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이젠 다시 돌아가고 싶지 않아

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.

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"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.

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 —"

Edited 2021-08-23 06:32 (UTC)

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."

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..."

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.

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."

He does, J thinks distantly, feel strikingly bereft, a sadness twisting inside of him as he buries his face against S's shoulder. There's too much here, too much of his life to untangle, and he doesn't quite understand. He knows that this changes a lot, and that he still has to wrestle with the instinctive urge to question if it's true. He doesn't want it to be. It's hard not to frame all his wandering thoughts with if that's the case, then, when there's nothing to prove otherwise. Half a year ago, he would have argued ferociously and been a danger to them both. Now, though, after all these months together again, he can't question S's words in earnest. He can wish they weren't true, but he can't really doubt that the professor really did steal S's music and blackmail him, which causes too many other questions to tumble after that thought.

It hurts terribly. Even now, he has the feeling he's lost something. As much as he wants to tell S he was wrong, he understands why he hid all this, why he thought it would be something taken from J. Because, really, it is, years of illusions of support, of the thought that someone saw potential in him that everyone else refused to see. Someone who knew his father, for that matter, though J has mostly said he doesn't care about the man. How could he, when he never even met him? He thought what the professor saw was his value. And he could tell himself that's still true, that the professor blackmailing S doesn't mean he was lying when he spoke to J, but it's impossible not to question. If he was that kind of man, then he wasn't the mentor J thought he was. He'd known that the professor was unconventional, after all; no one who took him on could be otherwise. But he'd thought that was a dedication to music and a belief that J's skills outweighed the things that held him back.

J sniffles, but he tries hard not to let himself start crying again. He doesn't want to shut this off by breaking down. While he doesn't quite understand why this is only coming out now, he doesn't want S to feel he still has to keep this hidden either. But it aches, not least because he can't fight any of it. "I was so stupid," he whispers. He should have known better. "I would have said that. He told me — he said the people around me were distracting me from what I could be. He meant you. And I was so desperate to think maybe the problem wasn't just something fundamentally wrong with me, I..." He lets out a quiet whimper, eyes shut tight, though he can feel the anger and self-recrimination boiling up alongside the despair now, and he doesn't know which of the three is most comfortable and familiar, which way he'll fall. "But he knew."

Edited 2021-08-23 08:53 (UTC)

Hearing that, S draws J a little closer again, shaking his head. "You weren't," he promises, voice soft and unsteady but sure. There's not a lot he can be certain of right now, his head spinning. He's said so much, and still there are too many things he hasn't said, and he can't keep all of it straight. What he does know is that, however much it might hurt him to admit these things, it hurts far more to hear the way J sounds now, to have him blaming himself for the way someone else drove a wedge between them. "Or if you were, I was, too. I should've just told you. Whatever happened, at least maybe we could have faced it together."

Then again, they could have broken up sooner, or everything could have ended far worse. Still, with something of this size, it's impossible not to wonder how it could have been different. Even if J did break up with him, maybe it would have kept the professor at arm's length. Maybe he would have lived. Maybe all of them would. "You weren't stupid, Jae-eun-ah. He knew what he was doing and how to get you alone. He knew how to keep me quiet. And then he knew how to get you to write."

He barely knows what else to say. There's so much left to cover, or so it feels, even beyond what he's already told J now and how fragmented it's all come out. With as long as he's waited, though, he can't rush through any of this, particularly not when J sounds the way he does now. S can't pretend that the things that happened didn't happen, or that what J said a few minutes ago isn't true. He is an adult, and he made his own choice. Those choices don't exist in a vacuum, though, and the circumstances under which they were made matter, too. The professor manipulated him every step of the way, and S hardly sees how he could be blamed for trusting someone who should have been trustworthy.

"I'm sorry," he adds, what feels more important than anything more overwhelming for the moment. Saying so, S is pretty sure he already did so once, but it's hard to be sure when they're both upset, clinging to each other in the dark. "That I didn't tell you sooner. I wish I had. Even here, I... I kept telling myself I could tell you now, but actually saying it..." Still he's barely scratched the surface, but at least he's gotten out the worst of it, the secret he's carried around for years, however unintentionally he gave voice to it at last. That — clearing the air — feels like the most important step.

That, at least, is something J understands all too well. Telling himself he'll wait until the right moment to say a thing usually turns into never saying it at all. He was guilty of that far too often before. He's trying hard not to be now, but it's a struggle sometimes, and this secret S kept was a terrible one to bear.

