이젠 다시 돌아가고 싶지 않아

[beklemmt]

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.

Comments

[hismelody]

These past few months, they've had some bad days. They've had bad nights, too, and not just his own sleep-deprived panic a couple of days after J arrived. His own occasional nightmares, S tends to keep quiet about, shaking them off easily enough and certain that they're nothing J needs to hear the details of, but he tries his best to be there after J's, even if it's just to hold him until he can get back to sleep. Tonight feels different, though, almost immediately, before he's conscious enough to process what's happening. Where he fell asleep wrapped around his boyfriend, S is sprawled on his stomach on the mattress instead, the blankets half-pulled off him, and as he blinks, disoriented, in the darkness of the bedroom, it quickly becomes clear that the noise that woke him was the distinct sound of muffled, gasping sobs. J's.

It jolts him into some semblance of alertness more abruptly than might otherwise be the case, S trying to swallow a groan, confused and trying to wake himself up and concerned. "Jae-eun-ah?" His voice comes out rough with sleep, but he manages to roll onto his back and prop himself up a bit. He wants, suddenly, instinctively, to pull J into his arms and hold him close, but not knowing exactly what's wrong or even how aware J might be right now, S doesn't want to startle him. If only for the moment, then, he holds back, reaching out to rest one hand — just his fingertips, really — lightly, cautiously against J's shoulder. J looks like little more than a silhouette in the dark, but turning on the light can wait a moment, if only because doing so too suddenly seems like it could also be too jarring. "What's wrong? Are you alright?"

The answer to the latter is obvious — clearly J isn't alright — but it seems like the best place to start until he can think a little more clearly, until he has something more to go on other than his boyfriend crying like this in the middle of the night, his heart already racing with worry anyway.

[beklemmt]

It's the slightest touch, but without it, J might convince himself S's voice is entirely in his head. Even touch isn't much to rely on, but it's been more so since he got here. He's done really well, he thinks, though it feels like it's coming from far away; he's had far fewer moments where he couldn't tell the difference between real and imagined. But right now it's painfully hard to trust his own senses, and he wants badly to turn and see S for himself or reach out in turn, but he can't get ahold of himself long enough to do so. And then there's that small, dark part of himself, the bit that never went away, that waits until he's tired and vulnerable to slip back in and whisper in his ear, to tell him he can't do that. That touching S is dangerous, that he can't trust his own hands, his own mind.

"I'm sorry," he chokes out, nails digging into his forearms. He can feel the bite of it, enough to convince himself he's still here, tethered to this world, albeit frozen in place. There's no blood. His hands are dry, and not in the tight, tacky way they feel when he can't get to a sink fast enough or he misses a spot (couldn't, missed) or just thinks he did, but it's not all that reassuring. He can't feel it and it's too dark to see it, but he can still smell it — much fainter, but it's there, he's sure of it, and there was so much. His head is spinning. He might get more air if he could lift it, but he might be sick if he tries.

It's only when his hand finds S's, grasping desperately to curl his fingers around the ones at his shoulder, that he registered he reached out blindly in search of him. Warm and solid and real and alive, and it's just enough comfort to let J draw in a slightly deeper breath. "Sihyun-ah," he whimpers, "sorry." Are they still here? Are they watching? Did they follow him to this world after all and do they hate him, not just for what he did but for what he has now? If they do, he has the sick feeling he doesn't care, not really, not when all he wants is to drag himself into S's arms, to feel wrapped up so securely in that embrace that he can breathe again. He would, if he could make himself move any further. He'd ask for it if he could manage any other words, and that feels blatantly unfair — wrong that he's so close he could have that if he could make himself speak, wrong that he gets that comfort when S so nearly died at his hands.

That thought is enough to steal his breath again, another broken sob choking him. He still feels half-asleep and yet far too alert, his heart racing so hard it might burst. A monster, still a monster, dreaming his boyfriend dead even now.

[hismelody]

It offers no clarity, but S wouldn't have expected otherwise. J, clearly, is too worked up for that; in the back of his head, thoughts still a little hazy from being woken up so suddenly, he's aware that it's probably a lot just for J to be able to choke out that much, his name and an apology. None of it gives S any idea what to do, but his own cluelessness won't stop him from trying. It never has before. Neither does the concern he feels, something twisting painfully in his chest. Seeing J like this hurts, it always does, as does the fact that S knows he can't take that away from him. All he can do, especially now, is be here, but that much he'll do without question, shifting closer now that J at least seems to be aware of him. Not wanting to pull his hand away leaves him at a bit of an odd angle, but it's worth crisscrossed limbs to be able to hold his boyfriend, to attempt to offer some small amount of comfort.

"You don't need to apologize," he murmurs, his voice still a bit hoarse, but soft, deeply earnest. Sitting up further, he inches over as best he can to sit halfway behind J, wrapping his free arm around him. With J hunched forward against his legs the way he is, S doesn't want to try to tug him back, but leans forward a little instead, holding him close, resting against him in the hopes that J will be able to feel his breathing and try to match it. Distressed and out of sorts as he may be, he's the one who has some semblance of composure now, and rather than getting all the more distraught and making it too obvious, he can at least try to use that to help steady J now. "I'm here. I've got you. Just try to breathe, okay?"

Inadequate as it feels, it's the best he can do, especially when he's barely awake and so, so worried. He hasn't seen J quite this wrecked in a while, and though it's easy enough to guess that he must have had some kind of nightmare, it has to have been a particularly awful one to have prompted a response this strong. Unsure what time it is and unwilling to pull away to find out, S is certain all the same, given the dark and the quiet, that it must be sometime in the middle of the night. When he gets a chance, he thinks, he'll leave a message calling out of work later. J might need him, and they'll both need more sleep than they've gotten, which may take some time, or else to stay awake with each other. Already he knows he won't want to be away from J all day anyway, after something like this.

[beklemmt]

He can't remember how long it's been since it was last this bad. That only makes it harder, some terrible disappointment under the rest of it, a distant hurt that he fucked up again, that he can't just be normal. It isn't even just for his own sake — if it were, he'd feel he deserves it, but like this, he's just waking and worrying S, and there's nothing he can do about it. Apologizing feels like the least of what he ought to do, but the problem is, J has no idea what else goes on the list, what he can ever possibly do to make amends for the damage he's done.

