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]

Even now, it's hard to hear — not just to think back to that night and how he almost died, how he was almost killed by the man he loves, but to know the effect it had on J. Some of it, he could see in J's words and the way he wrote, however vaguely, about what happened. He's known it since then, too, with the undeniable toll it's taken whenever they've so much as danced around the subject. This, though, is the most either of them has said about it by far, and it hurts terribly, even as there's an odd sort of reassurance in some of it, too. S wouldn't be here, sharing his life and apartment and bed with J, if he thought that he had any reason to worry or that J could do something of the sort without caring, but that doesn't mean part of him isn't soothed by hearing it for sure. Mostly, though, it just hurts. This development may have left him reeling, still hard to process when he had assumed something so different, but he knows now without a doubt that he wouldn't be alive if it weren't for J. His life wouldn't have been in need of saving, either, but it's everything that happened after that feels far more important to him, more representative of the man he loves than a spell of madness spurred on by someone with their own reasons to want him gone.

In the end, wherever he was left, however close a call it might have been, J chose to get him to safety rather than to protect his own. S doesn't understand how he can't see how moving that is, even if he's not altogether surprised by that fact.

"Right or not," he replies slowly, almost to himself, "I couldn't have lived with it, if I did that." Given everything at hand and how overwhelmed he is, some part of him gets stuck on that even now, a hypothetical he can't play out. He knows, though, that he could never have brought himself to do it, already having decided what story he was going to tell before he found out that J was already gone and there was no one to protect. It's fucked up, probably, and definitely pathetic, but he can't bring himself to regret it with the way things have turned out since then. Looking up again, he shrugs without pulling away. "Even then, I just... loved you. I didn't know yet. That there were others. Why it happened. I remember —"

He should stop. Some part of him is aware of it, that if they go down this road, they'll say things they can't take back and only get themselves more upset, but now that they've started, it's hard to hold it in. Maybe he'll never get J to see it the way he does. Maybe it's even for the best that he doesn't. But he still wants J to know that he does, and why he does.

"I thought you killed me, too," he says, softer still, as small as he can make himself. "I was dying. And I knew I was dying. And all I could think was — 'He must hate me even more than I thought he did.' I thought that was why..." Twisting a bit, he swipes at his other cheek with one hand, though it does little good when the tears don't stop coming. "But you tried to save me, too. You did save me. There's nothing only about that. Just because I was... hurt by you... It doesn't make what happened after mean less. If anything, it means more that you did that for me anyway."

[beklemmt]

He was so sure he was doing better. And J knows, distantly, that he really is. He's felt a lot safer and steadier and happier since he came here. The darker days have been easier to bear now that he doesn't have to try and pretend them away, even if they're always hard. They still happen and he's not sure they'll ever stop, but he knows now that he can survive them. That he doesn't have to do so alone.

But he hadn't quite realized how a big part of that was him trying to bury all of this as deeply as he could, refusing to pull out these memories to look at. He couldn't escape them. They still came to him in his sleep, flickered through his thoughts more than is comfortable, but he's been able to avoid dwelling on it or discussing it for the most part. And now that he's talking about, it's clear to him why he's done so — it fucking hurts. Even now, S is so loving, so gentle. Even saying that J hated him, he's kind. He didn't deserve any of what J did to him.

But he still gives J his love, still stays, the pair of them tangled together forever, and the least he can do, J tells himself, is to try to listen. He hasn't heard this before. He hadn't wanted to. But he's wanted S to be open with him, and, on that level, it's strangely nice, no matter how badly it stings. He doesn't want to think about the others, the one S found out about later. Right now, he can only focus on S and on trying not to cry too hard.

"I love you," he says, voice breaking, the only explanation he has. "Maybe I did hate you, but that was because I loved you too." He was furious in that moment, he remembers that much, though that night is strange in his memory, bursts of unflinching clarity jutting out of the panicked haze. "I was so angry and... sad, and I missed you, and I hated that I missed you, and..." He sighs, shaking his head slightly, forcing himself to take a deep breath. There was a lot more to it than that, but all of that played a big part. Had he held his ground, listened to his better self, he would have let S go instead of snapping like he did. He tried. No self-control, no strength. But S sees love in his actions, and J can admit that's what propelled him. It isn't as if he thought getting S to the hospital would do anything to even the moral scales of his misdeeds. He just prayed he could spare the man he loves.

Brow furrowing, he leans into S, head on his shoulder. He's a little dizzy, but it helps to rest against S like this, looking up at S without having to lift his head. Though it's still hard to look at what he did in any kind of a positive light, he tries to understand what S is saying. He did live, after all. And if J hadn't sped through the snow, he wouldn't have. How they got to that point matters, and he thinks S is dismissing it a bit too much, but had the precipitating events been different, he knows, he would see the results differently too. His hand falls to rest at S's other shoulder, fingers curling in his shirt. "I saved you?" For a long time now, he's been incredibly cautious, trying hard to be good, to be steady and restrained, sure that he's not capable of much more than destruction and pain. To think of any of what he did in the months before he came here in a positive light is difficult when he didn't think that he could do good things then. It's a touch disorienting to try and wrap his head around now. "Did I?"

[hismelody]

This hurts, too, the softness and uncertainty in J's voice, the way it breaks with his tears. It's hardly the first time they've wound up crying over their past, and S suspects it won't be the last. With this, though, it feels different somehow, a subject they've both done their best to avoid coming to light at last, and bizarrely comforting revelations along with it. Before, he'd convinced himself that it didn't really matter how he lived, because he did, and it was almost a punishment to have to do so — his whole family dead, J dead, too, himself the only one of J's victims who lived. Any one of those alone would have been a heavy burden to carry, but all of them together was awful, the loneliness so terribly oppressive. S isn't sure he realized the extent of it until he didn't have to be lonely anymore, and even then, he tried not to dwell on it too much. He's done his best to be open with J, but there hasn't seemed to be any point in talking about it. Although he never felt as low as J did, never considered ending his own life, there was a time when he couldn't help wishing that he hadn't survived, half-convinced that it might have been better, easier, that way.