"I wish you had, too," he admits softly. If he'd known sooner what he was dealing with, maybe he would have had the sense to see what S must have seen, what S says he wrote. But he's not sure that's the case at all. He knows himself and he knows how he was back then — every bit as stubborn as he is now, perhaps more so, and much more sure. In those first days at the end of high school, when they were getting ready for college, hoping for scholarships, looking ahead to the awards, he was so confident. He doesn't know now if he would have dismissed S's concerns. He doesn't think he would have, not if S had told him before he started to really fall apart, but it's impossible to know. "But I understand why you didn't, I do."

Despite his efforts, he feels himself starting to cry again, but he can't make himself let go of S to wipe the tears away, just closing his eyes instead. "You just wanted to protect me," he says quietly. S always has, from the very beginning. He can't be angry with S for that, not this time. He understands the love in it. If anything, he needed more protection even than either of them thought. But the professor knew, and the thought of that stings and sickens him.

The truth, he knows, is that he was a little frightened of the man. But then, in those last days, he was frightened of everything. He spent a lot of his life not particularly giving a fuck whether or not he lived up to the standards of adults other than his mother because he never really could. Try though he might to surpass those around him, they thought little enough of him that he only did it for his own gratification. Having one adult he thought actually saw something in him, someone who wasn't required to tell him he was doing well, he wanted badly not to disappoint. He was so lost all the time, tired and nervous. Easy prey.

It hurts, a gnawing pain in his gut, the way this shifts his world, and it scares him. There's a lot to look back at, to reflect on; he won't be able to help himself now, turning over his past, prodding at it like a fading bruise, and he doesn't want that. There are things he thought he knew and he didn't. There are answers he can't yet grasp, and he's already afraid of how they might yet unfold. His mind hasn't been particularly cooperative when it comes to memories for a long time now.

"He must have thought I was so weak," he says, raw with despair or fury or both. Though he no longer quite knows how to feel about the man, his thoughts and heart not yet wholly caught up to this new reality, he knows enough to hate it. That someone could use them like this — blackmail S, manipulate J away from him and more — is hard enough. Knowing that such a person must have looked at him and thought he would be so malleable is almost unbearable. He'd thought himself strong and then saw himself getting weaker. It hadn't occurred to him to think someone else saw it too and wanted to use that. That he would be so easy to manipulate. Stifling a sob against S's shoulder, he clenches his jaw briefly to keep it from shaking. "I was. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I should have listened to you."

Hard as S has tried not to regret their past, not to wish things had been different when they have no way of knowing what it would have changed, he can't help it now. He should have told J the truth. Even in thinking so, he's aware that leaves too many variables. There's no way to determine how J would have reacted back then, just like there's no way of predicting exactly what the fallout would have been if the professor had made good on his threat and outed them. S doesn't really doubt that he would have, either. In a strange, horrible way, he knows he got lucky that day he arrived here, that that particular truth didn't come to light when he went to confront the professor. Still, too, he doesn't know that it wouldn't have. There was press waiting outside, and there would have been more to come, as well as a trial. The professor would have had no reason to protect his secret anymore, their arrangement void. He didn't care, though. He knew the risks and he made his choice. It wouldn't have been his place to make that choice for J.

S means to say so — the last part, at least — but then he hears J apologize, voice strained with tears again, and can only shake his head. "You weren't weak," he says, just so fucking sad, idly stroking J's hair. "You weren't. You've never been weak. Everything you were up against — of course you saw what he wanted you to see." He huffs out a soft breath, not quite a laugh. "Of course it drove you crazy that it seemed like I disliked him for no reason when he'd taken an interest in you. I wanted to tell you so much. So often. Even... even that day you called me, it was right there." All he could do instead was issue some vague warning, as he recalls, which probably only made things worse. He couldn't have known just how bad things were, that someone was already dead, or at least close enough to it, that more people would be. It was right there, though. Neither of them, he thinks, is to blame. They made their decisions and played their parts, but they wouldn't have been in those positions at all if not for the professor. That doesn't make, has never made, it any easier to bear the weight of how terribly things went wrong.

"Maybe you should've listened, but I should've told you all of it," he murmurs, his own voice wavering a little again. "And he shouldn't have put us in that position in the first place. Everything that happened — you would have stopped. You would never have done those things if it weren't for him." This, too, he should have said sooner, something that's been on the tip of his tongue every time they've so much alluded to the murders. Telling J that without getting into the rest of it, though, would have been impossible, and they've stayed so carefully away from all of this, for the most part, for so long. He still hasn't even told J some of the worst of it — the sonata and what the professor did with it — but there are only so many truths he can give voice to at once, and even knowing that it's for the best doesn't make it any easier to say things that he knows will hurt J, who's been hurt enough already. All S can do is hope that knowing all of this might lessen a little of the guilt J feels.