At times when these thoughts surge up again, it's hard to ignore the prickle of self-loathing that tells him he shouldn't be allowed to hear S say such things, that S shouldn't be so kind to him. Even so, he's at once just clear-headed and just asleep enough to know he can't lean into that or he won't be able to catch his breath. His mind races too many directions at once, calculating — how S won't get enough sleep, how he needs to catch his breath or he risks passing out and worrying S even more, how all he's done is learn to live around the part of him that's still there, waiting. It would have been better if that had died the first time he died, if it hadn't come with him, but whatever is wrong with him to make him this way, there's no ridding himself of it, and it scares him so badly he's shaking.

Having S pressed into him helps to steady that a little, though it makes him all the more aware, too, of how his chest heaves with the effort of trying to breathe. S told him to. He can do that much. What he would like to do, really, is to twist around so S can hold him better, to bury his face against S's shoulder and hide from the unshakable feeling of being watched even now. That would take far more energy than he currently has, though. Instead he clutches at S's hand, back arching a little to get as close as he can. S is warm and solid against him, so real it makes J's breath catch again, though there's a measure of relief in it. Whatever he once tried to do, he failed. He stopped, and S is still here, still alive, still holding him. Nails digging into his knee, he forces himself to pay attention to S, to try and meet his slower, steadier breaths. It works in fits and starts only, another sob or gasp breaking up his attempts, but it's something, at least.

He's still dizzy and panting when he shifts his position, but at least it feels like he's getting some air in his lungs, enough to let him move. Still with his legs tucked toward him, he turns sideways, hand letting go of S's at last so he can clutch at his shirt instead, leaning against his chest.

[hismelody]

As awful as it may be, and it is, S's chest aching with how much it hurts to see J in this state and to be so helpless, it's at least a relief when J turns toward him. Like this, it's easier to hold him, and he does, both arms wrapping around him now without any hesitation, drawing him closer, nearly into his lap, cheek resting against J's hair. With the way J is shaking, it's difficult for him not to shake, too. More than just painful, it's frightening to see J this upset. It may not be the first time, but it's the first time in a long time, and there's no way of even knowing what prompted it. S can guess that it was a bad dream, and with that being the case, can guess the general subject matter of it, but that still doesn't tell him what makes this one so much worse. Right now, he knows he can't ask, too. J could barely get an apology out a few moments ago, and while he seems to be breathing a bit more steadily now, that isn't really saying much. All S can do, then, is be here, holding J close, cradling him against his chest, wishing like hell that he could take even just a fraction of this away for him.

"It's alright now," he says as soothingly as he can, quieter even than a moment before. That doesn't seem quite right, really, when something is very clearly not alright for J to be in this sort of a panic, but the words are out before he can hold them back, and he hopes, at least, that J will take them as intended. For that matter, he isn't entirely sure how aware J is of anything he's saying. It wouldn't be much of a surprise at all if he didn't hear it, or at least didn't process it. S doesn't mean to let that stop him, though, either. Helpless as he is, that's all the more reason to do what he can. "You're here with me, you're safe. Whatever it was, it was a dream, it's over."

Even that probably isn't very comforting when he has at least some idea of how often J's nightmares are based in reality, but it's true, at least. They're somewhere J's crimes can't follow him. They're both alive. That won't make J any less haunted by what happened before he arrived here, but for right now, S hopes that it might help tether him back to the present. Turning his head just enough to do so, he brushes a soft kiss against J's hair. "Let it all out if you need to."

[beklemmt]

With the way his mind is churning, he can feel himself grasping for all the reasons the things S says are wrong — not lies, because S means them, but wrong, because it's not over, it's not alright. It might never be over. What he did can't be put right. What's wrong with him can't be fixed. All he can do is cling to S, fighting to hear what he's saying anyway, reaching for the parts he can believe.

It was a dream. He'd thought so, even then, but it's so hard to be sure. Some of it was real, at least, and there were a lot of times in the past he thought something was a dream that was real. Or that something was real when it wasn't. His hold on reality is, at times, tenuous. It's been better for the most part, but it slips sometimes. Like this, alert but only sort of awake, is when it's hardest to be certain of anything. But he can feel S. He's thankful for that, grateful for being tucked up in a ball like this, holding tight and being held. He can hear S, too, both his words and the roughness of them, the telltale signs of both sleep and concern. He knows some of that was real, and he's not quite awake enough to be sure which ones weren't, but at least he knows this part was a lie, that S is still very much alive. He whimpers quietly, muffled against S's shirt. That very nearly wasn't the case, he knows that. The evidence of how close he came to killing S is scarcely millimeters away, all those scars he only briefly glimpsed and never quite forgot.

For the most part, he's managed even to accustom himself to the fact of them. His awareness of that part of what he did has slowly disintegrated into a frustration with his uncertainty as to whether or not he's ready to face it head on yet and his desire to be able to undress S properly. Right now, though, the horror of what he did feels terribly raw again, an old scar aching. S has forgiven him, but J doesn't think he ever can.

It occurs to him distantly that S told him to let it out and that he probably should try to say something. What he wants is to say that he's okay, but he's been trying hard not to lie and that particular lie is so blatantly false, it would be an insult to try. "Bad," he mumbles instead, twisting slightly so he can tilt his head up. It isn't much, still leaves him with his cheek pressed against S's shirt, but he doesn't want to pull away much. He's not even sure he wants S to hear him, really, but he also doesn't want S to worry, and he's overthinking everything even as he has next to no capacity to think whatsoever. "It was so..." His breath catches on a tiny ragged moan. "There's so much. You —" This last pitches higher, desperate and sad, and he doesn't know how to say anything more, struggling just to keep from breaking into sobs again before more tumbles out of him anyway. "All over the car, the seats. I thought — I still smelled it." It's gone now, he thinks, the sick iron tang of blood, but he can't help worrying that the absence of it is another trick his mind is playing on him.

