the first time he's woken up (he is awake, isn't he?) in a panic, but not like this, rarely so pronounced and all-encompassing.

Everything about this is new. It isn't, because they've discussed it and they've tested things and it's far from the first time they've had sex, but it is. Last time they tried this kind of thing, it was a whim, their instincts and desires uncoiling and furling around each other. This time, J has planned.

He still intends to follow his gut. It was right before, more trustworthy than the anxious voices that still whisper at the back of his head at times. He'll follow S's cues, too. But he has ideas. He has things in mind. He has a couple ties draped on top of the dresser for easy access, one that belongs to S and one that he picked up very deliberately when they finally went out to buy him clothes of his own. Given that he highly doubts he'll be ready to look for work soon — and he very much knows he won't be going back to school — he really doesn't need one. Except, as far as he's concerned, he absolutely does.

It's been a strange time, settling in here. He's seen the city only in brief glimpses, on outings he kept as short as he could. It's good to get out and he's glad he has, but there's only so much he can handle at any given time of all that light and sound and all those people. They don't know him, and there's some relief at fading into a crowd, but there's uncertainty too, those same little voices he still can't silence. They're quieter now and he's steadier — sleeping better, too, and eating more — but they don't leave for long. Sometimes they seem convinced people can look at him and tell what he is. It's better then to be here in this apartment, away from things that might make him panic.

Better to be here in their bedroom, where the whole point — at least for tonight — is that he's in absolute control.

That means that he's insisted on getting things ready in here on his own, sent S off to take care of making sure their food is ready to heat up later, minimal effort for when they're exhausted, and to ensure the towels are in the bathroom. That, at least, is a lesson he learned last time. He's put out water, too, a pair of glasses on the dresser, behind the ties where he hopefully won't knock them down. Putting aside clothes seemed like a step too far, but he knows where their comfier clothing is, warm, soft things they can bundle into later, and he's stripped the bed to just a top sheet, so it's easier to get rid of the mess afterward.

It helps, having all these little tasks to do. He's not anxious, which is something, but he is a little nervous. It's the good kind of nervous, he's pretty sure, the rush and thrill that used to come for him before he played for someone, bright anticipation curling through him. Arousal, too, at the very fact of what lies ahead of them. With all he has in mind, he hasn't let himself get too worked up yet, but it's impossible to ignore that he's excited to see what will happen this time. He was only half joking, telling S he wouldn't stop thinking about this. Finding the right time when they can be ready to do this without it causing problems the next day has meant waiting a little while, and it's been in the back of his head on and off all the while. With so much build-up, however passive, he can only hope he does well. Somehow, though, he's not worried. He doubts either of them is going to step away from this disappointed.

Looking over the room, he's satisfied that everything is where it should be. There isn't much he'll need, but at least he knows where it all is and that the rest of the apartment is in order. He's probably spent more time double-checking and second-guessing than he has actually readying anything. It's only as he starts down the hallway to retrieve S that he realizes he hasn't actually thought of how to start. He doesn't usually need to. More often than not, they just get carried away and it tumbles on from there.

As it turns out, it's simple enough to make a decision. Walking over to S, he reaches for him, hands moving to curl in his shirt as he pulls him close for a kiss, slow and lingering. He smiles as he draws back, though only enough to kiss S's jaw next. "Ready?"

VOICEMAILS AND TEXTS FOR J

(E)MAIL FOR J

J thinks about a lot of things. He thinks of too little. He acts on impulse, or he deliberates too long. Even when he was younger, happier, he never really knew how to find the right balance. Always too much, always too little.

For a little while, he couldn't stop his thoughts racing, his mind filled and overflowing, overwhelmed. This time, when they sang to him, he heard it for the invitation it was, and he wondered if this was it — in this last movement, this final act of his, did he hear them more clearly than before? Did he understand them now in a way he didn't previously?

The professor called him a murderer. That's true. He knows it now, in a way he couldn't fully bring himself to grasp before. It's not something J can justify, even now, but he thinks, at least, with this, he's finished the task he set out to accomplish, and given all of them purpose, his victims and himself. A little bit of justice, too. He hopes he has, at least, that they'll find peace in their next lives, knowing in some intrinsic and distant fashion that their killer died too. That the sonata was completed.

There's much to be done, enough that he loses track — get the journal delivered, the music put aside, douse the room in gasoline. It has to go, all of it has to go, the room where he committed such atrocities, the piano at which he wrote this work, every trace of himself erased except for the notes on those bloodstained pages. That it isn't a room that belongs to him doesn't matter. All of this must end.

The fumes from the gasoline alone would make him dizzy, but he's already there, lightheaded, staggering over the piano with the canister. He can barely feel his left arm anymore; distantly, he's aware that's probably why he's so unsteady on his feet. He, too, must end.

Maybe it undoes his efforts, his weak attempt to offer up some kind of justice or retribution for his crimes, that he feels calmer now than he has in months. In years, maybe, except in those brief and unnerving patches of time when he's felt nothing at all. For so long, there's been such an agony tearing at his heart, his lungs, stifling him, breaking him open, so all-encompassing he often forgets how it felt to feel anything else or to feel a normal amount. This, then, comes as a relief.

It's over.

The flames catch and crackle, and he takes his customary seat at the bench. A last song — not a new piece, not for that cursed sonata, but for himself. For them.

Not that there's a them anymore, but there was. He doesn't deserve the kind of luck it would take for them to meet again, but he longs for it all the same, a thin ache in the middle of this peace.