That is weakness, as far as J can tell. To be so easily manipulated — he was in a bad position, even he can admit that, but he should have known better all the same. Looking back, he's too tired and unhappy to pick it apart the way he will in coming days, but he can see it a bit, the way the professor nudged him away from S. And he was so miserable back then, he followed the trail laid out for him. He should have been stronger, shouldn't have let himself be swayed, should have loved S better.

Even that, though, as much as he hates that he let it happen, he can almost forgive in himself. He would have latched onto anything that might make him feel a little better or more in control. The rest, though, is hard to wrap his head around. He shakes his head slightly, willing himself to stop crying, though it does little good. "But I did them," he says, a little choked, throat tight from crying. "I let myself think things that were so awful. I should have seen through it."

He can see it, how the professor encouraged him when he shouldn't have. At the time, he told himself that the professor had his best interests at heart. It was easier to go along with what he said and do as urged, letting himself think that these crimes were tempered by his intentions, believing the professor was right. He had two options, really: to stop and confront the fact he'd murdered someone or to keep going as the professor encouraged him to do and let himself think he was elevating his victims, that they hadn't quite died, that he'd kept them alive somehow. The first was almost unbearable. He was already a mess, he remembers that, already felt he saw and heard things that can't have been there. He must have been so easy to push around.

But that doesn't absolve him in the least. Half-mad already or not, he should have been able to see it for what it was, that these were murders, inexcusable. "That's weakness, isn't it?" he asks, though he's sure of the answer. "I was such a coward, I believed him. I could have refused. I should have known better, that it was wrong." The professor guided him — that's becoming gradually clearer — but he didn't have to let that be so. He should have seen it for how abhorrent it was and walked away.

As ever, S knows that they'll likely never see this the same way, J too hard on himself, S perhaps a bit too understanding. He doesn't believe that he's wrong, though. The things J did, he did, and S can't undo that or absolve him of it. The only forgiveness that's his to offer is for what J did to him, and he gives that without question and an equal amount of trust, but the fact that J has murdered people is irrefutable. Still, the reasons why he did so matter, too. He wasn't acting alone. The very idea wasn't his, and was pushed at every turn by someone whom J should have been able to trust, who'd already gone out of his way to get J alone. Of course he went along with it. For all S knows, if J hadn't, the professor would have gone to the police about the first accident, and that would have been that. Warranted, maybe, when that very much is a thing that happened, too, but S can hardly blame J for trying to protect himself. If he'd been there, if J had been speaking to him then, that one phone call aside, he would have tried to protect J, too, even if it broke his heart to do so, knowing how that first death occurred. Even now, that's the one that sits the most uneasily with him, and that, too, wouldn't have happened without the professor alternately ignoring and criticizing J and pushing him to drink. J didn't have to do it, but a good teacher wouldn't have put him in that position at all, and the professor had to know already what kind of hold he had over J.

"It's not weakness," he says, quiet and almost pleading, desperately earnest. "You weren't a coward. He was your teacher. I... I'm not saying that it wasn't wrong. Or that you weren't part of it. I'm not. I —" From the very beginning, here, he's wanted to make sure that J knows that he's going into this with his eyes open, with full awareness and acknowledgment of the things that happened. Now is no exception, even if he can barely get the words out, his eyes closing as he tries to do so. The rest of it, though, he means just as utterly. "But it was all so... fucking twisted. He should have been helping you. When he found out about the first, he shouldn't have suggested that you try it again, but on purpose this time."

It is, again, all he can do to keep the anger from his voice and the tension from his limbs. This time, though, he manages, softened by the way it hurts to hear J crying and the way J has curled against him, his heart aching with it. Although he feels perilously close to tears again too, if nothing else for how overwhelming it is to be saying all of this at last, he tries to keep that back, too, continuing as soothingly as he can. "But you were alone. And you just told me yourself what he would have said if he'd known you didn't follow through with me. He would have said the same thing then. Told you you didn't want it enough. Anything to wring whatever music out of you that he could."

Edited 2021-08-24 01:57 (UTC)

There's a measure of comfort in hearing S say it was wrong. He knows S sees what he's done for what it is, but it helps to be reminded that he recognizes what J did. If he can look at that head on and acknowledge it and still say that it wasn't wholly J's fault, then J can at least try to hear what he's saying. It's hard to wrap his head around the idea that S is quite right, but he can see a bit how he's right about some of it.

It hurts so much that he feels nearly numb with it again, aching and scraped out, crying quietly into S's chest. He could protest and say that's only what he imagined the professor would say, but it's plain now from all S has told him that he was probably right, that he would have been chastised and told what a disappointment he is. As fragile as he already felt, he couldn't have handled that. He couldn't even handle what was hurled at him when he said he wouldn't continue.