[hismelody]

Worried as he is, unsettled as he is, S can't help the thought that crosses his mind. It's one that's occurred to him a small handful of times, and now, as he has before, he dismisses it abruptly, but still, still, for a split second, he wonders what the hell he's even doing here, what difference he could possibly hope to make. It isn't that he thinks J can't be helped, because he doesn't. He just doesn't see how he could ever stand a chance against something like this. He couldn't do nearly enough before, and J was carrying so much less then. It was still bad, to the point that their relationship fell apart, but it wasn't like this. There were no ghosts, no scars. J may have been troubled, but not haunted like this. It seems horribly naive to try to stand up to all of that.

As soon as he's thought so, though, S knows that can't be right. It has to be worth trying. For J, anything would be, and S is pretty sure he knows what the alternative looks like. He still remembers too well how utterly he broke down that first day J was here, thinking he was about to lose him again, a concern that's stuck with him, albeit more quietly than before. And it isn't in the slightest like he stays simply to avoid that, but all the same, it's not hard to guess that if he weren't here, J wouldn't be, either, and he would just be alone again, that much worse off for having J back and losing him again. If absolutely nothing else, he can make sure that J doesn't have to face this on his own. That he has someone to hold him when he wakes up in a panic, an anchor of some kind, or at least that's what S would like to be, keeping him here rather than back in the horrors of the recent past, things that happened in an entirely different world than this. That he feels like he can talk about it without fear of judgment. Uncomfortable as S has sometimes felt for having read J's journal now that J isn't dead anymore, he thinks it's ultimately a good thing, too. When he knows the worst things J has done, he doubts there's anything now that could run him off.

His confusion certainly won't, though there's plenty of that now. The things J is saying, he can't quite make sense of, breathless and fragmented as they are. The car is the one clue he gets, his stomach twisting with it. S knows he could never say so, and that it can't possibly say anything good about him, but it's that death that bothers him more than any of the intentional murders. He knows it was an accident, and for this, too, he largely blames the professor, but still, he feels a little sick when he thinks about J killing someone — or coming close enough to it, anyway — the way his parents were killed.

He buries that as deeply as he can. It isn't the point now, and whether or not he understands what all is being said, it's clear enough that J needs this right now. Arms still wrapped around him, S gently strokes J's back, his movements slow and steady. "There's no car here," he murmurs. "It's just you and me."

[beklemmt]

There's a small part of J that stands to the side at times like this — not a bit of calm in the storm, not anything rational, really. Just a voice that sounds entirely like his own, telling him how pathetic he must look now, how weak he sounds, the distressed whimper that rises out of him now further evidence of how useless he is. But S is right, he reminds himself. There's no car. He hasn't driven in a long time, for that matter, and he's been content to leave it that way. As much as he misses being able to drive where he wants, he doesn't know if he could now, afraid of having that much freedom of movement when he knows what he did with it before.

The last part is the more important, though. So much is so wrong right now, but S is here, and that helps. That his dream was only a dream is easier to grasp when S holds him like this. He just wishes it were more of one, that there wasn't so much truth in it, and that it bothered him less. There have been more violent dreams. By all rights, this shouldn't affect him nearly as much as it does. He was in a car and there was blood and he couldn't get out, but it was, all things considered, quite tame by the brutal standards of his imagination and memory.

In spite of the lingering panic, he can feel himself starting to relax a little bit, slumping more fully into S's hold. "So much blood though," he mumbles, tugging at S's shirt without thinking. "Everywhere. I knew —" His breath hitches and he takes a few more moments, trying to get it to even out again. "More than there was. But it felt real." There's a sharp feeling in the pit of his stomach after he's said it, the falling sensation of feeling he's said something he shouldn't have. Tired and groggy though he still is, catching his breath even now, he also has the distant sense that this is territory he's avoided, and with good reason. It's one thing to admit he feels haunted even still by those he killed, that there are nights he sees them in his sleep, nights he almost thinks he can see them in this apartment. It's something entirely else to talk about what happened the night S came to see him. S has forgiven him and J has done his best to accept that he can't change either that it happened or S's forgiveness, but he has no interest in rehashing what happened. It's better left pushed aside as much as possible.

[hismelody]

He doesn't want to hear this. It's another horrible thought — unfair, cruel, it feels like — but for a moment, it's overwhelming, impossible to ignore. S doesn't want to hear about the car or the damage it took, about the blood, about the body. He doesn't want to think about J doing that, drunk behind the wheel, taking away someone's parent maybe, someone's child; he couldn't bear it. He made his choice and he doesn't regret it, and that's his to live with, but he's not sure he can stand that right now.

All he can do is take his own advice and try to breathe through it, still gently, steadily stroking J's back, both to try to provide some comfort and to prevent himself from tensing up. This isn't about him, and it's not like he's unaware of what happened, as accepting as it's possible to be. Though he can't be sure, thinks he would prefer not to be anyway, what it says about him that that death is the one he has the most trouble with, that's still both true and something he's had plenty of time with the fact of. If it were going to keep him away, he wouldn't be here now. It just hurts, as much in its own right as the way J trembles and cries in his arms, as much as the fact that there's nothing he can do now but be here, unable to ease this hurt or change what happened.

"It wasn't," he says, so soft that it's almost an exhale, swallowing hard. That's not quite right, though, and he amends his statement a moment later. "It was a long time ago." The first accident was months before he last saw J, which was months before he wound up here, which was months ago now in its own right. All told, from his standpoint, it's probably been about a year since then. It's hard to be sure, and he knows it's more recent for J than for him, but it's still the past. It matters, it can't be undone, but it's not here. Only the two of them are, tucked away from the rest of the world, safe with the secret he's chosen to share. There isn't much he can do, but any way he'll help carry that burden, he will. He told J that first day they found each other here that he didn't have to be alone with it anymore, and S means to stand by that, even when it's hard, even when it hurts. "The car... the blood... they're gone, they didn't follow you. There's only us. I'm right here with you."