"My hands dance on the keyboard," he sings. The song is simple and light, utterly unlike anything he's written in a long time. His finest work, perhaps, his first. The smoke and exhaustion leave him straining, but he hardly notices it, hardly notices anything now. Everything fades in and out, the room glowing with the growing flames and the light of dawn seeping through the windows. "The notes become me, the rest becomes you."

He wrote it for S long ago — his first love, his truest inspiration. His only love, really. "Mormorando, quietly and murmuringly," he sings, hissing a little at the heat, the pain. "Sforzando, playing the note with strong emphasis."

Straining, gasping, he leans over the piano, steeling himself to continue. It's important, he has to. "Come on, finish it," he urges. "I'll come to you so that it doesn't fade."

Maybe it won't. Maybe the music will weave its spell. Maybe they'll both find peace of a kind. He doesn't know if S yet lives or if he's died, if his efforts to get help for him were in vain. He doesn't know if he'll ever see him again, the very thought threatening to break his calm. But he can hope. He can hope, if nothing else, that S will be okay, wherever he is, whatever life he lives. As badly as J wants to follow through, to come to him, he knows that, if there's any fairness at all in the world, he won't be able to. He doesn't deserve that kind of mercy or forgiveness.

He closes the lid of the piano, reaching blindly for the sheet music, grasping it to his chest. It's frustrating, really. For a little bit there, he thought he felt a kind of calm he didn't think he'd know again, something like being at rest. Instead it comes crashing down over him again, the grief and the guilt and the longing for what he can never have, for so many things, for him. It doesn't matter what he wants. Tears welling up in his eyes again, he knows it doesn't matter. The blood he spilled is as indelible as the ink on these pages, and no flame can burn that way.

Incalzando. That is the last of what he knows.

And then the first. And then, light. Not the brilliance of flame, though even now everything is glowing red when J closes his eyes, but daylight seeping in, and, with it, the sounds of a city alive.

And so he stands in a new world, blinking as he adjusts — to light, to life — his clothes blackened in patches with soot, singed where the flames caressed him, blood staining his fingers. With a low, shuddering breath, J hastily tugs at his sleeve, rolling it down over the torn flesh of his left arm, only to stop when he sees how the marks have all but healed, leaving only a single fading word. He opens his mouth again, a panicked cry on his tongue, and is met instead with a racking cough, his lungs thick with smoke.

J doesn't dream. Or, if he does, it's nothing that registers as he starts to wake, nothing that lingers or haunts him. With that being the case, it doesn't much matter if he did or not; it's a relief, even to a mind not yet awake, not to remember.

It's confusing, a little, waking up here. Even before he opens his eyes, he knows things aren't what they were yesterday morning. The light is different. The bed is different, too, bigger and cleaner and much more occupied, though that, at least, makes perfect sense. He doesn't need to be alert to know this, to recognize how it feels to wake up beside S. That sinks in before anything else — that S is here, that he's safe, even before he processes what he needs to be safe from. Even as that comes back to him, it feels astonishingly distant.

He hasn't slept this well in a long time. As he shifts and sighs, fighting the urge to roll over and go back to sleep, he finds he's still exhausted, but in a better way now, the pleasant ache of yesterday's exertion, rather than the insomnia dullness he's grown accustomed to. Being rested is new. He shifts closer to S instead, burying his face against S's shoulder. He isn't even sure if his boyfriend is awake yet, only that that wakes him up a little. His boyfriend. If he doesn't open his eyes, in spite of all the differences, he can stay here, time unwound, back to where they're meant to be.

But he can feel S under him, the shift in his breathing, the tiny things that tell him instinctively that they're both awake after all. "Hi," he mumbles, eyes still closed, making an indignant little whine at having to be awake. Even that's nice, though, to be annoyed at having woken naturally, rather than breaking abruptly from a nightmare or not having slept at all, and to do so tucked against S. His presence is reason enough for J finally to open his eyes, his expression softening as he blinks to try and clear his blurry vision, his voice softening too. "Morning."

[From here.]

For all that J has always had to be the one to urge S to be pragmatic and serious, he's the one who's driven entirely by his feelings and desires, by a mind he knows is warped and wrong without knowing all of why or how. It's hard to want things so badly and not to be able to trust that, or to trust the wrong thing, the wrong need. Finding a middle ground feels all but impossible sometimes, and he ends up pulled back and forth by a constantly contorting sense of logic — ruled by reason without knowing if it's actually madness, ruled by his heart while ignoring the things he loves.

Right now, in this moment, he feels sure of what he wants. There are doubts, there are fears, there's always a shadow cast over every damn thing he does, but he's sure of this much, at least. If he can't be steady, if he can't be fully certain of his own self, he can be sure of S. While that scares him a little, feeling himself trying to lean for support on the same person he tried to push away, the same person he tried to kill, it also feels like one of the more sensible things he's done in a long time. Judging by his willingness to take J back, S isn't all that much saner than he is, but he's a hell of a lot more trustworthy.

And he's sweet, and he's loving, and every brush of his lips, every place his body presses into J's, rings out with that. And maybe J isn't ready for this, because he's been through a lot today and he's worn out and emotional, and just being kissed like he's the most precious person ever to exist almost makes him feel like he might cry again. He knows he doesn't deserve this. It isn't the first time he's rushed blindly, though, into things he knows he shouldn't do or have.

"We," he breathes out, "we should —" He doesn't know. He isn't sure. He means to stop kissing S for a moment, but ends up kissing him elsewhere instead, lips trailing along his jaw, his cheek. "I don't know." Stop, his brain supplies, and slow down. Be careful. Instead he lifts his head again for another kiss.