He let himself believe that what the professor guided him towards was his way of helping him. But it wasn't, it never was, and J feels painfully foolish for having believed it and for wishing he'd been right. It was twisted, yes, but it helped to feel someone supported him. Someone knew what he was doing and instead of turning him in or drawing back in disgust... but he should have. He should have done exactly that, and J let himself believe he was lucky that the professor chose otherwise.

"I was alone," he mumbles. "So alone. I couldn't tell you. My mother — I could never — I didn't want her to know. No one else knew. Just him. It was exhausting. I should have told you." S would have helped him, would have stopped him. Maybe he would have been every bit as horrified as J imagined at the time, but he would have been there all the same.

S stays quiet for a moment, still holding J close, hand dropping to smooth up and down his back again, eyes prickling with tears. It was all such a mess, and for as awful as all of it was, he thinks that must be the part that's worst — that they didn't stand a chance, all but doomed from the moment the professor entered their lives, that they would never even have been able to say these things to each other if not for this place. So many things they both could or should have done differently, and yet in both of their cases, he can understand why they didn't, why nothing else seemed to be an option. The same isn't true of the professor, who was only ever out for himself, not caring whose lives were ruined or ended in the process. S wouldn't even be surprised if there were others before J. None with similar endings, certainly, the murders and suicide more than a little extreme, but the isolation and reliance and ultimately theft, it seems unlikely that that was the first time those methods came into play, just as his own music wasn't the first the professor bargained for or stole.

If there were others, similarly used and discarded, perhaps too afraid to say anything, S can only hope that they might get some closure from a trial, too, the professor's lies brought to light at last. It would be worth whatever it took to get some small measure of justice anyway, but it would be even more so if there are still people living who might be helped by it, no matter what would have happened to him in the process. Showing up here, he may have dodged those consequences, but his awareness of the likelihood of them hasn't faded, if only because that's one more thing he hasn't been able to bring himself to tell J, how fucked up he was that he just didn't care anymore if anyone found out about him. For all the things he'd go back and change now if he could, that still isn't one of them. Being with J again here, he's had something to protect once more, but that's been for J's sake, not his own. It's beside the point now anyway, nothing he wants to derail this by bringing up.

Comforting his crying boyfriend is far more important, even if he's starting to cry a little again, too. "I wish you had," he says, whisper-soft, a deliberate echo of J's words from a few moments before. "But I understand why you didn't." Of course J didn't tell him that he killed someone while driving drunk. It isn't like they'd even been talking then anyway, like J was keeping it to himself while the two of them were together. Having talked around those specifics even now, though, it feels important to keep going, to say more. "I would've been there, though," he adds. "I want you to know that. Whatever it took... however hard it was... I would have helped you." Head leaning gently against J's, he sniffles. "And I'm sorry. That you were alone. That someone you trusted did that to you."

J isn't really sure what to think anymore of how it all played out. A lot of the fault was his own, but when he tries to say so, he has to bite it back. It is his fault he was alone, but it's not only his fault. He should have tried harder, been a better boyfriend, and he let himself be led away. That's on him, that he was so easily drawn along, but he knows, too, how messed up he was back then. He still is, he's pretty sure, but in different ways, and he copes better with it now for knowing he doesn't have to do so alone. It's not a complete solution, but he's not sure such a thing exists. But it was so easy to draw into himself, and from there, the things the professor said — he doesn't know, really, if they made sense or not, but at the time, sad and desperate as he was, of course he latched onto them. He was alone by his own stupid choice, but he can no longer know if he would have made that same choice on his own.

It's an uncomfortable thing, to be so unsure how much control he had or in what ways he allowed himself to be controlled. None of this had to happen. If he'd listened sooner, if he'd been stronger, if he'd seen through the professor's manipulations, he wouldn't have done the things he did. Maybe he would have been a terrible boyfriend even so, still falling apart without knowing why, but he wouldn't have killed anyone, and the former is much easier to fix than the latter.

That S understands why he never said anything leaves J feeling all the guiltier. He knows, he's sure, that S is thinking of the same thing he is. If he'd stabbed someone in a drunken stupor, it would have been awful, and yet he still thinks he might have confessed to S more readily, too panicked to hold it in. But driving drunk, hitting someone — he could never have told S. Even now, he's never really talked about it, only let his journal speak for him. It's too horrible to face. "I know you would have," he sniffles, just barely making himself let go of S's shirt so he can rub at his face with his forearm. It registers a moment later that he's thankful he wore something with long sleeves. They make for a more convenient handkerchief and he doesn't want to see or feel his scars right now. "I should have..."