[beklemmt]

J's breath catches again, his eyes closing hard, and he has to force himself to stay calm and push back against himself, the part of him that hears those words and thinks they shouldn't be true. They made their choices, and S has stood by him; that's been his decision. J has told himself over and over that it isn't selfish just because it benefits him for that to be the case, that it's not up to him to determine what S does and doesn't get to do or have and forgive. But it was only them that night, too. And then he was alone, and it was his own fault. "I was so scared," he whispers. He's too tired not to. All these months, he's refused to let himself say that, done his best to avoid that night coming up at all. It's not fair to talk about how he felt – how much he hurt, how frightened he was — when it's entirely on him that that was the case. S was hurt far worse, and physically, too, and he hasn't wanted to make it about his own pain. But he's tense and trembling and groggy, and he can't make himself think about what he's saying until he's already said it.

"I'm sorry," he adds, sniffling. It's not enough, it won't ever be enough. He should have carried S in himself, not just abandoned him at the doors like that, but he knows how that would have ended, and he was selfish and scared. "I'm sorry..." It terrified him then and it did so tonight, the horror fresh again on the heels of that nightmare. It wasn't long enough ago. That it happened at all — that he did that — will always be too much. "I thought — I saw the knife and there was so much, and I thought you were — I thought this time I —" He could still do it, he thinks, another flare of panic washing over him, sharp and prickling on his skin, turning his stomach. He doesn't want to, not even a little bit, but he hurt S once. No matter how much he's felt better these last months, there's no way for him to be certain it won't happen again. He whimpers again, desperate little sounds, his body tensing. "I don't want to hurt you, Sihyun-ah, I was scared."

[hismelody]

S almost responds, an instinctive I know on the tip of his tongue, his hand slipping up higher so he can stroke J's hair. Out of sorts as he is, still barely awake after being pulled from sleep so abruptly, it takes J's words a few moments longer to register than it should, sinking in just in time for S to swallow back his reply. To that, he doesn't know what to say, because it doesn't make sense. What he nearly said would probably be fine, really, since it's still true — he knows J was scared, because he read it in J's journal, and he knows J doesn't want to hurt him now, because the last few months have proven it over and over again. He's seen the guilt J feels over what he did, and he's never once felt unsafe here. But these pieces don't fit together, or they don't seem to, something out of place. Maybe it's just the lingering haze of sleep, but S can't figure out what these things have to do with each other, how the car is connected to the knife. The first death — or near-death, at least — was an accident. When J went back, when he put that man out of his misery, there was no blade involved, not until the professor pressed one into his hand. And hearing about it — well, it does hurt, but it's nothing he doesn't already know, nothing he's going to feel worse about than he already does.

That, though, he isn't quite sure how to put into words. Even if J hadn't said it, S would know how scared he must have been, how scared he must still be, his trembling far too pronounced to miss while being held this close. S doesn't quite have it in him to say that it's fine, but it's as close to it as it ever will be, at least on his side of things, and he doesn't want to make any of this worse. He knew what he was signing on for. He said as much, that he would be here for the good and the bad, that he knew there would be plenty of bad. This is one of those times. Being too outwardly confused, asking for clarification about murders, doesn't seem likely to be very comforting.

"You won't hurt me," he says instead, which feels close enough to the truth, a certainty. It hurts already, but it won't hurt more than it already does, and it won't be J hurting him. "I know you were scared, but you don't have to be now. And..." Trailing off, he sighs, a slight furrow in his brow, confusion he can't quite hold back. "You can talk about it, if it helps. I know what happened, and I'm still here. I don't... know what you mean about the knife, but... it doesn't matter. Anything you need to say, you can."

[beklemmt]

It made sense when he said it, but J realizes now that isn't the case, that even in his dream, he knew the knife wasn't supposed to be there. He left it on the floor, far too scattered and frantic to take even a second to put it away or clean anything up. It's just a moment's confusion, though, distant and vague, less important than trying hard to hold onto what S says.

This is another thing he's had to tell himself repeatedly. S knows. He knows all of it, all the terrible things J did, and he stays. He knows, for that matter, that doing so is a risk. If he believes that risk is worth taking, then all J can do is his best to make sure S is right. If he doesn't think J will hurt him, then maybe that's true, too. Still, it's hard, his chest heaving as he struggles to get himself back closer toward being in control. "It shouldn't have been there," he mumbles, frowning a little. As horrible as he feels, though, he must be feeling at least a tiny bit better — able to breathe, somewhat, at least — because he moves his head, enough to press his forehead close against S's neck instead, wanting the comfort of warm skin. "It wasn't. But I saw it."

It was a dream, he reminds himself. With his heart still racing, the whole thing feels far too immediate for him to believe that as fully as he knows he should. But it was a dream, and the knife doesn't matter, not anymore. He's not sure S is right that he doesn't have to be scared. To wake up like this, shaken, thinking of blood and death, remembering what he did — all of it is still there, coiled deep inside him. How can he possibly sure it won't come back? He's no less a coward than he was that night. Shuddering, he swallows hard, gulping in a breath. He's not sure how much talking about this can possibly help, but trying to stifle it doesn't do any good either.

A little at a time, he feels more aware of where he is. It's not some amorphous darkness but their own bedroom, S shielding him so tenderly. No matter how hard they try, he can't shut out J's own thoughts, but it helps to have S touch him like this, gentle, his body undeniably solid against J's own. What happened happened. They both know it. He's here now. This is their bed, their room, their home, and his hands are clean. It's just that, the more awake he begins to feel, the harder it is to say what he dreamed of. There's no escaping what he did to S, and much of the time, he's learned to cope with that, propelled by sheer necessity. Shame weighs heavily on him now, though, when that night feels so close again. "Just a dream," he murmurs. "You're okay. I..."

His cheeks feel odd, and he realizes it's because he was crying. Snaking one hand up to rub at his cheek, he forces himself to take a deeper breath. "I don't know what to say," he says, wincing a little at the way his voice shakes. "I was too late. In the dream, I did, I —" That wasn't the dream, though. It was real. He really did hurt S. "It was worse. What I did to you." He sniffles again, feeling the pressure in his head from grogginess and anxiety and the threat of more tears. "How can you say I won't hurt you again when I dream about these things?"

