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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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Whatever composure S might have been managing to hold onto, he loses then, leaning forward to rest his head against J's shoulder as he lets out another soft sob, tears beginning to fall again. Thinking about that time — hearing J talk about that time — is just too much. It isn't like he hasn't been happy these past few months, because he has, in spite of all of their newfound complications and the grief and the burdens he's chosen to help carry. If anything, he thinks they've been closer than they have in a long time, and that's been amazing. So has the freedom Darrow affords, the fact that they can be out now. Still, those blissful early days they were together — S has thought about it a lot, how it should have been the worst time in his life, at least up until that point, and then it was the best. He was hopeless, and then he was happy, giddy and in love, playing at being grown-ups with his best friend, their life starting sooner than most others', finding what he thought would be his calling as he realized his feelings for J.

Thinking about it now, how incredible all of that felt despite their hardships, how swiftly he lost it, how much he's missed it, hurts. Everything does right now, really, but this is particularly devastating. They've both lost so much. He lost everything, and he might even have lost more, and what he has now relies entirely on something absolutely impossible. He could so easily not have had this. He wouldn't have known, then, that J saved his life and the lengths he went to in doing so; he wouldn't have been able to tell J about the professor as he should have so long ago. Even with as close to J as he feels, tonight having been unexpectedly important, he's reminded all over again of just how very fragile this is, and the fact of that breaks his heart almost as much as thinking about their past does.

"When I didn't know you loved me and you didn't know I loved you," he corrects, muffling a watery laugh against J's shoulder through his tears. Every point of contact then felt electric, loaded with potential. He was nervous, falling for his best friend, not wanting to ruin their friendship when so much was relying on it, but he was hopeful, too. It was wonderful. "I miss it, too. Not... not that this isn't good, but..." J will know what he means, he thinks. Everything was so much simpler back then, even with the stress of losing his parents and the two of them trying to adjust to living on their own with hardly any money. "We're here. We're together. At least we have that."

As much as J hates knowing S is hurting, there's a certain measure of relief, too, in the way he reacts, in coaxing him into letting go, though it isn't as if that's what J set out to do. He just wants to try and be honest, and since they're already talking about the things he usually avoids, he might as well tell the truth as best he can. He can only imagine how terrible it must have been on S's side of things that night. Explaining how he felt then, what he was thinking, as best as he knows how won't fix it at all or take away that hurt, but he figured it might be good for S to know. God knows they have plenty enough reason to cry anyway, and while S doesn't exactly hold it in, he's careful, J knows that, so careful.

Even that little laugh, wrung out though it is, is sweet, and J smiles, however melancholy it might be. He turns his head, kissing S's hair, hand shifting to rest at the nape of his neck, his own usual caution half-forgotten in how tired he is and how much he just wants to hold his boyfriend. "I know," he murmurs. Things were hard back then in so many ways, but the uncertainty he felt was so normal — not being sure how best to help and comfort S, not being confident in making ends meet, knowing the way people saw him, trying to do well enough in school he'd be able to get into university. Difficult though it was, it was simple, too, and the happiness of those days was simple as well, real and vivid and uncomplicated and new. Of course they miss it. It's hard not to miss such a beautiful time in their life, one they'll never get back.

But S is right. He's always pretty good at holding onto that, and J tries to do the same — mostly does without really trying, for that matter, but when he's having a particularly difficult time, he reminds himself that they're here and they're together. They'll figure out the rest. "We do have that. We have each other. It's a lot more of a mess, but it's good, darling, really. And, honestly, as fun as that was in retrospect, I much prefer knowing you love me and that you know I love you."

This time, his smile is a little wider, and he lets out a rough little laugh of his own. "A lot of things are better," he adds. "We're much better at sex. And we've gotten even better at honesty, I think, and talking about things. And I think, now, I'm even more thankful for you." He'd like to say he never took it for granted, what they have, and maybe he never exactly did, but he went through a long stretch of time where he doubted it intensely. It would have been preferable never to experience any of that, but now, he thinks, he knows even more how lucky he is and how in love he is. No one else could ever know him like S does, but that's alright. He doesn't need or want anyone else to anyway.

Of the two of them, S knows he's the one more likely to try to find a positive way to look at things, often for the sake of trying to comfort J. The very fact of that makes this response mean all the more now. It also makes S that much more emotional, but at least he smiles against J's shoulder, his breath a shuddering little almost-laugh again. All of it is true, too. He knows all of it — he intends never to lose sight of it — but hearing it is still different, reassuring and overwhelming all at once. Needing to do something, he clutches at J's shirt again, fingers curling around fabric, holding on desperately, as if he might, this way, be able to keep J here with him. It's strange, really. Despite his crying, despite how fucking heavy everything they've talked about tonight has been, despite how sad he still is, thinking about how much they've both lost, he feels oddly good, too. It helps to have finally said all of these things. J has always been the only person he's ever really been open with, and letting down those last walls is more relieving even than he expected it to be.

"I can't believe you just said something optimistic," he says, deeply fond, as close to teasing as he can get, under the circumstances. "Or that you started with we're better at sex." It's true, of course. They were clueless then, just kids fumbling their way through it, but even that — figuring it out — they did together, just as they did everything else. He wouldn't have had it any other way. A bit more serious, he takes as deep a breath as he can manage, nodding as best he can without straightening. "But I think I am, too," he agrees. "More thankful for you." It would be impossible not to be. J was dead. That should have been finite, the end of their story. S will never stop being grateful that they got another chance to get it right. "I... I always knew how lucky I was. But this, now..."

There aren't even words for how unbelievably fortunate this turn of events is. When he really stops to think about it, S still feels like it can't be sheer coincidence that brought them both here, within a week of each other, just in time for him to be the one to find J, in a place that shouldn't even exist. The odds of that seem far too slim, and he doesn't want to think about how unlikely it would be that it all worked out this way and how easily they could have missed each other. It's just the two of them, always, like it was meant to be. The alternative is, despite the outcome, too unsettling.