He was, he's pretty sure, the worst boyfriend in history. Since coming here, he's done much, much better. It would be difficult to do as poorly or worse, but he's worked hard all the same, and found that focusing on doing his best to give S the kind of relationship he should have has helped him in turn. If nothing else, it gives him something to do with his days when S isn't home and it means he's much better than he's ever been about communicating when something is wrong.

That's harder right now, when he's still crying, mostly quiet but for the occasional tiny hiccuping sob. "I don't know how I didn't see it," he says, utterly miserable. Or mostly, at least. There's a comfort in the way S strokes his back and holds him close, and an uncomfortable sense of relief that goes with all the things he's having to reevaluate in his memory. "I'm sorry you were alone too." He did that. That's on him, leaving S all by himself because J trusted the wrong person, because S just wanted to protect him. Because J is hard to protect, too stubborn and contrary, too determined and defiant, and if he'd known, he would have done something stupid and the professor would have ruined them both anyway.

As much as he might like to, S can't deny that or downplay it, can't tell J that it's alright. He was alone, and it was awful. When his parents died, he didn't think that anything could feel worse, but he was wrong. At least back then, he had J, someone to hold him through the worst of it even before they became a couple, who went out of his way to try to make him smile. He had music then, too, falling in love with it as he fell in love with J, his already existing interest blossoming into something more and filling a void, giving him something to work towards. Even when things were awful, they were wonderful. Their apartment was minuscule and they had no money, and yet the world seemed full of promise. All of that fell apart so quickly, and then he had no one and nothing, showing up here utterly bereft, the one thing that was keeping him going accomplished. He could, he knows, have found the same purpose in whatever trial played out, but with the professor having so thoroughly incriminated himself, he doesn't really have any doubts about how that would have gone. It was as good as done, and he was still alone.

"I know you are," he murmurs, something twisting guiltily in his chest even as he does, as if he shouldn't even be acknowledging how alone he was, giving J one more burden to carry. Even if he tried, though, he doesn't think he could convincingly deny it. J knows him too well for that. Besides, if there's anything to take away from tonight — and there's a lot, really, but if there's one thing that's most prominent — it's how important it is to him to be honest with J. He should have said all of this sooner, though he knows why he didn't. He should have told J everything from the start, to hell with the consequences. There was no way, of course, for him to have that perspective back then, to guess at how much worse things could be than the pair of them being outed, but all the same, he wishes he'd been straightforward from the jump, told J how he got his scholarship before the professor could really sink his hooks into him. "But you're here now. We're together. And he can't touch us here."

That's been a comfort since he first found J on the sidewalk that day, really, but never so much so as it is right now, when he can reassure J with it, too, the truth, or at least most of it, out at last. Sniffling again, his arms still around J as if in a belated attempt to protect him, S kisses his hair, about all he can do right now. "No more secrets, alright?" he says, just a bit more of a question in his voice than he intends for there to be, though he pushes past it. "I mean that for me, too. Not... It doesn't have to mean saying everything, but the big things. Whatever it is, we face it together." They're so much better together than apart. He's always known that, or at least believed it, even when they were children and allying himself with J made an outcast of him in turn and defending his best friend landed him in trouble at school on more than one occasion, but he's never felt as sure of it as he does now. Anything they could be up against, they stand far more of a chance together. At least, no matter how bad things might be, they'll be able to weather it with each other.

Again J finds himself thankful that S hasn't told him it's okay or that he's not at all to blame. It gives him more room to believe what he's being told. There's no longer the sense he once had that even telling S the truth would be a lie, the way he felt when they still lived in that little studio, how he was afraid that too much truth would push S away and too little would leave him writing it off as readily solved. After years of lies, there's a great deal of solace in the truth. S recognizes the terrible things he's done for what they are and loves him anyway.

He nods, tiny and quick, into S's shirt, shifting slightly in his arms so he can move his head to S's shoulder. "Together," he echoes. The thought of being safe here leaves him a little sick, mostly because it makes him think of the alternative. Had they been at home still, had he somehow survived, he would still have thought all of that was entirely on him. He would have trusted the professor in the aftermath and done as he was told he should, and it's unnerving to realize now how malleable he was. He has the uneasy sense he hasn't yet fully grasped all that this means, but it's hard enough to know that a lot of what he believed was a lie. Maybe there's a bit of relief in it, too — one thing that's worried him again and again is the thought that this was always in him, that he was always a killer deep down, and now he can, at least, tentatively prod at the likelihood that isn't the case. Even so, it's going to be a while before he knows what to make of all of it beyond the immediate sense of hurt and betrayal and foolishness.