[hismelody]

Although S wasn't expecting clarity, exactly, given the state J is in — and, for that matter, how groggy he still is himself, on top of his immense worry for his boyfriend — he also wasn't expecting further confusion. At J's response, though, he frowns, and not just because he's still so worried, the wobble in J's voice and the way he presses close against him doing nothing to alleviate that. Confused or not, S still keeps him close, gently cradling the back of J's head when he feels his forehead rest against his neck, head turning just enough to brush a kiss against his hair again. He doesn't need to understand what J is saying to want to try to soothe him through this. Again, too, he isn't sure if there's some obvious piece that he's missing because of his own disorientation. He feels barely awake and too awake all at once, his heart beating faster than it should from the shock of waking up so suddenly and under such circumstances, and it's hard to think very clearly as a result, at least about anything that isn't holding his boyfriend close and attempting to comfort him. Still, he can't, now, shake the sense that they're talking about two different things, what J is saying now not aligning at all with what S thought he was saying.

"What you did to me?" he echoes, asks, even as part of him thinks that he shouldn't. It doesn't seem right or fair to ask J to go into any more detail about it, to elaborate on the nightmares that wake him in such a state, to relive yet again what was such a horrific moment for both of them. Just as he said a moment before, though, that he didn't know what J meant about the knife, S doesn't know how what he has to do with any of this. What J did to him was months after the car accident, and the circumstances of both were so different. It hurt him, yes, finding out that J killed someone that way, but it didn't injure him, and yet J is talking now as if he was worried about having done him physical harm again. I was too late. S hasn't got the first idea of what it means, lost and guilty for needing clarification and so fucking sad. It never gets easier seeing J like this, and it's been a while since it was this bad. He wishes so much that he could make it better. Instead he suspects he'll be making it worse.

Not yet pulling away, he exhales slowly. "That part... that part is easy," he says, somehow softer still. "How could I think you would hurt me again when you're here, so upset after dreaming about it?" Maybe it's foolish to trust so wholly, so readily, but he doesn't think it is. They've had months together now — months of falling asleep in each other's arms and waking up the same way, months of spending more time together than not. If J were going to hurt him, he would have done so by now, or would at least have wanted to. He wouldn't be a panicked mess over the thought of it. His concern now is something different, harder to articulate when it all comes down to the fact that he doesn't understand. "It's just... I thought you said it was about the car. It was about me?"

[beklemmt]

It's an old battle now, a war he fights with himself again and again. S is right, because he wouldn't be this upset if he were tempted to do anything that would harm S. Besides, he would have felt the urge by now, surely, if that were going to happen, and he hasn't. But S is wrong, because feeling bad was never enough to stop him before. It's selfish and horrible, makes him sick, as it always does, to think of how he pushed through that shame and regret to serve himself until the price was too much — not for anyone else, just for him. Always thinking about what he needed, what he wanted, and not what he'd done to anyone else.

He makes a small frustrated noise as S's question registers, shrugging helplessly. "You know what I did to you," he says, hardly more than a hoarse whisper. He doesn't want to talk about it. That's selfish, too, he knows, just him protecting himself, but he does it for S's sake, too. Neither of them need to relive that night — though he just has, in some capacity. More importantly, though, S doesn't need to see him fall apart even more, talking about how he almost killed the man he loves. "And I — I must have —" He fumbles desperately for the right word, hard enough to do when he's solidly alert, much more difficult now, especially given how delicate a task it is. He needs one that conveys his meaning, but not too vividly, shying away from anything too specific.

"Finished it," he says after a moment, forcing himself to take another deep breath. As deep, at least, as he can manage in his current state. "There wasn't that much blood when it was real. Or there — it was — a lot, but this was so much more, all over the seat, and I knew it was because I..." In spite of his efforts, his voice cracks again, more tears spilling over. So much of the time, he's learned how to carry this, how to know what he did and still remind himself that S does, too, that he loves him, that he chooses him every day. S understands something no one should ever have to grasp, loves him in spite of things no one should have to look past. Somehow, despite everything he's done, S loves who he is, accepts the bad with the good, and J has let himself take comfort and strength from that. It gets easier to know that his worst crimes, whatever terrible things they say about him, still aren't the whole of him. But at a moment like this, his vision blurs, the whole world narrowed to the guilt and pain of knowing how nearly he killed S and, right now, how easily he could have failed him one last time.

"It's not real," he whispers. "You're alive. I'm so sorry."

[hismelody]

It doesn't make sense. It does, but it doesn't. Some of the things J is saying, S doesn't need to hear. Of course he knows what J did to him. He carries a physical reminder of it on his body, scars he's spent months keeping carefully hidden under clothes whenever he and J are around each other, and even if he didn't, he's too haunted in his own right. A different sort of haunted, maybe, when he knows who he blames for it and knows that he trusts J completely, but haunted all the same. Hazy as those memories might be, they're vivid, too. It would be hard to forget the burning pain in his chest, the pressure around his throat, the sheer terrifying certainty that he was about to die as his vision went dark. He didn't, of course. But he thought he knew how that happened — some of it guesswork, yes, but the only reasonable assumptions he could have made. J's journal only told him so much. For all the answers it gave him, it left him with so many questions, too, and he hasn't been able to bring himself to ask them. There hasn't been any point in going back to that night, knowing it would just be painful for them both. They know what took place that night. That's enough, or he thought it was.

He almost died. Someone found him. He was brought to the hospital. The story has gaps, not the least of which is that he's never known whether J intentionally spared him or was even aware of having done so, but the bones of it are there. The things J is saying now don't fit within that structure, though. Still S tries, and still he can't manage to make them fit together in any way that makes sense. J dreaming that it was worse than it was, knowing what he knows now, that S did live, isn't so difficult to comprehend. He says all over the seat, though, and he mentioned the car before, and S can't tell where that comes into play, why his blood was in J's car, his mind trying to grasp at explanations but coming up with nothing for his exhaustion and confusion and worry. It's hard, after all, to focus on that when he's also trying to focus on J, something in his chest pulling tight when he hears the break in J's voice again. He doesn't want to make this worse, but he does want to understand.