"I don't care how much of a mess it is," he adds, voice still unsteady. "I want this, you, always."

J has to bite his lip to stifle his laughter, a little bit giddy from the sharp turn in mood, in being able to pull a laugh out of S. After everything they've talked about thus far tonight, it's a relief just to find himself smiling again. Every time things fall apart, he has this probably irrational but very difficult to shake fear that he'll forget how to be happy again. But, no matter how strange or worrying or overwhelming the things he's heard and learned, no matter how he'll need to adjust to seeing things differently, it really does feel good like this, being able to hear how much S adores him. Even before S finishes speaking, J can hear it in every word, love seeping into all of it.

"Always," he echoes, nodding, solemn for a moment before he catches himself smiling again. "And where else did you expect me to start?" He's not better at the piano than he was then, that's for sure, but he also has the sense not to make that joke. Besides, better isn't the goal right now, at least as far as music goes. There are far more important ways he can improve.

He ducks his head, kissing S's cheek again, nudging at him with his nose. "If I'm at all able to be optimistic, it's because of you, you know. You... I see things differently when I'm with you. You make everything a little brighter and warmer and... I don't care if it's a mess either." There are times when J is aware not just of how fortunate he is to be here or that S feels the same, but also that S is right, too. If S makes him this happy and he knows now that he makes S happy in a way he doubted for a long, long time, then what they have right now is a miracle that defies all logic. He can be a little bit cheerful about that now and then, even if his version of cheerful looks a bit skewed at times. "The fact that I'm here at all is because of you, Hyunie. I was ready to give up, but you make me want to keep going."

Even so, he knows, there have been times when it took sheer fucking will for him to pull through, but it's never yet been as bad as it was in that first week or so after he arrived, fluctuating between unbelievable happiness and stark despair as he remembered all he'd done. Time has made it somewhat easier to carry all of that with him, even if it still strikes hard now and then. But he knows he wouldn't have made it far enough to need will or to learn how to handle all of this if S hadn't kept giving him a reason to want to make that effort to begin with. "I'm glad, though. I like being here with you. Always."

It isn't exactly new, how even all the best things have a bittersweet element to them. S is just particularly aware of it right now, when everything hurts to some extent, J's phrasing doing nothing to stop the way S keeps crying into his shoulder. He knew that, of course, though he wouldn't have considered it that way himself. The state J was in that day he arrived here is something he couldn't forget if he wanted to, part of the fear he felt in response lingering even now, impossible to shake entirely — much quieter now, and easier to ignore, but still there. Still, the reminder of just how low J was, of how tenuous his existence was for a while there, is hard to bear. S doesn't like knowing how much has rested on his shoulders in that regard.

He tries, instead, to think about it as he framed it earlier. They saved each other. He wouldn't be here, would have died on J's floor that night, if J hadn't gone to such lengths to get him to safety. That much is an incontrovertible fact. He was almost dead. A few minutes more, and he would have been. It shouldn't be so hard to accept, then, that he might have done the same for J in another way. Besides, J's words strike a chord with him. Maybe that's part of why it hurts so much. Although he wouldn't have done what J did, what he might have done again, he was hopeless in his own right back then, what feels now like it was both another lifetime ago and just yesterday.

"Me too," he agrees, words half-mumbled against J's shirt. They're both a mess in the physical sense now, too, tear-stained cheeks and clothing, his nose running a little again from all the crying he's been doing. Similarly, it's both parts of what J has said that he agrees with, leaving him uncertain of how to clarify his own statement at first. "I like being here with you always, too. I..." He gives J's shirt a little tug. Before they go back to sleep, it might not be a bad idea to change, S thinks, but he couldn't possibly bring himself to move away from J yet. "I know it's not really the same. But I was ready to give up, too, before I found you again."

In a way, he alluded to as much earlier, saying that he didn't care anymore what happened to him when he went to confront the professor. There's every chance that wouldn't have ended well for him in some way or another, but it simply didn't matter. For a while before that, he hadn't wanted to have survived. He just never had the active desire to end it that J did. With a hint of a smile, hidden as it is for the moment, both a little lighter and a little more thoughtful. "You might think... I make everything brighter for you... but every time I've been at my worst, you're the only person who's ever been able to get through that. You did when we were kids —" He can't talk about it, what that song meant, too reminded of how much it hurt when J shut him down again in the middle of playing it. "And you did again here."

The thing is, J knew that, he's pretty sure. In the back of his head, he was aware that's the case, because S has told him before what it means to him that J has helped time and again when he was having a hard time, no matter how mild or serious that might have been. And J had thought, really, that he'd done a good job of coming around on these things this last half a year, that he'd gotten better at understanding that he can be good for S, too. Except it catches him off guard now. He's not sure why, exactly. Maybe it's just that there's a big difference between I'm not as bad as I thought at this and I make a meaningful contribution, between trying to undo damage and actively doing good. And this night has been a lot more on the second side than he's used to, his head still trying to catch up with the idea that he saved S's life, even if only from himself.

Cradling S close, he slides his hand into S's hair again, pressing kisses to wherever he can reach, soft and slow. It's hard to know how to express the things he's thinking, flitting too fast across his head. He wants to try, but it's tough just to pin one thought in place long enough to do so, even if they don't have quite the frantic nature they often do. "Doesn't have to be the same," he says softly. "You were alone, too."

He hesitates a moment, because what he wants to say sounds terrible, but it's also true, and he knows S will love him anyway. "That's the part that hurts the most," he admits. "Or... the part I did that does." There was a lot that hurt him that he didn't directly cause, a lot that pains him still, the way his mind works against him a constant battle, but that is, in his heart at least, the worst of his crimes. "That's bad, isn't it? I think the rest of it just... doesn't always feel real. It's too big and overwhelming, it scares me so I can't think about it, but... leaving you alone... twice, I..."

He wouldn't have chosen differently if he'd been sure S was still alive, he's pretty sure, but he's not completely certain. Even so, if they'd both lived, they wouldn't have had the chance they have here. It's a strange thing, really, to be thankful for.