He didn't know then, though, that it was J who kept him alive when he shouldn't have been, or even that J knew he lived at all. Hearing J's question now, he's relieved instead for the answer he can give, though relief isn't enough to stop his crying. A soft sound in his throat, he nods, wide-eyed, leaning against J in turn. "Yeah," he murmurs, his own voice breaking in turn. "You did." His hand finds J's as he speaks, the one resting on his shoulder, and gently he guides it lower, down to his heart and the scars left behind by J's knife, wanting J to feel his heartbeat. He hasn't, since that first day, taken off his shirt in front of J, and he has no intention of doing so now or maybe ever, but this seems like proof of a sort — that he almost died but recovered, and he wouldn't have done so if not for J. As long as S has known him, he's been brave in ways that are awe-inspiring. Still he thinks none compare to this, driving through the snow to save the life of someone he tried to kill. It didn't matter to S before how he lived, but it does now. He almost died because of J, yes, but he's alive now because of him, too, and that's fucking incredible. "You saved me." Though he tries to hold it back, another little sob escapes him. "I didn't know. I had no idea that it was you."

That in itself still feels horrible. He knows now, but he so nearly didn't. If not for this place, he would have lived the rest of his life, however long it might have been, not knowing. Even here, it might never have come up if not for J dreaming about that night, and S can't exactly be appreciative of anything that would wake his boyfriend in such a panic. Still, now that he does know, he wouldn't have wanted not to, and only in part because he hopes it might do J some good to hear this and to know how he feels about it. "But I lived because of you. Because you didn't have to stop and think about it and decide, you just... did it." A few minutes later and he would have been dead. That much isn't just his opinion, it's a fact. Had J not done what he did when he did, it would have ended a different way. Believing that J hated him would have been the last thought S ever had. The very notion of that brings on a fresh burst of tears, though it makes little difference at this point. "You kept me alive."

[beklemmt]

J's hand shakes a little under S's, pressed warm between S's palm and his chest. The fabric is thin enough that he can feel precisely what he thinks S wanted him to, the way his pulse races, heart beating strong and sure. He is, in spite of J and because of him, alive, and J can't help himself, starting to cry again. In the few times he's allowed himself to dwell on what happened, most of them in the days after, he saw it as just another desperate bid to fix the unfixable, a flailing attempt to undo the damage he'd caused. The only right, reasonable thing he could possibly do, despite the long stream of wrong and irrational behavior that made up his last months in Seoul. He snapped and passion and emotion overcame him, but he did his best to try and do what he could for S. Even knowing S lived, it's felt like such a small thing, a tiny miserable effort in the face of terrible odds and trouble he caused.

He keeps his palm pressed to S's chest, taking some comfort in that steady beat, even as he stifles a sob against S's shoulder, a strange surge of relief flooding him. "I would've said something," he said, "but I thought — it was my fault, so I didn't think — it just evened out. Not even that, I tried, but it didn't seem like enough, and that night was so horrible." He winces. "Worse for you, I know. I just... I had to try." He sniffles, swallowing hard, trying to regain a little calm. In spite of the rush of emotions, there's some odd comfort in it. "You saved me too. When I came here."

He still does, if J is honest. Just because things have gotten much, much better since he arrived doesn't mean that he doesn't have dark and difficult days, times when he frets over how the world might yet be better off without him. S is the one who keeps him going, who talks him down — or up, really, as the case may be. There's some satisfaction in the realization that he might have done the same for S in any way.

[hismelody]

Tenuous — nonexistent, really — as his composure has already been, S can't maintain whatever remains of it when he hears J sob against his shoulder. Although he hasn't been able to keep from crying, he's been attempting, so far, to be as quiet as he can about it. Now, though, there's no suppressing it, nor is there any way of stopping himself from clinging to J, his other arm wrapped around him, holding him close as if he needs to be saved again now, as if he's drowning and J is all that's keeping him afloat. With as confusing and overwhelming as everything is, it feels a little like that's the case. New and unexpected as this information is, he's still reeling, aware of the truth of it but struggling to take it in. The same is true of what J says now, in a way. That much, at least, on some level, S knew. He remembers how terrified he was that first day J was here, how certain that he was about to lose him all over again. He knows he must have had a hand in talking him off that ledge, so to speak. Having it phrased like that, though, is frightening and relieving all at once, reassurance that he was able to do some good and yet emphasizing just how dire it was.

"I love you," he says again, mumbled into J's hair. It is, always, the truest and most important thing he knows, an innate, unshakeable part of himself. That would still be so even if J hadn't been the one to save him — even if J had believed him dead after all — but now that he knows the truth, there's something oddly fitting about the fact that neither of them would be here if not for the other. These past few months especially, he's had a lot of overly romantic ideas of the two of them genuinely being meant to be, fated to be with each other somehow, but he's not so sure there's nothing to that. They're just right, in every possible way, even when things have, on occasion, gone horrifically wrong. "It was enough."

He only wishes he could have done the same in turn, saved J before this place. S can't let himself think about that now, though, or about how he wishes, too, that he could have told J then that he'd lived. Even if he had been able to do either, they would never have stood a chance back there. Winding up here was, in so many ways, their best chance at being together, both of them alive now and safe, the two of them the only ones who know about J's crimes, a freedom afforded to them here that he never expected to get. "And I'm so glad," he adds instead, softer now, so deeply tender, "that I found you here. That... that we could save each other."

[beklemmt]

J stifles another small sob against S's shoulder, clinging tight to him. Though the reason now is much, much better than when he first woke, crying is still crying, exhausting and embarrassing and a little bit painful and a lot stressful. He wants very much for it to stop, but when S says things like that in that gentle, loving way of his, J can't help it. He's already so tired and emotional, and he loves S so much, and he wishes he could say something beautiful or profound that would answer what S has just said or even sound vaguely coherent. Instead all he has are little hiccuping whimpers muffled into fabric as he wriggles closer. Part of him wishes he had the energy and focus to shift around so he could sit in S's lap properly, making it easier to hug him and to be held, but he just doesn't.

"Why are you so fucking romantic?" he mumbles instead, tipping his head back to press a kiss to S's jaw, a little bit petulant. He knows that S wants him to be nicer to himself, and it isn't as if he hasn't tried. There are things he can see that he does to and thinks about himself that aren't fair, even outright cruel, often irrational, and he tries to curb those where he can. But a lot of the time, he's looked at it very differently from his boyfriend; he can try and do better in this life than he did in the last one, but he doesn't deserve mercy or compassion for what he did and how he suffered as a result. With the way S puts it, at least for a little while, J feels like S has taken away one more thing to hate about himself, and it's just further proof that S is the best boyfriend he could possibly have ever gotten, but it's also weird in a slightly hollow way, a small chunk of his self-knowledge chipped out as he tries to fashion a new understanding to put in its place.