"I am," he murmurs, the simplest, truest response he can give. Still holding J, he brings his hand to his cheek, trying, at least, to catch his gaze, if only for a moment. "I'm alive. I'm right here. And I know... what you did, and I know that you're sorry. But..." He is, at least, too tired to be overtly frustrated with himself, and softened anyway by how very worried he is about J. The last thing he would want is to be misinterpreted, to seem frustrated with J instead when he isn't anything of the sort.

His stomach sinking, he knows he has to just say it. "I don't know what you're talking about," he admits. "There was blood on the seat?"

[beklemmt]

It's only at S's prompting that J tilts his head up, just enough to meet his eyes, hurt and shame clouding his face. He's thankful, then, that it's still dark. It's a bit disorienting, having no idea what hour it is, but at least it means S can't see him too clearly. Even if he can make out the feelings in J's expression, maybe he won't see how blotchy and tearstreaked J is now, which is sort of, vaguely, a comfort.

Still, it's excruciating to look at S and know he has to talk about this, that he's made a mess of things and can't just slip around it like he's tried to for months. No mention of that night is ever easy or comfortable, but he feels sick hearing S say what he can't stop thinking about. That S doesn't know what he means makes a part of his brain feel itchy, like he knows something isn't quite what he thinks it is, but he's too tired and miserable to stop and work that out.

Instead he nods, a tiny motion, leaning into S's palm. "Some," he mumbles, gaze lowering again in shame. It's self-protection too, though, as if some part of him is always waiting for S to come to his senses and realize how incredibly terrible J actually is, what an unforgivably awful thing he did. "I tried to make it stop, but I was scared I'd be too late. All over my hands. My pants." Kneeling over S the way he did, it was impossible to avoid. If he'd stayed, he tells himself, as he has so many times before that he's lost count, that he would have been arrested immediately. They wouldn't be here now. "And you. And then the backseat. But tonight — it was so much... No one could survive that."

[hismelody]

Even in the dark of the bedroom, his eyes only just beginning to adjust to it, seeing the look on J's face hurts terribly. Somewhere in the back of his head, S can't help but wonder what the hell is wrong with him that he feels so desperately compelled to comfort the man who would have been his killer over the very fact of his having tried to kill him, but that, at least, is a thought easily dismissed. He made up his mind a long time ago. He's seen, these past few months, that first day especially, the effect it's had on J. Now, too, it's obvious how scared he is and how lost, and S aches with it, longing to be able to provide reassurance that it simply isn't possible to give. He's here, and he's alright, and he doesn't feel any less than safe, but he can't change what happened, as powerless against J's nightmares as he is to take away the scars on his chest. They're both of them, in different ways, marked by what happened, and none of that can be undone. He wishes it could, though, wishes there were something he could do or say that would ease J's mind, at least enough for him not to have to wake up from nightmares, sobbing and panicking and barely coherent, in the middle of the night.

Instead, he's pretty sure all he can do is make this worse instead of better. What J is saying is a little more understandable now, but S still doesn't quite get it, unsure how to make the various details he has add up. He was on J's floor, and then he was in the hospital. He was almost dead — technically did die, briefly, so he was told, flatlining and then revived during surgery — and then he was treated just in time not to be. Although he's never known what happened in the middle there, he doesn't understand how his blood could have gotten in J's car, and he doesn't want to have to ask — doesn't want J to have to talk about this any more than he has already — but he can't shake the feeling that there's some essential part of this that he's missing, that he should be able to piece together but can't. If nothing else, maybe he'll be better able to help J through it if he has a better comprehension of what J is trying to say.

"I did survive," he points out. He's said the same thing several times in several ways now, but with J so shaken, it can't hurt to repeat it, to remind him that he's here and alive and safe. "I did. And I love you so, so much." His hand still at J's cheek, he moves it just enough that he can press a kiss there, soft and brief. "I just..." He sighs, still, always, so fucking helpless. "I'm sorry. I just don't understand. How did the blood get in your car? Was I —"

[beklemmt]

That soft brush of S's lips paired with those precious words leave J feeling at once more and less lost, a small, sad sound drifting out of him. "I love you," he whispers. It's the most important thing he knows. They love each other. Even if it's foolish to do so, even when it's been dangerous, even when he's tried to escape it, they love each other. S is alive. It isn't right that he has to try and be the comforting one now when it's J's own actions setting him off, but J is thankful all the same that he's trying.

He glances away, S's question circling in his head, a flicker of confusion crossing J's face. It's not that he assumed S knew what happened. There was a point where he lost consciousness, where J feared he was dead, so it makes sense he wouldn't remember what came after. It's just that he's been here so long without talking about it that he forgets, in all honesty, that he left that out. Besides, it isn't as if he could have called an ambulance or simply left S out in the cold for someone else to find, so he figured it made sense, that S could piece it together. It's only now, hearing the caution and uncertainty in S's voice, that he fully understands that isn't the case.

He nods, brow furrowing, and steals another small glance at S. "In the backseat," he says, muted with shame. "I didn't know how else. I should have gone in and waited, but I was too scared, I'm sorry." He still felt some small shred of self-preservation that night — not enough to keep him from risking going out to take S to the hospital in the first place, but that was far more important than the possibility of getting arrested. Staying would have only turned out one way, though. "So I just left." Headed home, in fact, to be scared and alone there instead. His voice wobbles again as more spills out of him, buried tension surging up in his chest. "I didn't know what was happening. I couldn't ask anyone if you were okay. I thought they'd find me if I tried, or I'd call and they'd say you died, and I hated not knowing but I was afraid to find out for sure and it was horrible, but that was my fault... I didn't know what to do."

[hismelody]

For so long, S wondered futilely about the rest of what happened that night, knowing that he would never get any answers, eventually accepting that it didn't matter all that much. He almost died, and then he lived, and the details in between stopped seeming particularly important when it was impossible to find out. Here, he knows there are things he could have asked about, but even when it crossed his mind to be curious as to whether J meant to spare him or was even aware of doing so, it didn't seem worth asking. They've talked about that night so rarely, and in the vaguest of details. With as upsetting as it's been every time the subject has come up, there seemed to be no point in discussing it further. Whatever happened, he lived, J died, and they found each other here. The specifics surrounding all of it hardly seemed relevant.