"I love you so, so much," he murmurs into S's hair. "I'm here now, darling."

More times than he can count, S has wondered what it says about him that he's been so accepting of the things J has done. He can't say it's alright, exactly. Murder is still murder. But he understands why it happened, and he knows that, while J may have held the knife, he wasn't the driving force behind those actions, and he's willing to take all of that on. In much the same way, though he's never actually figured out what it means for that to be the case, he also knows that it doesn't really matter. He wants this regardless. He would love J regardless, an immutable part of his being. He may as well embrace it rather than hiding from it. Since the moment he first found J here, nothing else has been an option for him. Hearing J talk about it like that — that's bad, isn't it — sends all of that flitting through his head, but it's short-lived, really, hardly the point right now. He's made his choice, and he'll keep making it. Even with all the shit they've been through, he's never once regretted it.

Even weepy and disheveled, he still doesn't, shaking his head slightly. He's reluctant to move at all with J kissing his hair like this, the soft brush of his lips as reassuring as anything could be right now, but with the rest of what J has said, the question in it, he needs to look at him when he responds. Finally, slowly, as if trying to talk himself into doing so at all, he lifts his head again, rubbing his red eyes with one hand before wrapping his arm around J once more. He isn't ready to pull away yet, wanting to hold on while he can. If it helps him, he can only hope that the same is true for J, too, some measure of comfort in the face of so much that's heavy.

Besides, he's pretty sure he knows what he has to say here, and it isn't going to be easy. Whether or not he should is a bit harder to tell, but especially when they've shared so many truths tonight, S doesn't think it would be right to hold his first instinct back. "I know," he says before anything else, leaning in for the briefest kiss, hardly any contact at all, just enough to emphasize his own words. "I am, too. No matter what."

That, too, is the thing. He doesn't really care if it's bad or not that J feels that way, because it doesn't actually change anything for him, and he's pretty sure he gets it anyway. "And I don't think it's bad," he continues, words a bit slower now, carefully chosen. "You know me. You've... somehow seen me after that. I don't want that to hurt you, but I understand." He would probably say the same if their positions were reversed. And though he hesitates now, still a touch uncertain, that in itself is why this feels like something he has to say. "If that's bad..." His gaze drops, though he doesn't pull away at all, still holding J close. "Then so is this. When I read your journal, when I found out everything that happened... I had a easier time with the ones that were on purpose than the first one. The accident." It doesn't need any more detail than that. J will know what he means, and why that would have been the case; of that one thing, he's absolutely sure. "And it's not — I get that, too. But it's the same thing, right? It's different when it's... personal. It's more real."

The way he wrote about it, S isn't even sure if J remembers most of the others in any sort of detail, and he suspects that might be for the best, too. That, though, seems like a different conversation, too big to take on tonight when they're dealing with so much else for the first time.

That, too, is something J guessed was true. Even so, hearing it said out loud is difficult, his body tensing instinctively, as if that might somehow shield him against this. It doesn't though, not at all, and all he can do is stay where he is, holding onto S, fingers curled in his shirt, in his hair, and make himself take another breath and another. It's a good answer, really, an honest one, and that makes it all the more reassuring that S understands what he means. It isn't like it doesn't upset him to know what he's done, but it's just far enough from his life that it doesn't feel as immediate and too big for him to hold in his head for long. Sometimes the horror of it is overwhelmingly real and sometimes it feels sort of faraway like something someone else did a long time ago, and all of it is bad in a way that's too big for little adjectives. But none of it is as awful as what he did to S because S is real, solid under him, someone he loves. The aftermath of his crimes is hypothetical — he can imagine the outcomes, the grieving families, but he doesn't know. He knows what he did to S.

So he can understand, too, exactly why it was the accident that upsets S most of all. It still feels horrible put into words, leaves him feeling sick and ashamed. "I know," he whispers. If he hadn't gotten in that car that night, none of this would have happened anyway, not like it did. If anything, he thinks, a sudden spark of knowledge in a haze of guilt, he would have hurt himself instead, chasing after the inspiration he found when the professor held that knife to his throat — and, fuck, that feels different to think of now, somehow scarier in a different way entirely — because it wouldn't have occurred to him to hurt someone else. But of course it hurts S in a way the others don't.

S meets J's eyes so carefully, wary but kind all at once, and J can't bring himself to keep looking back, not just now. "I couldn't tell you," he says, still quiet, though a little louder. He lets out a small, rueful laugh. "If I'd done something else, I might have called you in a panic. But that —" He shakes his head. "I just couldn't. I really thought you'd hate me forever." He was wrong, of course, but he was wrong about a lot of things, and painfully paranoid, and S had — has — every reason to be upset that J would get behind the wheel drunk after what happened to his parents.

Which, really, is all the more shameful, given what little he knows of his father, but he wasn't exactly at his most clearheaded at the time. It's different here — no cars, no alcohol. He hasn't had access to either, but the latter, at least, wouldn't have been hard to obtain. It's just seemed smarter, safer, to avoid both. "I don't think that's bad," he adds after a moment, feeling a little distant but not wanting to let S think he believes otherwise. "It makes sense. More real, like you said."

Edited 2021-09-04 05:39 (UTC)

S may have expected that much to be the case, but that doesn't mean he likes hearing it, frowning as he watches J. It's hard, after all, not to wonder how different things might have been if J had told him then. Of course, they can't know that, and he can't be entirely certain of what his reaction would have been. By the time he read J's journal, J was already dead and he was already grieving, and he knows that colored how he looked at all of it. Finding out at the time, it might have been even harder to come to terms with than it already was. Still, he knows one thing, shaking his head gently as he lifts one hand to J's cheek, palm resting there gently. "I could never hate you," he murmurs, fond and forlorn. "Not ever." It doesn't, at least to him, feel like any sort of false promise or something he couldn't say for sure. If J trying to murder him wasn't enough to accomplish that, then he's positive nothing ever could be. J is too much a part of him for that; the only way to hate him, S thinks, would be for J to be someone other than who he is.