It's not going to happen all at once. He has trouble wrapping his head around the idea of it. But now that the possibility is there, J wants desperately for it to be true, to be able to believe he really did a good thing. "I might need to hear that one again," he says, swallowing against the hoarseness in his throat now. "A few times. Before it makes sense. But I..." He sniffles again, taking a moment to hide his eyes against S's shoulder before he glances up. "I'm glad too." He wouldn't be here still if it weren't for S, he knows that, not just speculation but almost absolute fact. Nothing is set in stone, true, but he has trouble imagining any future for him on his own, any version where he lived without S here to help him regain his stability and his will to keep going.

[hismelody]

At J's question, S lets out a short, surprised laugh, choked with tears and still so fond. "I guess you bring out the romantic in me," he says, holding J as close as he can. The angle is a bit awkward, the two of them all twisted up as they are, but he hardly cares. It's comfortable anyway just to be here, his boyfriend in his arms, both of them alive. He so easily could have not been. J wasn't. S has thought it before, that it's a miracle they found their way to each other across space and time and life and death, but he's all the more aware of it now, in light of this revelation. The only reason he's alive is because J brought him to safety, risking his own in the process. If what J said is true — well, S hesitates to give himself that much credit, but he knows he must have played some part in helping J find a way to stay alive. Neither of them would be here if not for the other, the two of them defying all possible odds to wind up together. Of course that makes him feel fucking romantic. He had, he thinks, a good example of a relationship to look to when he was young, his parents still so in love with each other, but what he and J have is something all its own, a kind of love he wouldn't have thought would be possible in real life.

"And I'll tell you," he adds, sniffling. "As often as you need to hear it, I'll tell you." It's not something he could lose sight of now if he tried. For all those months, the time between J's trying to kill him and his waking up in the hospital, disoriented and in pain and alone, has been a blank. What happened in between, he could only guess, piecing together the barest outline of events from what the doctors told him — that someone dropped him off outside barely alive, that he almost didn't survive surgery, what the extent of the damage done was. The last part, much like he doesn't intend to let J see the scars on his chest again, he has no interest in ever telling J about. All J needs to know is that he lived when he came so close to dying, that the attempt to get him to safety worked, and if he needs to be reminded of that, then S will keep reminding him.

Taking as deep a breath as he can, he shakes his head, still stunned. "I didn't know," he murmurs again, more to himself than to J, only half-aware of doing so. Somewhere in the back of his head, he still feels like he shouldn't talk about this at all. It's the most they've ever done so, though, and now that they've started, it's harder to hold back, given how unlikely they are to bring this up again, at least for another long while. "I wish I'd known. The way you wrote about it... I knew about the before, but not the after."

[beklemmt]

J smiles a little, comforted by S's laugh. He considers briefly that it might be good to lay down again, then decides against it. Though he feels better now, he's scared of sleeping again so soon, and tired enough he might do so. Instead, he gathers the energy to draw back a bit. It takes some awkward scrambling to extricate himself from S's hold, and then to turn and settle himself properly over S's lap, legs draped over his, arms wrapped around S's waist. It's better, he thinks, more comfortable. But it also gives him a moment before he replies.

There's a lot he shut out. He never forgot, never could, but he makes himself ignore it. With practice, he's reached a point where much of it slips his mind for days, even weeks on end, only showing up in quick flashes. That whole week after he tried to kill S — after he took him to the hospital, he adds for himself, silently stern — it was unbearable. It's not something he wants to look back on.

For S, though, he can do anything. He can, at least, try. "I know," he says finally, more serious again, nodding slightly. "I just... I didn't know how to write about it. I forgot to write much at all. Couldn't think. Or stop thinking." He worries at his lower lip, cautiously allowing himself to prod at the old wound, testing out those memories. "I think I was worried someone might read it. Or that, if I wrote it down, it would tempt fate, and you wouldn't make it. I know that's stupid, but..." He wrinkles up his nose, leaning his head against S's shoulder again. "I was a bit less than rational at the time, you may have noticed."

[hismelody]

When J shifts, so does S, moving carefully around and with his boyfriend. Instinctively, really. His eyes have adjusted to the dark about as much as is possible, but that's still only so much, and his vision is blurry with tears. He can feel it, though, and settles in turn, arms around J as well. He should probably turn on a light, either that or convince J to go back to sleep. There are a lot of things, actually, that he should do, like check the time and call work to leave a message saying he won't be in, or get up for water or tea and maybe a painkiller, his head spinning. Right now, he doesn't want to do any of them. Here in the dark, with J warm in his lap, it feels like the rest of the world doesn't exist, like it's just the two of them here, separate from everything else. Somehow, though he can't speak for J, it feels easier to say these things like this, like it's safer to do so largely unseen. These truths will never leave their home anyway, but the dark still seems to act like a shield of some kind, keeping everything contained for them.

At least what he's said doesn't seem to have gone over poorly, a ghost of a smile curving his mouth as he presses a kiss to J's hair again, staying close, breathing him in. "No, really?" he replies, ever so gently teasing, a tender acknowledgment that he knows J is right — that saying he was a bit less than rational is an understatement, really — without, hopefully, making the mood any more grim than it already is. He's deeply aware of how often J has thought that he makes light of too much, but he's also pretty sure that this could easily be too oppressive if he doesn't try to counter it just a little.

Besides, he needs a moment to figure out how to respond, his thoughts fuzzy at best, the rest of J's words taking a moment longer to parse. Someone did read it, he wants to say, because he did, but that still doesn't make sense. Writing about trying to save him shouldn't have been the part of what happened that night to try to hide. Writing about trying to kill him — about intending to try to kill him, for that matter, and the plan and the reasons behind it — should have been worse by far. Unless, he realizes, J didn't want someone to know he lived.

S was already fairly certain that the professor hadn't known he lived. The day he arrived here confirmed it. Hearing J put it like that, though — and S isn't even sure he realizes what he's saying, or what it means — makes him feel a little sick again, his smile fading and his hold on J tightening just a bit, keeping him secure in his arms as if trying to protect him even now. "You didn't want him to know, did you?" he nearly whispers, not entirely aware of what he's saying or of the small voice in the back of his head saying he shouldn't. Tired and emotional and overwhelmed as he is, it's hard to summon up that kind of logic. "That you couldn't kill me. That you tried to get me help instead of finishing it."

[beklemmt]

It takes J's thoughts several seconds to catch up with his instincts, body tensing slightly as S holds him tighter. Because S is tense, he thinks, because the way S speaks now is worrisome, like they're trying to hide a secret even in the dark.