"No more secrets," he adds with another nod. "I know better now." The truth of that is probably evident in how he's behaved these last few months. Even when it's hard, even if it takes him a little while to say something or to know how to put things when he tries to, he's made an effort to do it anyway. But there are times, he knows, when he brushes things off for too long or he worries about saying them. And yet, even if S is bothered by any of it, he's always so patient. He doesn't judge the way J so often does — other people, maybe, but not J.

"It helps." His hand traces down to S's chest again, curling in his shirt. J has a brief flicker of desire to place his hand against S's heart again, to feel it steady and sure, but the fabric is damp at best, and it isn't worth it. Sniffling again, he draws in a deeper breath, trying to get his lungs to cooperate more thoroughly. "When I tell you things... just knowing I can," he continues. "Ah, I've felt better, I really have. I should have said before about that night, but I really didn't think it was that important." He leans his head to the side so he can look up at S again. It's dark and he's tired and his eyes hurt, but even his boyfriend's silhouette is comforting. "You help me see things differently. Or at least feel less alone. You should have that too."

Quietly reassured, S nods in turn. This much, at least, he hadn't expected to go badly, but it's as good a response as he could have hoped for. They're both of them a mess, and saying all of this — seeing J's reaction — has somehow made it all the more real, thus making it sadder and more painful, too. Thinking about how the professor treated J and seeing J begin to recognize that is devastating, infuriating. S hadn't thought he could hate that man any more than he already did, but as it turns out, he was wrong about that, too. No one should be able to do the things he did and get away with it. At least, in the end, he didn't, but the damage was already done. J was already gone. The thought of it causes S to cling to him just a little more desperately now, even as his touch stays soothing, his heart lodged up in his throat. They can't change it now. Over and over, he's told himself that. The past is the past, and it's what brought them to where they are now. All they can do is try to get it right this time.

"It's important to me," he says softly, as if he hasn't already made that obvious, studying J's face as best he can in the dark. "Knowing that you did that for me..." He shrugs, nose wrinkling, self-conscious. It isn't as if it makes any kind of difference where his feelings are concerned, or his sense of safety. For months, he's been here, sharing his life and his bed with J, without any qualms about doing so. Never once has he felt uneasy about doing so or like J might try to hurt him again. Even so, it means the world to know the lengths that J tried to go to for him — that he wasn't subconsciously spared, that J wasn't just unable to follow through on what he started, but that J actively tried, and succeeded, to save his life before it was too late. Although there were times when surviving felt like a punishment, it's different on this side of things, and deeply moving to consider.

Given his own words and how utterly he means them, he knows that there's more he should probably say here, details he hasn't yet given voice to. Better, maybe, to get it all out in the open like ripping off a band-aid than to have to go through all of this multiple times. Still, he doesn't want to put too much on J all at once when it's all so upsetting. J deserves the truth — S should have told him sooner, he knows he should have, but it was hard to risk venturing into territory that would leave J in a state like this and harder still to shake the residual fear of what was held over his head for so long, even knowing logically that they would be safe here — but now that they're here, S can give it to him a little at a time. He wants this moment, anyway, for the two of them just to be together. "And you do give me that too," he adds, quiet, fond. "Being with you... It helps so much."

J knows, better than anyone else does, how painfully broken he is, how the pieces all fit wrong. He's tried hard to fix what he can these last few months, though he suspects S has done most of the work, but if there's a long-term solution, something to make him the way he once was, he doesn't know of it. Most of the time, he can live with or around these things. That's a relief, given that, with all he's just been told, he has the keen sense that the next few days will be hard as he figures out what it all means. He knows enough to be aware that one revelation has a way of creating others, and that he'll be examining his memories for days.

What he also knows is that this is one particular way in which he differs greatly from S — from most people, he thinks. People can be tough on themselves, he knows, and often tend to be more so than their friends and family. But somehow he can't turn it off. He has to struggle to find the good in himself, sees only the flaws, and he knows he's doing it, because S looks at the same things in such a different light, and he knows that he takes it to extremes. Like most things, really.

He lifts his head a little, pressing a soft kiss to S's cheek. "I wish I saw myself more like you do," he murmurs. "I don't know how to be so nice to me. I only saw how it wasn't enough or it didn't count. It's still hard sometimes to see how I can help any. But I'm glad I do. I love you so much, darling." It's been a hard night, condensed into a very brief period, and he's too tired to process it fully. This, though, he knows with absolute clarity. He's lucky to have S in his corner, lucky that he can give S anything in return, lucky in so many ways. They wouldn't be in such a mess if he'd understood that a long time ago, or if he'd never forgotten, but at least they're here now.