That doesn't mean it's all easy, or that it will be. Somehow, though he feels like he's navigating a minefield, choosing each word so carefully, not knowing which might cause an explosion, almost certain one will. It is, again, an old instinct, born of their last attempt at a relationship, and an uncomfortable one, but too difficult to shake under these circumstances. Already they've talked about so many things tonight that hadn't previously come to the surface, and more than once, he's felt that they were on the cusp of an argument, something he desperately wants to avoid. With this, it's a different sort of volatility he's worried about, at least. He doesn't really think there's anything he could say in this regard that would make J angry. But it might hurt him in other ways, and S has no desire to do that. J has already hurt himself over it enough, the sound of his voice and the way he can't quite hold S's gaze serving as proof enough of that. Likewise, though, he has no desire to downplay any of it, mostly because he's sure J would see right through any attempt to do so, and partly, too, because that would seem unforgivable on his own part. Accepting this doesn't mean glossing over it. Doing so wouldn't be fair to either of them.

"I would've been... upset," he continues, biting his lip for a moment, uncertain. "I was upset. But I think... I mean, I knew that you knew I would be. Once I did find out, it wasn't hard to guess that that was at least part of why you didn't tell me." Even now, he can't say it outright. They both know what they're referring to. It doesn't need specifics. "But I wouldn't have hated you. You already hadn't talked to me in six months. You coming to me anyway, knowing I'd be upset..." He shrugs, voice a little quieter when he adds, "I think t would've meant a lot, actually."

They can't go back and change it, though. Spending so much time on a hypothetical situation seems stupid when J is hurting now, when they both are. S leans in, resting his forehead against J's, trying half-subconsciously to keep him grounded in the present. "More real or not," he nearly whispers, "I don't hate you. And I'm sorry you were alone."

J tries very, very hard to stay still and quiet, to listen without turning away or blocking it out, though it still feels a bit like S is speaking from another room. And then he's leaning closer, and the press of his forehead to J's makes the feel of everything else more vivid, like color rushing through him, reawakening his awareness of fingers and legs and hair and shoulders. It's a shock to the system, made more of S's words and the feel of his breath on J's skin as he says them than of the actual touch, drawing a shudder out of him. Tears spill over immediately after, just when he was sure he'd managed to hold them back, his grip on S's shirt tightening.

He should have called S. He should have trusted him to care enough still. He should have trusted him, too, that night at the piano, should have to hold him, should have listened. It's been so hard every time he's looked back at his past and seen all his mistakes, and somehow he can't figure out if it's better or worse or both at once that his choices were, at least in part, less his own than he thought. What he knows for sure is how hard S's words hit him. It's been months and he's put such an effort just into finding a way to live as normally, as happily, as he's capable of. He can't ever forget what he did, but he can try, at least, not to let it fill his every waking moment. He can try to be here, now. When he looks back, though, as he inevitably does, the best he can ask of himself is a small measure of mercy, an understanding that he was in pain too. It doesn't excuse anything, but it's all he's been able to give.

Even that was hard-won, more thanks to S's sympathy than his own self-knowledge. Every time he has to acknowledge that it was at all hard for him, he has to force himself through a gauntlet of reasons why that shouldn't matter, and to be confronted with the idea that he's in any way deserving of sympathy is still dizzying. It's all the more so now, when he's tired and emotional already.

Speaking again isn't easy. He's shaking a little, partly from crying, partly from trying to keep himself from crying, and he's a mess, he knows that much, and he feels unbearably small and stupid for it. "I made myself alone," he points out. He'd thought he did at least. He thought that was his choice, that he was better off that way, and that doesn't make him any less teary. "Didn't I? I thought... I thought I wanted that."

Although it's dark enough that he can still only sort of see J, as much as his eyes have adjusted to it, S can tell all the same — hears it in his breathing, feels the tears on his cheek where one hand still rests there — when J starts to cry again. It makes something in his chest constrict, stomach twisting uneasily. All of this, he knows, is important to say. They probably should have months ago, really, except he could never bring himself to mention it. All of it hurt too much, and he knew this was what it would be like, both of them crying and shaken. It could be worse, he knows. They're here, facing it together, maybe closer than they've ever been. Still, it breaks his heart a little to witness J processing all of this new information, aware that there likely isn't anything more he can do to help than he already has done and is doing.

Still, they're better off now than they were when all of this was first happening. Neither of them has to be alone now. They shouldn't have had to be then, either, but that's behind them now. Present, too, in the way J trembles in his arms and woke up sobbing, but they made it through, even when they shouldn't have. S just has to keep reminding himself of that.

He takes a deep breath before he tries to respond, unsure how best to do so but not wanting to say nothing. His other hand lets go of J's shirt as he speaks only to slip just underneath it instead, resting gently against the warm skin of J's back. "Just because you thought you wanted it," he says, softly, slowly, "doesn't mean you really did. Or that it wasn't hard." Again, he's uncertain whether or not he should continue, if saying what he wants to would make this better or worse. Now that they're here, though, he has to err in favor of honesty. It means too much to have even that much back, and having started being so open, he doesn't think he should stop and send them back in the other direction. "Do you remember what you said to me a few minutes ago?" He keeps his voice soft, as soothing as he can manage, even with as emotional as he is and has been. "He told you the people around you were distracting you. Maybe you made yourself alone, but it's not like you didn't have reasons."

Attempting to fend off another threat of tears, S shuts his eyes tight for a moment, though he doesn't pull away in the slightest. "You don't ever have to be alone again now. I promise. I'm with you for good."

The sound J makes now is small and soft, one of quiet relief, even gratitude, for the gentle press of S's hand against his skin, an unconscious reply, thankful for the way S's touch always makes him feel a little more here. He feels unnervingly shaky, but with S holding onto him, he knows he'll be okay. Or, anyway, he's not about to fall down, which would be frustrating and mortifying and unnecessarily upsetting.