Because he knows who S means without having to ask, and that makes something twist in J's stomach, unnerved.

Which is ridiculous. There are only so many people who might have had cause or desire to enter his rooms. Of course it's easy to figure out who S means. He never much liked the professor, which used to frustrate J to no end, but it's been so unimportant for so long. He's pushed all of that aside as much as he can; here, in Darrow, safe and alive and no longer pursuing music — however much that thought makes his heart ache even now — there's no need to think of his old mentor. There's no need to discuss him either.

He tries not to squirm, unsure if he wants to pull away or get closer. "I didn't want anyone to," he says. "If someone found out, they could have found you and hounded you with questions about me." He clenches his jaw, annoyed, though with himself now. It sounds plausible even to him. He might have thought it in passing at the time, for that matter. But it isn't quite the truth either, and he has tried so fucking hard to be honest. Things get left out, because some things don't need to be talked about, details they don't need to go over because they wouldn't help any. But the big things and his little thoughts, the things that upset him day to day, the things that haunt him, he tries. Because he remembers how he went from trying to keep a few things quiet to shutting S out entirely so quickly he hardly knew he was doing it and never knew how to stop. It's not a mistake he intends to make again. So, though there are times where it's hard to do, he tries his best to be honest — more than honest, open. And this doesn't quite fulfill that goal.

He lets out a tiny, stifled sigh. "He would have been mad," he mutters. "Don't you want it? Does the music mean nothing to you? You came all this way to give up like this?" He hardly notices the bitterness and hurt that creep into his voice. It's frightening, really, how easily he can call these things to mind, how readily he slips back into the self-recrimination and knows precisely what the professor would have said, the insults he would have hurled, because they were the same things some small cruel unshakeable voice at the back of J's own mind hissed. "I was already afraid because of what I'd done. I didn't want to be told I was a disappointment again. I already knew that."

[hismelody]

It isn't until J responds that S realizes this is the first time they've spoken about him. He's come close a few times — wanted to tell J the day he showed up here that it wasn't his fault, very nearly blurted it out the day they stumbled upon that Pride celebration, overwhelmed in large part because of the lengths he had to go to just to try to keep them safe before. Every time, though, he's talked himself out of it. Just because he can be honest with J without fear of retribution now doesn't make it any easier to breach that subject at last, when he knows there's no way it will go over well. Even before everything fell apart between them, it was an occasional source of friction, J's seeming idolization at odds with the distrust and bitterness that S couldn't give a reason for.

He senses it now, his mind catching up to his mouth a moment too late. It's happened, though, that wall broken down, or at least chipped away at, and along with the predictable, uneasy feeling of dread that starts to overtake him, there's a more unexpected sort of heartache. He knew it was bad. He read about those same things in J's own journal, though he's not sure J was ever wholly conscious of how fucked up what he was writing was, largely because of the reason he's just given. When he felt that way about himself, of course it would be harder to recognize that those same insults shouldn't have been coming from an outside source, a supposed mentor. Hearing J say it, though, and especially in a context like this, just makes him sad.

S knows now, without a doubt, that he should have just told J the truth back then. They both would have suffered for it, but it would have been better than the alternative. He's been the one to say, though, repeatedly, that they can't change the past, that there's no sense in getting hung up on wishing they'd done things differently when they don't know how it all would have played out. All they can do is try to take another course this time. He means to, but that doesn't make it easier to do so, wanting to tread so carefully and still already feeling that same familiar frustration where the professor is concerned, having to swallow back his instinctive response. Asking J if he even hears himself would definitely not be helpful, even with J having just said himself that his thinking wasn't exactly rational at the time.

"You shouldn't have been a disappointment for not killing someone," he points out, his voice still quiet and as steady, as even, as he can make it. With as well as J knows him, S suspects already that he'll be able to guess how deliberate that is — to hear the caution there, the care — but it's better than the alternative. The last thing he wants is to fight at a time like this. It hurts too much to think about J alone with that man for so long, anyway, an unmistakable tenderness in the way he sounds even now, sad and almost pleading. "He shouldn't have been mad at you for that. You... You're shorter than I am and skinnier, and you still managed to get me into your car so you could drive me to the hospital, in a snowstorm, in time to save my life. I don't think there's any world in which that would be giving up."

Besides, even without having finished the job, J still got a movement out of it, one of his very finest pieces. S can't quite bring himself to say that, either. This is already going to be fraught enough as it is, and when he's not exactly in the clearest frame of mind, he doesn't want to bite off more than he can chew at once.

[beklemmt]

J makes a small sound of protest, more petulant than indignant. "Not that much shorter," he says, because it's the one thing that comes easily. He could point out, too, that it wasn't quite a storm, but it was a lot of snow and he would have been more cautious if he hadn't been so scared. But most of the things he could say are hard to wrap his head around, a tense frustration twisting in his chest. He can hear S being careful, and he knows that what S says isn't wrong exactly. That's the problem. S is right, he knows that, and still part of him pushes up against it, stubborn and defiant, and he doesn't know what to do with it.

"Maybe he wouldn't have been," he sighs after a moment. "I don't know. I was paranoid, not thinking clearly." That, again, doesn't feel right. J isn't sure if it's a lie or not, but it doesn't quite right true to him either. He doesn't like that, this feeling of fumbling for the truth in the dark, trying to piece together his memories. There's a lot he did back then that was all mixed up, and making sense of it after the fact is difficult. "Besides, he — he helped me. If I'd been caught, he could have been arrested. Of course he wouldn't want me to let anyone go. And if he read that, if he knew it was you, he could have found you and —" It's deeply uncomfortable, something drawing him short of finishing that thought. He feels a little sick suddenly. "Threatened you somehow."

He sighs, shoulders slumping as he leans into S, exhausted all at once or reminded of how tired he already was. "That whole week — you don't know what it was like. I was out of my mind, Sihyun-ah. I couldn't write a note." Too late, he realizes what he's said these last couple minutes, the topic he's brought up that he can no longer avoid. Lately he's found himself thinking about it more, restless and sad, missing how it used to feel to make music, back when that was something he could do, something he loved. It's not something he can change, though, so he tries to push it back, not to talk about it unless he has to, and now this... He can never write again. He can't play again. It's too dangerous. "I wasn't thinking right."