It isn't as if S doesn't know these things. They aren't exactly new, after all. He isn't sure, actually, when it started, when the self-doubt began to erode so much of the confidence J had when they were younger, but it's been the case for a long while now. Still, there's an ache in hearing it, something that makes S draw him a little closer, as if doing so could prove just how completely he means what he's said. With this, too — with the fact that J saved his life — it was enough. The fact that he's here now, alive and whole, is proof enough of that. True, he wouldn't have needed saving if J hadn't attacked him in the first place, but if anything, that makes the change of heart mean that much more. The easier thing would probably have been just to let him die, or to leave him for dead somewhere and hope for the best. J went so far beyond that, it's still a little overwhelming to think about, even if he knows he would have done the same in a heartbeat, gone to whatever lengths necessary to try to save J's life. They're hopelessly intertwined, the pair of them. S wouldn't have it any other way.

"I love you, too," he replies, the words easy and heartfelt. "I'll just have to be nice to you for the both of us." He almost leaves it at that, the faintest flicker of a smile crossing his face. Despite how wrecked they are, there's a sweetness to J's demeanor now, too, that leaves S ridiculously fond. Maybe it's the awareness that there's more still he hasn't told J yet, or maybe it's the fact that he's just agreed to have no more secrets, but he finds himself wanting to continue. These past few months, he's barely alluded to the time after J left, after J died, saying little more than that it was difficult. For that matter, he's still wary of talking about just how fucked up he was in J's absence, too tired and frayed to give more than a passing thought to the notion that he might have already made that too clear tonight. If there's any time to make reference to it, though, he thinks it might be now, knowing no other way to make clear just how much being with J helps.

His hand smooths over J's hair again, his touch light, instinctive. "I don't know how to tell you," he continues, voice quieting a little, "how much it helps just to have you here. How bad it was before we found each other again." He had no one and nothing left, only determination to make the professor pay, and that could only ever have sustained him for so long. "That's why... I wanted... At least that was one thing I could do. Getting him to admit what he did. It wouldn't make things right, but... as close to it as they could be." He shrugs, helpless, without pulling away. "Other than that, it was all just... empty. It's not, now."

Again J feels tears spring to his eyes, though at least he doesn't start outright crying again. It's hard, painfully so, to think about S alone. It's his own fault and he knows it. That's what makes it worse, really, that he chose that for S, didn't give him a say, that S was lonely not just because J picked that but because he missed J. He abandoned him so utterly. His awareness of that has been one of the many reasons why he's tried so hard to be a better boyfriend this time around.

Until tonight, though, he didn't know what S had done or what the professor was guilty of. That's why he nearly starts crying again, the sudden pang of realization at S's words. Nudging into S's touch, he closes his eyes. He'd thought, for a moment, of saying that S is already nice for both of them, but this new perspective is a bit overwhelming. "For me," he murmurs. "You did that for me."

Even when he was already dead, even when he'd tried to kill S, not even knowing J had tried to help him in the end, S did what he could to set things right. Some of that, J is sure, was because S needs to be able to do things. But he could have found something else, surely, to focus his energy on. He chose the path that would bring some measure of justice for J's victims. For J.

"You're incredible," he adds, soft. "Even with me gone, after all I did, you protected me."

If everything weren't so heavy right now, it might almost be funny, how he just finished saying that he would be nice to J for both of them and yet instinctively wants to deflect J's assessment of what he did. It isn't even that he has as low an opinion of himself as he's seen to be the case for J. It's just that he doesn't see it as anything that makes him incredible when it was just self-explanatory, not a choice he had to make but the only thing he could do. Knowing what he knew, with everything such a mess, he had one way to try to make things just a little less wrong.

This, too, is almost funny, in a sad sort of way. Both of them protected each other, both of them did what they felt like they had to, belated damage control for the other's sake. Just like J's getting him to the hospital on time didn't change the fact that his life needed saving at all, his confronting the professor couldn't undo what J went through or bring back the dead. To him, knowing what J did for him means the world, but he wouldn't even have given that much thought to what he did if not for what J says now.

"Of course I did," he replies, soft and a little bewildered, hand cradling the back of J's head. "I love you. And knowing what I knew... I couldn't just let him get away with that." That it gave him a purpose when he badly needed one helped, but he's sure he would have done the same anyway, to get some justice for J and the dead, and to prevent the professor from using anyone like he used the two of them again. If he had to put himself at risk to do so, it would be worth whatever came of it. Nothing without a cost. "Not what he did, and not what he took."

Put like that, J sees the past with small patches of new clarity. He made his choices, but wasn't something taken from him, too? His trust traded on, his desire to improve twisted, his ambitions bloodied. The person he used to be was already fading by the time he moved onto campus, but it's hard to know how different things might have been if he'd listened to S or persuaded some other professor to take him on, to believe in him.