It helps with everything he has to think about now, whether he wants to or not. He does, in fact, remember what he'd said, his own words drawn back out again. There's a kind of subdued humiliation in needing that, having his own memories held up in new light to reexamine, searching for clues because his entire being has become a mystery. He meant it, though, when he said S helps him to see differently. As much as it stings, it's better like this, letting S help him pick through the pieces. He's not sure he'd trust his own analysis or that he wouldn't balk from the truth.

That doesn't make it hurt any less to understand that he was manipulated. It wouldn't have worked if he hadn't been weak to such prodding, if some part of him hadn't agreed or suspected the truth of it or at least been desperate enough to attempt any offered solution, but he no longer knows which decisions were wholly his own, which ones he would have come to had he made them by himself. He made S miserable back then because he was miserable, too, but would he have left?

Doesn't matter now, he tells himself, breathing in slow and deep, no matter how his breath shakes, focusing on all the places where their bodies meet and the sweetness of S's vow. "Forever," he says, voice trembling enough that it nearly lilts into a question, though he trusts now that S means these things. "It was hard." This he says pitched low, another small confession. He was too stubborn, too proud, too foolish — too easily molded, too, apparently, and he feels painfully stupid for it. "I don't want that ever again. I don't — I don't want a life without you in it."

There's something a little frightening in those words; there's something a little reassuring, too. S very much does not like thinking about how little it might take for J not to want to be here, alive, after all, nor does he like apparently playing a significant role in that regard, even as it feels unbelievably good to be wanted again. Still, they're better off than they were. He doesn't think he'll ever forget the sheer horror of those few minutes, the day J arrived, when it really seemed like he might be about to lose him all over again. These past months, he's tried and, he thinks, done reasonably well trusting that J will turn to him if it ever gets that bad again, before it does, but that doesn't stop those words from sending a spike of fear through him now. Still, at least this promise is an easy one to make. As long as he has any say in the matter, J won't ever have to have a life without him in it again. If nothing they've been through has made his devotion waver yet, then nothing ever could.

"I don't either," he whispers, not knowing that's what he's going to say until the words have left his mouth. S swallows hard, his hand leaving J's cheek only so he can wrap both arms around him again, drawing him closer, only a little bit to hide the fact that his attempt to stave off further tears is failing. On the few occasions it's come up, he's tried to say as little as possible about how unhappy he was in J's absence. Even tonight, having said, he thinks, more on that subject than he has in the last half a year put together, it's all been brief and vague, coming out in snippets. Nothing more than that seems necessary, not least when it would probably only hurt J.

He can't help but think about it now, though, how he was so terribly alone, longing for J even after J tried to kill him, facing the promise of the whole rest of his life spent on his own. Maybe he wouldn't have been, maybe there would have been someone eventually, but nothing that could have compared to this. The prospect was still desperately lonely. He always thought they'd spend forever together, but they had, really, only a few short years. Eventually — before very long, really — he would have had more time without J than he had with him, and thinking about that now makes S feel a little sick, makes him cling to his boyfriend here in the safety of their dark bedroom.

"Forever," he adds, nodding a little, his own voice shaky but desperately sincere. It's a promise he's made more than once before, but maybe because of all the truths they've shared tonight, it feels particularly weighted now. "I just want you."

When S wraps J up in his arms like that, he moves willingly, leaning forward, tucking his head against S's shoulder. Turned just slightly, it's enough that he can rest somewhat comfortably and press a kiss to S's neck, soft and, hopefully, reassuring. In this moment, caught up as he was in his own worries and how foolish he feels for the mistakes he made, he is, admittedly, not entirely certain why S suddenly seems a bit sadder, but he does. It makes J want to take care of him, and he goes from clutching at S's shirt to unfurling his grip, moving around just to get a better hold on S, which eventually means draping his arms over S's shoulders again. It gives him a moment's worry, afraid S might flinch even now, though it's not quite the same, but it lets him stay as close as possible, too, which is what matters most right now.

Nosing at S's neck, he closes his eyes. "You have me," he murmurs, close against S's ear, a hand slipping into his hair again. "I'm yours, Sihyun-ah. I'm —" He presses his lips into a flat line, trying to find the words that are both correct and won't make him end up crying again. "I feel really stupid," is what comes out, a hushed and mortified confession. "About everything. Except this. Being here, you holding me, it's..." He lets out a slow, shaky breath. It feels like those things shouldn't coexist, the life he's led, the pain he's felt and feels still, and the happiness he has with S. That he can wake up in a panic and wind up in tears over things he didn't know about his own past and still feel comforted and loved is nothing short of a miracle.

"You make me feel safe," he murmurs. Even if he feels stupid, he's safe here, starting to relax again, comforted by the security of S's embrace. What he's learned in his time here is that, if he's going to fight, he has to make use of the weapons he has, and that doesn't mean knives or hands here. It means finding the small piece of good in a sea of feeling horrible and holding tight to it with a tenacity that used to piss his teachers off. It means remembering all the things that keep him here, all the reasons he has to be thankful to be alive, clinging to whatever will soften the sharp edges of his mind. Like most of the fights he's fought in his life, he often ends up on the losing side, but he still gives it all he's got. And with S to hold him through it, he stands a much better chance than he ever did on his own.

Even in the quiet part of his mind that's conscious of it at all, S isn't sure why he doesn't think twice about or react to J's arms draped over his shoulders. Maybe it's just trust, and how long they've had together here now, months in which he hasn't once felt unsafe or been hurt in any way he wasn't expressly asking to be. Maybe it's simply how tired he is, exhausted and emotional, more comforted by J holding him than he would be by anything else. Whatever the reason, he leans into it, holding J close, breath hitching a little at his words.