Apparently, though, they are, so much more so than S could ever have anticipated. Still he doesn't feel quite certain of what he's hearing and of what it means, but there's enough, his throat tightening as he takes it in, as he gradually processes this new, unexpected information. In the backseat. I should have gone in. It would be overwhelming enough to find out for sure that J did know he was still alive, at least then, but this goes so much further than that. S barely knows what to make of it, never mind how to respond, save for an instinctive shake of his head. He can admit that some of J's apologies have been warranted, but this one isn't in the slightest when it turns out that J went to much, much greater lengths than S ever knew.

"Don't," he whispers, not realizing until he does so how close he is to tears now himself, his voice wavering and body tense. He wants, instinctively, to curl in on himself like J did moments ago, but he would have to pull away for that, and in the back of his head is the distinct desire not to give J the wrong idea about his reaction here. "Don't apologize. You —" It still doesn't quite make sense, even as the truth seems to be plainly in front of him now, so far from what he imagined to have happened that night. His breath catches, and his hand leaves J's cheek only to press to his own mouth instead, as if doing so might help him maintain some shred of composure. "You took me to the hospital? You... you wanted to..."

[beklemmt]

J watches him, worried and awed at once, heart aching to see how S is reeling. It hadn't occurred to him that S wouldn't have put this together on his own or, given that it was his own fucking fault any of this was necessary, how it could possibly matter. But now, finally grasping that S didn't know, it's all the more stunning to realize S has stayed with him all this time anyway.

He tried so hard to minimize the damage he did. There's no undoing how he hurt S, no way he can possibly change what he did, the scars still on S's chest ample proof of that. But he tried, at least, to give S a chance of surviving, and for a little while tonight, he was so sure he didn't manage it after all. He's still trembling a little, he thinks, shaken by his dream and by having to discuss this and how tired he still is.

"I had to," he says, a soft note of protest in his voice. "I didn't know what else to do." He's killed people, but he's never healed anyone. He wouldn't know how to start, and he wasn't taking any chances with S. "It was the only thing I could think of." Had he called anyone to come help him — well, he didn't really know anyone back there, least of all anyone who would have provided assistance, and a doctor or ambulance would have been too slow and, perhaps, the end of him. That he killed himself not long after is beside the point. The shame of his being caught and his crimes revealed, the horror of a trial — how could he make his mother go through that? His voice catches again, a small, hurt sound curling in his throat. "I thought I was too late. Only imagining a pulse. Your pulse. I couldn't even tell if you were breathing. If it was hopeless even to try."

He still didn't know, that last day of his life. It's funny. He'd thought then that maybe he'd find S again on the other side of things, and he has.

[hismelody]

There are things S would respond to that with, if he could. J didn't have to. The easier thing would have been to, at the very least, if he couldn't finish what he started, leave him for dead somewhere. That would have been safer, too. Had J not already been dead by the time S finally came to, he could easily have turned him in. He wouldn't have, of course, but that's beside the point. All this time — and it's been months, first back in Seoul and then here, of not knowing but assuming something vague and so far from what's turned out to be the truth — J was the one who got him help. Who wanted him to live, despite having been the one to try to kill him. Who put himself at risk in the name of trying to save someone who could very well have been dead already. It was snowing that night, S remembers, and still somehow J got him to safety in time, and for all this time, S has had no idea.

So thrown is he, so moved, that he feels a little sick with the shock of it, though it isn't a bad thing in the slightest. At least when tears finally begin to spill down his cheeks, he's quiet about it, even if his sniffle immediately gives him away. It's hard to know what to say and hard to catch his breath for the tightness in his chest, hard, too, to wrap his head around this new development, even if the past few minutes make much more sense now in this context. He just had no idea, and it's difficult to comprehend that in itself.

If it weren't for this place, if they hadn't both shown up here, he would never have known at all. He could so easily have spent the rest of his life not knowing that the last thing J did for him wasn't trying to kill him but trying to save him, and somehow that hurts.

"It wasn't hopeless," he mumbles, his voice small and unsteady, drawing in on himself as best he can without pulling away, unaware of doing so. "It wasn't. I — They told me, if I'd gotten there even a few minutes later..." He would have been gone. Soon enough, they both would have been. Not for the first time and probably not for the last, S is struck by the thought that he shouldn't be getting emotional over this, that he meant to be comforting J, not the other way around, but of all the things he could have heard tonight, this has to be one of the most unexpected. Eyes wide and glassy with still-falling tears, he glances up at J in the dark. "You saved my life."

[beklemmt]

Though it's been months now since he died, unsure if S still lived, J is shaken by it all anew, overwhelmed by how nearly he killed S after all. He only just made it, sped through the snow as fast as he dared with minutes to spare, and it's terrifying and a relief all at once, months late. What S says, though, throws him all the more, and he shakes his head quickly. "No, no," he says, because S is wrong this time. "I almost killed you."

He's much more alert suddenly, the product of all this adrenaline spiking, his heart beating too fast. He does his best to ignore it, more focused on the way S has started to shrink in on himself, and how J can hear the tears he can't quite see. "Hyunie, darling," he murmurs, urgent, unfurling himself just enough to reach up, to touch S's cheek in turn. "Ah, it was so close." He almost says he's glad he drove so quickly, but he bites it back, knowing that's a sore subject. He is, though, relieved he had the presence of mind to get them there in one piece as quickly as he did, if nothing else. S is safe now, even if he is crying, and that's all that matters.

The crying is concerning, though. J didn't anticipate that there would be crying. Granted, he didn't think he'd have to talk about this at any point, and he certainly didn't mean to do so right now, but he hadn't thought it would get to S like this. He's mostly certain it's a good kind of crying, based on what he can make out of S's expression and what he's said, but it's hard to be entirely sure of much of anything. "Really, though, it's not — I tried to kill you. It's not the same." It's astonishing how much easier that is to say when he's too worried about S to think about how horrible it is. "Are you okay?"