That, too, has been taken from him. He'd rather know the truth than take on one more delusion, but it's difficult all the same, realizing that what he perceived as someone seeing his potential was just his being assessed as useful and malleable.

"It would have been safer," J points out gently. "But, no, I know you. Of course you couldn't." He wishes so much that it wasn't an undertaking S needed to assume, but he's thankful for it all the same — a reminder both of how loved he is and how well he's chosen. He doesn't know what their future would have looked like had he steered clear of the professor. He knows he was already having trouble, but it would have turned out differently, he's sure of that. But they have this, and maybe that's better. He smiles, small though it is. "You're too stubborn for that. I love that about you."

He's too kind for that, for that matter, and he loves J too much, but the way J sees it, both of those require a certain degree of stubbornness anyway.

It's there, he thinks, one of the few things he hasn't yet worked up to addressing directly. For J to determine that doing nothing would have been safer at least seems like an implicit acknowledgment of the reasons it was dangerous, and it's almost a relief. Having made a point of not talking about it for months, S would rather it simply be understood like this than anything else. Granted, with the weight of everything and the way his head aches from crying and lack of sleep, there's every chance that he's misunderstanding, too aware of what he hasn't mentioned directly that he hears it somewhere it's not. At their best, though, he thinks they've always been able to read each other remarkably well, to pick up on what the other was saying. At their worst, everything came out wrong and was interpreted even more so. He's still, even now, haunted by that last day he went to see J, how his worry came out as control, making J think that he didn't care about his will and pushing them even further apart. Now, at least, there's nothing like that. Despite their tears, this whole conversation has gone better than he anticipated, or maybe just feared, that it would, one more reason to be quietly grateful.

"I know it would have," he murmurs, gaze dropping, though his hand doesn't. "But it was worth it. Whatever he could have done to me..." S shrugs again, letting out a slow exhale. "It didn't matter. I didn't care." When he glances up again, it's hesitant, almost apologetic. He doesn't want to say this. But he's the one who just said they should have no more secrets, and J has told him multiple times since he got here that he wants to hear these things, for S to be able to talk to him. If he doesn't say it now, S isn't sure he ever will. "I had nothing. No one. My parents were gone. You. I might've lost my scholarship for it, but I'd all but dropped out anyway." He pauses for half a beat. This, too, he's resisted saying outright. "I don't write anymore. I haven't in a long time. I barely play. So..."

He doesn't have it in him just to leave it at that, wanting even now not to upset J too much. "And you said it yourself, I'm stubborn. I couldn't just walk away. At least I got the truth out. No matter what it took."

It's a surprisingly difficult thing to hear. Deep down, of course — not even, really, that very far down — J knew that was the case, but it still hurts to hear finally put into words. Of course S doesn't write. They don't have a piano, for one thing. For another, he hopes that, with as far as they've come, S would still play for him whatever he wrote. But as long as S went off to work all week and never mentioned it, there was a chance in J's mind that he wrote there and was simply being very cautious. It would have made sense, given their history.

This, instead, is awful: S alone, entirely so, no music, no longer caring. J isn't sure how he feels now, struck both by the bravery and the desperation of that, and by how utterly awful it is that music has been taken from both of them. It's frightening, really, to think of his beautiful, passionate boyfriend, so alone he no longer cared what risks he ran. J wants to scold him for it, but his heart aches too much. It was, now, a long time ago, another world, another life, but it's still sad.

"It took too much," he murmurs, lifting a hand to S's cheek, voice steeped in sorrow. There's so much he wishes he'd done differently, so much he wants to change, but it's too late by far. "I —" His voice wobbles again, surprising himself. It's so stupid, to be emotional about saying something they both already know, but it's not like he's let himself talk about it. And like this, knowing that he was coaxed and prodded into the position he found himself in — it'll take some time for him to grasp it entirely, but already it hurts terribly, a gnawing ache in his chest, a feeling of falling. "I haven't either. Since I finished writing it. I can't." It's a different sort of can't than before. He's not sure if he'd have anything now if he tried, but he doesn't dare.

"I haven't played at all — not even when you're at work, if I go out, I — there's nowhere I'd go anyway," he says, and he feels incredibly foolish, certain he's making this about himself when they were talking about how lost S felt. "I haven't gone this long since before I could play. We learned together, and now..." He shakes his head, small and quick, as if he might shake himself clear of the threat of getting overwhelmed again. "You have me again, though. You always will. We're here, we don't have to hide." He sniffles and lets out a small, watery laugh. "Or go to school."

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