[hismelody]

With the way J sounds now, S physically has to bite his tongue to hold back a slew of instinctive responses, and still that likely wouldn't be enough on its own. More effective is the way J leans into him, just heightening the sense S has of how fucking sad this is. He knew that, of course. He grieved for months. But that grief also lived alongside fury and a sheer stubborn persistence to get whatever justice was left, and that made it bearable. Reading about what happened wasn't quite as bad as hearing about it from J, each pause and choice of words feeling particularly weighted. S doesn't actually know if it is or if it's in his head, if he's just primed to read too far into all of this, but it's devastating all the same to hear J frame it this way, saying that he wasn't thinking right, that the professor helped him, when the professor is the one who encouraged him to kill others and then to kill himself. Maybe it served as inspiration for a time, but it did far more harm than good in the process, not even just to J's victims but to J himself.

Sighing, S combs his fingers absently through J's hair, mindlessly seeking out whatever contact, whatever affection, he can. Whatever happens now, he has to believe that they'll be fine. They've weathered the worst of it already. These are horrible, painful details, but they've addressed the way things fell apart before and the fact that J tried to kill him, and if they can get past the latter, they can get through anything. S just has to keep telling himself that, less convinced than he usually is, if only because of all he's been holding back.

"Maybe not," he allows, still careful, still quiet. "But I read what it was like. What he was like. I don't think you're wrong, that he would have." S is certain of it, in fact, for more reasons than just the ones that have been given, though he doesn't think J is wrong about that either, necessarily. "He helped you? Jae-eun-ah..." He trails off with a frown and another heavy breath. In a strange way, S knows he has to take the opportunity that's been presented to him, to use J's own words to try to illuminate the truth of what happened. If nothing else, it would feel too dishonest to back away now, and it would make him sick to hear J say such things and not offer very simple refutations. With as restrained as he's trying to be, his temper kept in check, at least for the moment, there's only so much he can manage not to say. "It was his idea. He told you to do it. The first time, and after... and then he told you to kill me."

The professor may not have given a name, but the way J conveyed it, it was clear enough who he meant, and S doesn't doubt the accuracy of that. He knew, after all, what the two of them were to each other. He knew S was the only person with the significance to J that he was describing. He had his own reasons for wanting to get S out of the way, too, and S almost says so, but he gets stuck instead on another thing J has said, his stomach twisting as it occurs to him what else he has to add, his voice that much smaller when he continues. "And he was arrested anyway. The day I got here."

[beklemmt]

J is already wrestling with his instinctive response to what S has said when he drops that particular bombshell. It's almost a relief to have such a distraction to turn him away from the horror of not quite knowing what he thinks.

"For what?" he asks, bewildered, though he's the one who just said it was a possibility. He'd assumed, though, that any harm to the professor would come only if J himself were caught and the truth pulled from him. With his own death, he expected that such danger would have passed. Confused and, a little bit, indignant though he is, he doesn't draw away, clutching with one hand at S's shirt for stability, for comfort.

"That doesn't make sense." He knows it has to be true. It's not the kind of thing S would make up, and they've both been truthful with each other since they got back together. J is sure of that, that S has put in every bit as much effort as he has to be open and honest, their best hope of avoiding the mistakes J made before. "He didn't tell me to do anything." He clenches his jaw briefly, hating that he has to amend that statement right away. "I'm an adult. I made my choices. I didn't just take directions. How could he have told me to kill you? He didn't even know I tried."

There it is, the thing that made him uneasy before S mentioned the arrest, the thing that was needling at him as not quite right. He stills again, brow furrowing, gaze darting away in confusion. The professor didn't know. He's sure of it. It isn't as if he gave J a name and expected him to scamper off and do as he was told; he suggested a type of person, not a specific individual. And, granted, J had only so many connections, hardly anyone he was close to, but, though he hardly confided in the professor about his relationships, it wasn't as if he'd managed to obscure that he and S were no longer close. It wouldn't make sense for him to have specifically meant S. And yet something drifts through J's mind, not quite there, something that feels wrong. That final night, that final talk, those last words he'd spit so precisely at J as he left — they'd churned through J and then burned away, but he feels an awareness of them now.

"He must have looked at it," he murmurs. It's the only reasonable explanation. "When he came to see me that day, before I realized he was there. He must have seen my diary after all."

[hismelody]

For a moment, S hates that he immediately feels relieved. It doesn't counter the uneasy feeling that's washed over him, a thick, lingering cloud, or the knowledge that this is likely to get worse before it gets better. As good as the last few months have been, though, and for all that he really doesn't hold the way things were before against J — wouldn't be here otherwise, and knows at least a significant portion of that blame belongs with him, too — with a subject like this at hand, it's hard not to brace himself for the worst. J always seemed so frustrated by his dislike of the professor, which just frustrated S in turn, wanting so desperately to tell J the truth of why, backed into an impossible corner. No matter what choice he made, it would have turned out badly. He still, now, on this side of things, wishes he'd made a different one, but he either had to be vague and quiet and watch J hero-worship the man who was blackmailing him, or he had to tell J the truth and risk both of their futures. His own, he didn't care as much about, but J was so much more ambitious, and as a result, likelier — in S's mind — to choose music over him, which happened anyway, or regret and resent him for being a danger to his career.

His head is a fucking mess, and half-expecting anger rather than confusion, getting the latter instead feels like letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. It doesn't fix anything or change how difficult the rest of this will be, though it does distract him a bit, some of J's words barely registering, but it's a good start, quietly promising. J is still here with him, still in his arms, safe and warm and alive. They both must look absolutely wrecked, but under the circumstances, that hardly seems unwarranted. It helps to hold J close while he says these things. It helps, too, to be in the dark, any scrutiny at least feeling less immediate.

"For what?" he echoes, brow raising and skepticism in his voice, though there's something pained, too. He knew, of course, that J didn't see it, his writing making that much clear, but knowing just how thoroughly manipulated J was remains heartbreaking. "You just said it. He helped you." It's too imprecise. These details aren't necessarily ones he wanted to get into, but there are only so many ways he can talk around murder. Swallowing hard, he takes a breath, steeling himself, his fingers still gentle in J's hair. "There was evidence. One of the bodies... They figured out that he helped."

That's not all they had, though. S knows it, just as he's known since that first day that he would have to tell J this eventually. It isn't as if he meant to keep it a secret. And yet he feels as guilty now as if he had, though it isn't like J has ever broached this subject before, either. "And I went to the police," he adds, eyes closing, resolved and worried at once. "I said I could get him to acknowledge the rest. The part he played. I wore a wire and I went to see him. It worked."

He feels sick, suddenly terrified, struck with a fear that he'll lose J over this, that that monster will manage to come between them even from a world away. "He probably did read it," he adds, softer. "But you had to know he meant me. Who else?"