It's a nice thought, that he makes J feel safe. S is too aware, though, that he's never actually been able to keep him safe at all. When they were younger, he could try to protect him, but that mostly just meant speaking up when he could, making sure J wasn't alone. More recently, he was even more fucking helpless. He couldn't tell J about the professor, and thus couldn't prevent the professor from having an increasing hold over J. He couldn't do anything at all about J's darkening moods, unable to provide even the sort of relief that J gave him after his parents died. He couldn't convince J to keep him around, and so he wasn't there when things so utterly fell apart, from that first accident to the deaths that followed, including J's own. Still, he clings to him now as if he might be able to do so, comforted in turn just by being able to do so. They're here. They're together. No one else will get to have any say in that now.

"I'm not going anywhere," he promises, gentle, more soothed by being able to do so — to focus on J's hurts — than he could be on his own behalf. "And it's not stupid. You weren't. Aren't. It was... Everything that could go wrong did. Such a fucking mess. It wasn't just you." That much, he believes. J made his choices, and many of them weren't exactly wise ones, but they didn't happen in a vacuum, either. He was alone and unhappy and vulnerable, being manipulated by someone he should have been able to trust. That isn't stupid, S thinks. It's just sad. J knows the truth now, at least, which, guilty as S feels for it, makes it a little easier to bear in turn, no longer agonizing over whether or not he should say it and when, worried about how it might be received. All things considered, this might be the best case scenario in that regard. He hates seeing J cry, but tears are preferable to anger, and he's known for a while that there was a non-zero chance that all of this would only lead to a fight. At least this way, they can comfort each other.

"I'm here. I'm with you. I'll keep you as safe as I can."

A small protest bubbles up in J's chest, but he doesn't actually say it yet, forcing himself to keep quiet and focus on what S has said. There's so, so much that S can't protect him from, and a lot of it is the same as it's been for years now. S can't undo the mess that's become of J's mind and he can't pull J free of the ways in which he was ensnared for so long, ways he's only just starting to understand at all. He can't take away the things J did or how he feels about himself or the thoughts that still cross his mind at times, unwanted, frightening.

Even so, J meant what he said, and he trusts that S will do as he's just promised. However fucked up he might be, he feels better these days than he has in years. And when he feels like shit again, S is here to hold him and comfort him and make things a little bit closer to right. Maybe that's the thing, the part that really helps — there are qualifiers now. A little bit closer. As safe as he can. They don't build up impossible expectations anymore; there's no more pressure, real or imagined (or just imagined, really), to be okay in the blink of an eye. And there's no frustration on J's end at S not knowing what's happening or thinking things can just be smoothed over, because he can tell S what's happening and even the things that can't be fixed, he can be held through. It makes more of a difference than he once imagined it might.

Nestling into the crook of S's neck, he nods ever so slightly. "I know," he says, soft. He can feel, pressed together like this, the way S breathes, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and J tries to mirror it, to try and help even out his own breathing. There is, and probably always will be, something deeply soothing about feeling that, reassured that S is breathing reasonably normally. "I love you."

That's the easy part, the obvious part. The part he should have known practically since they met, and which he pushed aside over and over. Never again. More difficult is knowing if he should say what crossed his mind a moment ago or if he'd rather let the topic go. They'll talk about this again — and again and again — undoubtedly, because J's going to be thinking about this for a long time, and part of him just wants to move on for now. He's tired in a nervous, wrung out kind of way, and he'd rather just enjoy being held. But he's also working things out as he goes, and that's easier done out loud.

"I think that's the problem," he says, thoughtful. "It wasn't just me. I thought it was. And it..." He sighs, small and rueful. It feels easier to say like this, even more hidden than just the darkness in the room allows. "That's why I feel stupid. Like I should have known somehow. I just... believed everything. I thought I was smarter than that."

S has barely heard J's response, never mind tried to formulate his own yet, before he shakes his head, the movement slight but still noticeable with how they're pressed together. It isn't that he doesn't understand why J would think so. He's always been too hard on himself anyway, and S has often felt stupid for his own part in things, too. That isn't how he sees this at all, though, and J shouldn't have to blame himself for what wasn't his fault. Some aspects of it were, yes. There's responsibility that does lie with J, choices that were his, things that he did. What they're talking about now, though, it's deeply uncomfortable to hear J frame like this. Granted, he knows he's done the same, thought about how foolish he was and how ridiculously fucking stubborn that he didn't just leave when J gave him an opportunity to, but he's aware all the same that he couldn't have known what was going to happen, that it isn't his own fault that he got fucking stabbed. It's hard to counter the voice that says what if, that wonders what he could have done differently to give things a different ending, but deep down, it couldn't have been on him.

The same should be true for J. He just isn't sure how to say it in any way that makes sense, giving himself a moment to think it over before he tries to do so. Too often, his words have come out wrong. The things they've been talking about tonight are much too important to take that risk, especially when they're both tired and emotional. "Would you say the same thing if it were me?" he settles on, his voice whisper-soft. He wants to lift his head to look at J as he says this, but he's too unwilling to pull away, comforted by the way J is tucked against him. "That I should have known?"

He knows the answer, or he's reasonably sure he does. J has lashed out at him on numerous occasions and spent a long time seeming to blame him for just about everything, but deep down, he doesn't believe J would do that now, certainly not with something like this. That's the very point he means to make, at least, letting the words hang in the air for a moment before he continues. "I don't think it's about you being smart," he continues, "or stupid. You were lied to and manipulated by someone you should have been able to trust. The only person responsible for that is the one who did the lying and manipulating."

At least this time, he manages to continue speaking gently. No matter how much anger he may still harbor for the professor, it wouldn't be fair to direct that towards J in any way. He presses a kiss where he's rested his head instead, to the curve between J's neck and shoulder. "There are things we both could or should have done differently," he allows, because even now, it's hard not to think that he should have just told J the fucking truth from the start and let them weather the ensuing storm together. "But... what someone else did to you isn't your fault."

The answer is so easy, so obvious, when S frames it like that. Why he can't just apply the same to himself, J doesn't know. He can try, at least, taking the things S says now and tucking them close, burying them in his heart, but it might take time for those seeds to take root, to grow.