[hismelody]

Shaken as he is, the last thing S wants is to worry J now. He nods quickly, not sure how visible it will be but figuring that J at least will feel it, his hand leaving his mouth so he can curl it gently around J's wrist instead. He didn't want to do this — he wouldn't have, if he could have seen this coming at all — but having started, he's not sure he can stop, at least not yet, and even as his physical instinct is to curl in on himself, he wants any contact he can get, too. Thinking about this — he's had plenty of time with the attempted murder, with his own near-death. He never would have guessed, though, that it was J who brought him to safety, and between being emotional about that and retroactively unsettled by how close he came to never finding that out, it's hard to pull himself together. There is, at least, a little comfort in not falling apart completely, but the tears keep coming, no matter how much he wishes they wouldn't.

"I'm okay," he replies, still unsteady but earnest. He's alive, he's healed, he's with the man he loves, both of them here and back together. It's just that any one or all of those things could so easily not have been true. For a time, it was far more likely, a given, really, that he would never find out any more about what happened that night, and the truth of it touches him far more differently than he would have anticipated. Whatever unknowns he knew there were, he hardly expected any revelations this significant.

J is wrong, too. S is sure of that; he just has to find the words to convey as much, struggling for a moment, both to get a deep enough breath and to figure out where to start. "I'm okay," he says again instead, buying a little more time. "I am. I just..." He does tense now, tightly contained even as he longs to keep J close. "I didn't know. That it was you. I just figured... I was left somewhere and someone found me, or something." Sniffling again, he pulls a face, nose wrinkling. "I didn't even know if you knew... I was alive or not. If you meant for me to be, or..." All this time, he's wondered. He knew what spared him, what held J back, but he had no way of knowing whether or not that was conscious or intentional or not, if J meant to leave him alive or believed he was dead. Never, though, did he consider this possibility, that J not only knew but actively tried to save him, despite the consequences it could have had for him. In that sense, J is right after all. It's not the same. It's so much more meaningful. J tried to kill him, yes, but that only makes his change of heart and the lengths he went to all the more significant. "And I never would have known."

That might be the worst part, the most painful. That, and the way J is so quick to deny what good he might have done. As predictable as that much is, S still hates it, even more than he hates not knowing how to convince him otherwise. "I wouldn't be here," he finally murmurs, ducking his head, "if it weren't for you. If you hadn't changed your mind. Tried, even when you thought you might have been too late." His voice wavers more considerably now, teeth pressing hard to his lip for a moment in a useless attempt to hold back a tiny sob that escapes him anyway. "Risked yourself for me."

[beklemmt]

The thing is, to J, it was so utterly self-evident that he would do so that he forgot all the reasons that just isn't the case until now. It would have been easier, perhaps, in terms of the consequences, at least legally, but he can't even think past that to consider what he would have done differently. He can't stomach imagining how he would have proceeded from there.

He hardly knows where to go from here, for that matter, how to respond when S is clearly overwhelmed by this revelation. His thumb strokes over S's cheek, his heart aching, free arm moving to wrap around S. They're all tangled up, a messy little ball on their bed, scattered limbs pressed close, and it is, J is pretty sure, the only way he can feel safe right now. "Not much of a risk," he says hoarsely. "I wasn't — I didn't think it through, it wasn't some grand plan to save your life. I snapped and then when I came to my senses —" He shudders and swallows hard, trying to push through the horror of it, the queasy feeling that comes with remembering that night, always far too vivid and too hazy all at once.

"I thought I killed you," he admits, voice dropping, low and rough. "And then when I thought maybe, maybe, I hadn't — I didn't sit and think if it was a risk or if I was making a choice. You make it sound... heroic, Sihyun-ah. I was scared and I did the only thing I could think of, that's all." He doesn't deserve credit or tears. S is the one who has stayed, not knowing whether or not the man he loves let him live by accident. He's braver and better and more loyal by far than J has ever been. If S had lived and J had been caught for making it happen, no matter how much he sought to avoid that, it would have been worth it.

[hismelody]

It's funny, really, or it might be with a different subject at hand, or if he were less emotional or more awake. They're so much alike in so many ways, the two of them, and yet there are times it seems like they approach things from exactly the opposite directions. J talks about it like what he did was nothing, insignificant, and yet the reasons he gives just make it, to S, mean all the more. Whether J thinks it was one or not, it was still a choice. If it didn't feel like one, if it was all he could think to do, as far as S is concerned, that only speaks to who he still is and always has been deep down. S knew — not all along, but after he got and read J's journal — that J loved him still, that he felt guilty about what happened, but he made the harder decision without seeming to think it was one. It would have been easier, S is sure, to leave him for dead, even to do so while hoping for the best, and less dangerous, too. He knows, of course, that he has a tendency to think the best of J while J has a tendency to think the worst of himself, but he's not actually sure it's ever been a disparity this vast, or something that seems to him so completely ridiculous to try to diminish.

"The fact that that was your instinct..." he starts, trailing off with another shake of his head. Trying to maintain some sense of calm is becoming increasingly difficult, but he tries, focusing on the way he and J are all entangled now. It should be awkward, and it is, a bit, but there's comfort in that, too. They always were inextricably bound together, from the very start. To be intertwined like this, limbs crossing each other's, both trying to hold on and to reassure, is as grounding as anything could be right now, when he feels so terribly shaken. This is, he thinks, a good thing, but it's still a massive shift, bound to make him feel unsteady, too emotional to act like he isn't.

Breath shaky, he lets out a heavy exhale, not really wanting to say this but not knowing how to make his point without being blunt about it. "I could have turned you in," he points out, looking away again as he does. "I didn't — I wouldn't have, if you hadn't already been... But I could have." Close as they already are, it takes everything in him not to start clinging to J outright, as if he's the one who needs to be assured now that he's alive. That they both are. "If getting me to safety was the only thing you could think to do, I think that says a lot." And he had no idea. All these months and he never had a clue. Somehow, though he's not sure why, he feels a bit guilty for that.