[beklemmt]

J nearly is angry. He feels it bubble up, the old habit of frustration, thoroughly mixed with fear. It's irrational, and he tells himself as much right away, but it's hard to contain the panic that surges up when S talks about the crimes he committed, the bodies, the police. For a few moments, with a sharp intake of breath, it's as if they might yet burst through the doors and arrest him, the possibility of it unnervingly and overwhelmingly present. There was a point when he might have resigned himself to that, but for the effect it would have on his mother, back when it was much more likely. Now, the idea of being torn from the life he's made is terrifying.

But confusion washes over him again, even as he grips S's shirt and waist a little more tightly, looking for comfort and explanation. Any protests he might make falter for a moment, mind spinning. It worked. It can't have worked if there was nothing to admit to. But there was, he reminds himself, of course there was. Like S said, the professor helped him dispose of a body — maybe more than one, the details blurred even then, lost now to time and self-preservation — and that in itself is a crime. His failure to turn J in was one as well. Still it seems hardly worthy of police pursuit when the professor didn't actually kill anyone himself.

"If he had," J says, a touch exasperated, "wouldn't he have just said so? And why? I'd barely spoken to you in so long." He doesn't know whether to be impressed by S's tenacity or annoyed that S would pursue this animosity even after J's death. Neither seem quite as important as the fact that something is still bothering him. He softens, reluctant, though his hold on S remains firm. "But he knew. When he talked to me before..."

He draws in a slow, careful breath. It's hard to talk about, hard even to think about. The word itself doesn't hold quite the same debilitating horror it did when the professor first uttered it, but he still doesn't like thinking about himself in this way. "Said I was a murderer," he says, quiet, shame flushing through him at the memory. How stupid he was, delusional and broken, thinking he'd done something with himself, that he'd at least made those lives into art. It shattered him. "I tried to say it wasn't true, but it was, and he —" None of this can help, he knows that. It only gives S more reason to hate the professor, because he's already inclined to do so. "He talked about... some of them. You. Not by name, but —" He shakes his head, quick, intent. "Aish, but he had no reason to want you dead. He was trying to motivate me. It was the only way I knew how to write anymore, he knew that."

[hismelody]

S scoffs. He can't hold it back now, all his energy going into trying to stay calm, not to let his own feelings about the professor rise to the surface, and trying to comfort his boyfriend at the same time. The latter, he can't be sure if he manages, though the way J clings to him, holding tighter rather than pulling away, is more reassuring than S would care to admit. The former is somewhat successful, but not entirely, the sound he makes, a quick little exhale, softened by J's proximity to him and all the crying he's done tonight, but still with a noticeable edge of disdain. None of it, though, is for J. It hurts to hear him say these things, to have him defending that man even now, whether or not he's aware that that's what he's doing, but S can't blame him for being drawn in when he didn't know the whole story, for falling exactly into the role he was meant to. The professor may have had no skill of his own in composing music anymore, and wasn't, in S's opinion, anything special in playing music, either. His real talent, S thinks, was with people, writing a symphony and assigning parts to unwitting participants, who followed along even without realizing they were doing so. Even with that awareness, S knows he played his, too.

He didn't know how bad it was, though. Had he known then, he might have approached it all differently. Told J the truth from the start, or come to him with it when J summoned him over that night. Having been so shut out, he just had no way of knowing the hold the professor had, or just how cruelly he was treating J. A world away, it makes him no less angry — at the professor, yes, but a little bit at himself, too, for always being too late.

That, at least, is a reason to keep going now. Besides, having gone this far, he doesn't think he could turn back, no matter how badly a part of him wants to lie back down and cuddle with his boyfriend until they both drift off to sleep. This isn't a journey he can make halfway. J deserves the truth, even if it's one that hurts. "He didn't care," he says, slow and quiet but with a bit of tension creeping into his voice, "about the murders. About those people. About you. The things he said when I went to see him — they were sick, abhorrent." J's earlier questions, S sets aside for now. He knows exactly why the professor would have wanted him dead; he just doesn't know how to say it after all this time. There's enough else, anyway, sweeping him up as he continues. He speaks no louder, and with no more frustration, but J knows him well enough, he thinks, that he'll probably hear what he's holding back anyway, that particular calmness that belies the anger underneath. "Even when he was trying to motivate you, he only cared about what he could get from it. Calling you that, talking about them... He wanted you to finish the piece and to do exactly what you did. To take yourself out of the picture."

[beklemmt]

J flinches, instinctively shaking his head. It isn't true. He knows that it can't be. Maybe part of it — the professor saw those people as tools, to some extent, less important than the role they played in J's work, but he cared about J. At least, he cared enough to put effort into him, to mentor him when no one else wanted to give him a chance. What S suggests fills J with a sick sense of dread, impossible to accept.

"No," he says quickly, quiet, a hint of plea in his voice that he doesn't quite register. "No, no, that doesn't make sense." The professor could be sharp, he knows, and cold, but he wasn't a monster or a mindreader. He couldn't have known J would do such a thing. Growing up, things such as that, suicide, that felt more taboo even than murder. A murder would make the news, but people deliberately looked away from a suicide. "I know you don't like him, but who would do something like that? He never said I — he didn't tell me to —"

Creeping toward those words, he can feel heat flare along his skin, a flush dancing up his neck, burning his cheeks. "To kill myself. No one would do that. I — he told me to finish it, that's all. I wasn't going to. He was mad about that, because I'd said I wouldn't, so he said I needed to finish it —" He remembers more, made hazy in self-defense, clear enough just to make his skin prickle. That isn't what it meant. "Why would you say that?"

[hismelody]

Somewhere, under everything, the anger and the worry and the deep sadness, S feels something like guilt, too. He shouldn't be saying these things, or he shouldn't be saying them like this, the way J sounds now making his chest ache. Despite how open he's been, though, he's held too much back for too long. This, he thinks, is one of the things that held him back before. Even if not for the threat hanging overhead, even if not for his fear that J would decide it wasn't worth the risk to his career to be with him after all, S could never quite stomach the thought of taking that connection away from J, knowing how much the professor meant to him. The connection already there, the attention he gave J that so many others never bothered to, even if it still hardly amounted to good teaching, S didn't want J to have to lose that. He didn't know then, though, how everything would wind up, the damage that would be done. He has to say it now. Like this is wrong, all wrong, and deep down, he knows it, but having started, it's too hard to contain entirely.