There are people who would say differently, people who blamed him all his life for things he didn't choose. It's painfully easy for so many adults to lash out at kids who can't protect themselves, and he knows that wasn't his fault either, but it's hard not to feel it sometimes. That's the way they always framed it when he was a kid, at least. That he was punished because he fucked up, that slipping up somehow justified that treatment, or that it was even for his own good. He'd thought he knew that wasn't true, just a way that cruel adults soothed what little conscience they had. When the professor scolded him or said he wasn't working hard enough, though, he believed him — that he'd earned those lectures, that he wasn't doing his best, that it would help him improve. That, if nothing else, that was the professor's intention, to help him grow as an artist, and so whatever he said, whatever he did, was guided by that desire. He bought into the same kinds of lies he rejected all his childhood, because for once he thought someone meant it.

"I guess," he mumbles, because it's the best he can do for now. S is right and he knows it, but he isn't about to say so outright when he can't yet make himself feel it. "I... if it were you, I wouldn't think it was your fault either." He just has trouble imagining S falling for all of that. S is too clever for that, and better by far at judging others than J is, though J's instinct is usually just not to trust them at all. "It wasn't. He stole from you." The understanding of that rolls over him again, sends a thin spark of anger through him. "And that wasn't your fault. But he picked me because I was easier to trick, wasn't I?" It was J, after all, that the professor drew away from the rest of his world, J he lied to and manipulated, J who was weak enough to be taken in by it all. And even if that hadn't been the case, he can't imagine S making the same choices. "You wouldn't hurt people like I did, even if he'd picked you instead."

He feels strangely resigned to that, too tired to fight that impression of himself. Maybe he wasn't stupid and maybe it's not that he wasn't smart enough. He was weak all the same, a desperate coward who would have done anything to feel some spark of creativity or control.

The last part, S can't disagree with. Admittedly, it's hard to imagine himself winding up in J's position, but only because he's never really been ambitious enough to fall prey to the same tactics. Accolades never mattered to him all that much. He wanted to be good, to be great, but mostly because he loved it, because it was hard not to be swept up in the fairytale idea of him and J making it together, spending their days writing and evenings performing and nights in bed. He fell for it that way, as something they shared. Now, it's the least important piece of that puzzle. He loved it, and he wants to love it again, but as long as he has J, he doesn't care what he might wind up doing.

They've covered all of that already, though. It's just easier to fall back on the part he's certain of than the part he isn't. Whatever twisted explanations he got from the professor, there's still so much he doesn't know, the twisted logic that drove him something S knows he'll never fully understand. He can make guesses, but he cant offer real answers. As much as he would like to be able to tell J something concrete, he's not so sure that isn't for the best. The less they have to deal with that man and the damage he did to them, the better.

"I didn't want what you wanted," he points out, a quiet almost-agreement. He wouldn't have been pushed to the same lengths J was because he wasn't going after the same thing. Even when he lost his own inspiration, he was desperate to get it back, but by trying to recapture what he lost, pathetically attempting to reestablish contact with his ex. As for the rest, he can only shrug, his chest rising and falling with it where he's currently pressed against J. "I don't know why he picked you. I don't know that he didn't try to pick me, too." It isn't as if it would have had to be only one of them. Once he'd driven that wedge between them, ensured that S wouldn't talk, he could have played both of them without either ever being the wiser for it. He's wondered about that sometimes, if the professor intended him to be another of his acolytes, misjudging instead how his blackmail would be received, or perhaps too desperate for a finished piece at that time to play it more carefully. "He played it wrong with me, I think. Once he made that deal with me... I gave him what he wanted, but I saw through him then, so he didn't have a chance. Showed his hand too soon, I guess." On paper, newly orphaned and unable to afford school on his own, he might well have made for a prime target, too. It was being clued in to who the professor really was that largely prevented that from ever being a real risk.

This is about J, though, not him. S turns his head just enough to brush a kiss to J's hair, easily, instinctively affectionate. "If he picked you because he thought you were easier to trick... that's on him, too." For looking for that, for deliberately finding someone who he could use, even if it wound up being in unexpected ways — it's horrific. His hand absently trails up and down J's back again as he continues, an instinctive attempt at comfort. "And for you... Having a teacher single you out like that, in a good way for once, and one who knew your father, too? All of this happening just when you were... becoming more unhappy? You were vulnerable, and he knew it, and that's not your fault, either."

It's so reasonable that even J has to admit that's the case. If the professor had tried the same thing with him, if he'd chosen blackmail over more subtle manipulation, J would have seen through him, too, and things would have been different. And if S had been more ambitious, he might still have been swayed, just a little. It isn't like J doesn't know, too, to some extent, why he's always been the more ambitious of them. He's just always had more to prove.

Though S's touch helps to keep him settled, he tenses briefly all the same at the mention of his father, a brief burst of misery spiking in his chest. It isn't fair. He told himself for so long that it didn't matter that he'd never known the man, that he lost nothing. It's not like his father seemed inclined, from what he knows, to marry his mother anyway, so all of that would have been the same, and much of what he's gleaned from reading between the lines of his mother's rare stories and gossip and what the professor said, his father wasn't a man much worth knowing anyway. But the professor did know him, and J hates that right now. Even if the man was an aimless drunk, squandering his talent and seducing women, J can't help that some tiny, tiny part wants to have known him after all. To have met him, at least. To have some impression of the man that was his own, not secondhand.

"He used that," he says, muffled into S's shoulder, and somehow that stings as bad as any of the rest of it. "He mentioned him sometimes. My father. Little stories in passing. Comparisons. I didn't think I wanted that, but I did." It's not something he talks about much, even with S, the subject always a difficult one, too complicated for J to want to look at for long. It just hurts somehow, in a strange, sharp way, to know that the professor saw a weakness in him that J thought he'd kept well-hidden. He must have seen, too, how much J wanted someone to pick him. To want him instead of all the other options, the ones who were more obviously valuable. He should have been content that S saw that in him all along, but how could he resist when a teacher finally acknowledged his potential?