He does this. Means to say one thing and has it come out distorted, has good intentions that get skewed by delivery, one of the reasons their relationship fell apart before. This matter is one he should treat all the more delicately, and yet the way it hurts just makes him angrier, too, for how the professor used J without J even realizing it. J shouldn't have to be saying these things now. S shouldn't have to give the only response he knows, words tumbling out of him, calmness wearing thin.

"He did, though," he counters, soft and hoarse, a little grim. "Remember? He told you to finish it even at the cost of your life. He said it. You wrote it." And then he did it. In the back of his head, S wonders briefly if this is the first time one of them has ever said the words outright like that, referred to J killing himself and not obliquely talking around it. Now isn't the time to dwell on it, or on how painful it is to think about this at all. "Of course he wanted you to finish it. That was for his own sake, too."

[beklemmt]

"Sihyun-ah," J says, a soft plea, his expression stricken as he looks at S now. There's little light in here, but he's adjusted enough that, though he can't quite see S properly, he feels like, if he looks hard enough, he'll see the truth there. He wants fiercely to believe that S is wrong, but without thinking S is lying to him. None of that makes sense, though, he knows that. It's been so long. Why would S hate the professor enough to hold a grudge against him still? Why would he say this if he didn't mean it, when he knows it has to hurt J? But it can't be true.

He can almost hear it again, the coldness of the professor's voice when he said it, how he shrank from it. He let himself believe for a few moments that he misremembered, but S says it, and he knows he didn't, that he set down what he heard, what echoed in his head until the other thoughts drowned it out. He pushes slightly at S's chest even as he clings to his shirt, swaying into him a moment later, his head shaking quickly. "You're being ridiculous," he says. "And he was being dramatic. He was my teacher, it was his job to get me to finish. For my sake as a student."

Because if that wasn't the professor's purpose, then J doesn't know what was, what S could mean. How could it possibly serve him for his student to die? It's absurd even to suggest. What good could the sonata possibly do him if he were dead? It was an exaggeration, a metaphor. He tries hard to stay calm, not wanting to fight. He just has to convince S of the truth, make him see reason, and then they go safely back to sleep. Nevermind that he's trembling again, increasingly agitated despite his efforts to remain rational.

[hismelody]

It hurts. Of course, everything does right now, so that's really to be expected. This, S thinks, is exactly why he never brought any of this up sooner. Maybe if he had, he could have stayed calmer about it — planned what he wanted to say, gently eased J through unsettling truths — but he was held back by knowing they would wind up here. It's not a fight, not really, at least not yet, but it feels like one, perhaps because he's so angry, even if that anger isn't directed at or in response to J. There's frustration, yes, but it isn't like it's J's fault that he doesn't see it, that he doesn't want to. Somehow, that makes it worse, that S understands. The professor probably did, too, knowing exactly what buttons to push, how to say things in such a way that J would think they were his own ideas rather than ones given to him by someone else. S doesn't know how to undo that. He doesn't know any delicate way to say any of this. Even if he did, it would probably be too late for that, the surge of emotion he feels too strong for him to be any kind of careful guide.

"Telling you to kill yourself is a little bit more than dramatic," he points out, his voice dry, shaking his head. If nothing else, through his rising anger, he thinks he manages not to sound like J is the cause of it. Granted, if their past is anything to go by, that may not make a difference, but they've been doing so much better these last few months. The last thing he wants is to go back to fighting like they did that last year they were together. That's all the more reason, really, why he should slow down, get his bearings, but he can't hear such things and not respond, and J shouldn't have to believe such falsehoods, defending someone who never gave a damn about him outside of what he could produce, who was beyond careless in discarding him.

Letting out a short breath, he shakes his head, eyes closed for a moment, something pleading behind them, almost desperate, when he opens them again. "It wasn't — about you, or teaching, or your being a student. Don't you see?" The last tumbles out of him fast, too fast, and he does this, too, patient until he's not, snapping when he does, his composure worn thin. It's the same stupid fucking instinct that made him turn around instead of leaving when J tried to send him away. It leaves him acting on some long-buried instinct now, what he's held back for years no longer able to be contained, words quick and frustrated and frantic, spoken before he can even realize what he's doing. "He just wanted to steal your music like he stole mine!"

In the beat that follows, it catches up to him. The room is quiet and dark and they're alone, but his response is instinct, too, his eyes flying wide with sheer terror, his body lurching backwards as if with the force of his own words. He doesn't pull away, not really, just jerks as if pulled by the back of his shirt, one hand shooting out to support himself on the mattress, the other covering his mouth again. This time, though, it isn't to try to hold back tears but rather because he thinks, for one awful moment, that he might actually be sick. He's never said this to anyone besides the professor himself. So many times, he wanted to but knew he couldn't, then told himself that he would but the timing wasn't right. Even tonight, he's known it would come up, but that doesn't diminish the fear in actually saying it. They're a world away from Seoul, not even in the same time, and the professor isn't here, as far as he knows, and it wouldn't even matter now if anyone outed them, because it's alright here for them to be together openly. This, though, is his biggest secret, and he's hated having to carry it. No matter how hard he tries to tell himself that there won't be consequences for letting it out now, it's as if part of him can't be convinced of it, as frightened as if they were still back home. Besides, back then, he hadn't kept it secret for so long. Despite the reasons he's had, despite the fact that he didn't feel like he could do anything else, it's hard not to worry now that J will hate him for withholding something so huge, that could have changed everything.

"Fuck," he says, a muffled gasp behind his palm before he lets his hand fall from his mouth, reaching for J's wrist again instead, his chest tight. "I'm sorry. I —"

[beklemmt]

His fingers stay curled in S's shirt, even as S draws back a little, and when he leans in again, though he feels as if he's otherwise gone a bit limp. Beyond the faintest muffled city noises outside their windows, the apartment is quiet, nothing in the room but them and the words that ring out in the darkness. What S says means too many other things, J's thoughts racing ahead to catalog it all even as he pushes it furiously away, and he wants so badly to call it a lie, but he can't.

He never heard anything about this, never saw any evidence of it, never had cause to believe such a thing had happened. He can't figure out which piece of music it might have been or when it happened or if, maybe, possibly, S isn't remembering quite right. A misunderstanding, maybe. It's hard to be sure. There's a brightness in the air, trilling in his ears, and he knows S wouldn't say something like this if it weren't true, but he wills himself to have misunderstood.

But S sits there, staring, and this, J can see, the wide eyes and the worry in S's face, in his voice. There's a sick thud in his chest, his heart beating too slow and too sharp before it catches up speed too quickly, lurching unbearably fast. "What are you saying?" he asks, quiet and appalled. "What do you mean?"

The professor tried only to propel him to greatness, to push him through the fog that kept him from composing. No one else would take him on. No one else thought he was worth the effort. And J struggled and wept and fought and killed to prove it wasn't a mistake, that he still retained that spark of greatness the professor saw in him.

Though even that was a lie.

Where he felt overheated a moment ago, he feels cold and clammy now, almost too numb to speak. "Like I did."

[hismelody]

That much, at least, is enough to bring him back to himself somewhat. Even as it takes him a moment to register exactly what J means, what supposed theft he's referring to, S shakes his head, the motion quick enough to make him dizzy, his expression softening, almost sad now. He didn't know until that last time they saw each other how bothered J was by having used something of his as a jumping off point. That conversation made clear enough that they saw it in very different ways, but there was already so much else happening, and J was already so angry, that S can't even remember now exactly what he said about it, only that it wasn't enough to change J's mind. His, though, is made up. He never felt like that about the award J won. If he'd been thinking clearly now, it might have occurred to him that this would be a touchy subject, and he might have found a better way of easing into it, but they're here now, and all he can do is try to convey just how utterly he disagrees with that assertion.

"No," he says, his hold on J's wrist loosening a little, thumb gently stroking J's skin even as he tries to fight off the feeling of being about to cry again. "Not like you. Not at all. You — whether you believe me or not, that piece was yours. I never felt like that with you. He —"

There's so much to this story, and he was so overwhelmed already, a feeling that's only worsened now. Taking a shaky breath, he looks away, nothing short of ashamed. "He needed music," he admits, voice lowering, unsteady. "Finished pieces. To pass off as his own. He hasn't written in... years. And I needed a scholarship. I wouldn't have been able to go without one, you know that, and —" A small, soft sound, a sad little whimper, rises up in his throat. He still feels like he can barely breathe, utterly terrified, but wanting to reassure J at least propels him forward, even with as unsettled as he still is, even as he knows that there's a chance this is going to go very, very badly. "He knew about us. That we were... more than friends. If I told anyone — if I told you —"

The implication there, he thinks, is clear. He can't look at J now, though, only resisting the impulse to curl in on himself again because he doesn't want to pull away, shoulders hunching forward now that he's regained his balance. "That's probably why he wanted you to kill me. I could have ruined his career. But if he could get another movement out of you, and me out of the way at the same time..."

[beklemmt]

J feels very small and very wrong, as if the only part of him still physically present is where S touches him, the familiar brush of his thumb just barely keeping J here. It's too much to process. He's frightened and frozen and confused, his thoughts spinning without gaining any real traction.

It would be easy to latch onto S's first point, to debate whose piece that really was, if he could make himself speak. It would be the simplest, the part he feels most certain about. Though he believes S means what he says, it's still difficult for J to see what he did as anything less than plagiarism. But there's a difference even between that and outright theft.

Not theft. Blackmail. An exchange, but an unbalanced one. It feels a lot like reaching out for something that isn't there, pieces missing still or placed where they shouldn't be. For a brief, awful moment, he feels a pang of understanding. He doesn't want to think he'd stoop to such a thing, but he fell much farther still after being blocked for a much shorter time. But what he did, he did so he could create. However terrible and wrong it was, he made or channeled those pieces. The professor didn't.

He knew.

All the precautions they took and someone knew. And J had no idea.

"But you wouldn't have," he mumbles, bewildered. "You'd never — you wouldn't have ruined him. Then everyone would have known about me." To him, it's simple logic. If the professor knew about them, if he knew S at all, he should have known that. J can't wrap his head around any of this, but that much is easy, obvious.

And then even that slides into sharper focus, his heart aching. "How did he know?" he asks, and he doesn't know what he feels anymore, other than utterly distressed, hunching in on himself as he clutches at S, letting go of his shirt to fumble for his arm, for better purchase to hold himself upright. "Why didn't — I didn't know he wasn't writing, I thought — why didn't you tell me?" Of course, as soon as he's asked, he's shaking his head, because he knows why: he never would have been able to keep quiet himself. They've protected each other for so long. He would have gone in swinging with words or fists or both, and ruined his prospects in doing so. Still, at least S wouldn't have been dealing with that alone.

S needed a scholarship. It must have been from the very start. J closes his eyes, forcing a shuddering breath into his lungs, and leans into S, curling against his chest as if he might be able to shut out even J's own thoughts.

[hismelody]

Expected as the question is, it still breaks S's heart a little. The feeling is tempered, at least, by the way J leans into him again, quieting his fear that J might hate him for having kept something so significant a secret, but it hurts all the same. His arm wrapping around J again, holding him close, as if in a belated attempt to protect him from all of this, S shakes his head too, helpless, trembling a little with the weight of all of this. "I couldn't," he murmurs, apologetic. "I wanted to. So many times, I wanted to, I did." He'd never kept a secret so big from J before; he hasn't since, and he doesn't intend to ever again, now that this is out in the open at last. It ate away at him, and he's still not sure how much that did or didn't contribute to the way their relationship disintegrated, if he only imagined that being when the cracks first appeared because he was aware of what he wasn't saying or if it really did cause that distance between them. At least they're here now, the way they always should have been, but that doesn't stop him from wishing he'd done things differently from the start.

He didn't, though, and even if J doesn't sound mad at him now, S still feels that he owes him an explanation. "I couldn't risk it," he says, "him finding out that you knew. Or even thinking that you might have. If he told people about us... You know what would have happened." Whatever those consequences would have wound up being, he knows it wouldn't have ended well. He wasn't worried for himself, though, as much as he was for J and how J might feel about it. "It would have ruined your career before you even had one. I couldn't do that to you. And I didn't want... you to decide that it was too much of a risk to be with me after all." Just saying that sounds fucking stupid now, but a lot has changed since then. They've weathered far, far worse now. They hadn't then, and J was so ambitious, it seemed like a reasonable fear. S isn't even sure that it wasn't, when J ultimately left him at least in part to be able to write again. "Besides, the way you felt about him, how could I take that away from you?"

It wouldn't have mattered. They both lost everything, even if they've gotten back far more than he could have dreamed since then. No one can use their relationship as a threat anymore. That doesn't make the reality of it having happened any easier. Relieved and forlorn and still shaken, he sighs into J's hair. "I just wanted to keep you safe."