He sighs, shaking his head slightly. "I know you're right," he murmurs. "It's just a lot." It's more than he can possibly take in tonight, aware enough of his own exhaustion to understand that much. It's also just hard to turn off.

They've never talked about him much. There wouldn't, S thinks, have been all that much to talk about when J never knew the man, seemingly more shaped by his absence than anything else. He knows a little — knows that he never married J's mother, obviously, that he was a pianist too, that he drank — and he knows, of course, the hell J was put through because of his background, as if it could somehow have been his fault that his mother was unmarried, but J has never seemed all that inclined to discuss him much, and S doesn't mind that. Back when he and J talked about everything, he always figured that J would know he could talk about his father when he wanted to. He figured, too, that that was part of the reason he latched onto the professor the way he did, one of the reasons S was so reluctant to tell J the truth about what was happening behind the scenes. Taking that away from him would have felt cruel, if only because he didn't know just how far the professor would go. Theft and blackmail were bad enough, but manipulation and murder went further even than he could have anticipated. J may have held the knife, but the professor was the one pulling the strings, and that, S thinks, is the worst offense by far. He couldn't commit his own crimes any more than he could write his own music.

"I know," he echoes, then shakes his head a little in turn, not pulling away to do so. "I can only imagine." There was a time, he thinks, when J would have snapped at him for something like that. And it's true that he really can't know what this must be like for J or what's going through his head, but he does know that it's a lot, and he can be here for it, gently stroking J's back and hair, keeping him close. "I know it is." If it's been a lot for him to carry around, wanting to say it but never knowing how or when to do so, it must be even more so for J to have to reconfigure his memory of everything, coming to terms with something unbearably huge.

Although he doesn't start crying again in earnest, he sniffles a little, ashamed, his face pressed to the curve of J's neck again. "And I figured he did," he says. "That was part of why..." Trailing off, he takes a breath, not as deep as he would have liked it to be. "Even if it had been safer... Even when I wanted just to say fuck it and tell you anyway, I didn't want to take that from you. I didn't want to be the reason you lost that. I didn't know how bad it would get."

J kisses S's hair again, hugging him a little tighter. "You didn't know," he agrees quietly. "You couldn't have." How could either of them ever have guessed how it would go? How could they have imagined that it would all lead to murder and madness, that the despair he already felt would be fanned into such flames? S did what he thought was best, and J doesn't know if he was wrong or not. Either way, it's done now, so it doesn't entirely matter. It makes sense to him, though. Of course S was protecting him the whole time — trying to, at least. Under other circumstances, he would have succeeded, probably.

That S understood the power such a connection would hold for J makes sense, too. Even if J has never had much to say on the subject, S knows him too well to have missed it. It just hurts to know an outsider could read him like that, all the worse for having it turned against him. "Not much to take anyway," he says quietly, trying to hide a quiet sniffle of his own. "I don't know. I just... wanted a little piece of him, I think. So he'd seem more real." He's always felt a little guilty whenever such thoughts pop into his head, as if he's somehow saying what he had was inadequate, when he knows he was lucky to have grown up with a mother who loved him so much. To want to know about someone who never even wanted him seemed ridiculous to him even then, and asking her would have been hard — not that she would have minded, he's pretty sure, but he would have been afraid to make her think he felt his childhood lacking.

With a tiny sigh, he plucks at the back of S's shirt, shaking his head. "I guess it's normal to be curious," he admits. "And you were probably right to keep it from me." It doesn't make a difference now, but he still wants S to know he thinks so. Easing back just a little, he kisses S's cheek. "You know I would have just made a mess of it, right? Stormed in shouting and pissed off, and then he would have outed us and we wouldn't have had tuition or a place to live." It still feels a bit strange to say, to acknowledge this new version of reality, but he knows it's true. S protected them both by keeping that secret. As much as J would have been angry then to know that S was hiding things from him, he can see the wisdom of it now. Maybe it would have been better if S had told him, maybe they could have come up with a plan, or maybe he would have known not to trust the professor so much, but he knows how stubborn he is and how protective he is of S. Even then, when he knows he must have been feeling increasingly miserable, that drive to keep S safe wasn't yet dormant. He would have wrecked it for both of them.

Even with how shaky he's beginning to feel again, S huffs out a soft, unsteady laugh at J's description of what he would have done. It's easy to imagine him doing exactly that, the other, more significant part of the reason he felt like he could never confide in him that particular truth. He hated every second of it, hated having to keep such a big secret from J when the only secrets he'd really kept from him before were, first, his being gay, then later, his burgeoning feelings, both coming out into the open before very long anyway. But he was certain that if the professor suspected that there was even a chance he'd told J about the theft or the blackmail or both, he wouldn't have held back, and he knows J too well to think for a second that he wouldn't have acted on it. It was an impossible situation. No matter how much he hated having to keep quiet about it, he thought he was choosing right, doing what would protect J, not what would ultimately leave him in the lion's den, alone and easy prey.

"I know," he says, and he hears the change in his own voice, how the sound of it wavers, his throat tightening. "So stubborn. I love that about you." He has, really, since the day they met, J outnumbered on the playground and fighting back against the kids who were bullying him anyway, unwilling to give up even though he didn't stand a chance. Of course, after the fact, it just seems now like all the more reason he should have told him. At least they wouldn't have gone down without a fight. At least they wouldn't have been fighting separate battles on their own when they could have been waging one war together, a united front against such a major threat.

They would have lost their apartment and their scholarships and who knows what else. They wouldn't have lost each other, though, and so much more besides. Now he does begin to cry a little again, unable to help it, clutching J closer to him without realizing that he's doing so. "We wouldn't have," he agrees, words and trembling breath muffled into J's shoulder. "But — but maybe you would have lived."

It isn't as if he thinks J's death is his fault, exactly. Like he just said, he didn't know how bad things would get, not until everything was already over, J dead and his journal in S's possession. Still, as awful as he knew it would be for them if they were outed, he can't help but wonder if maybe it would have been better than the outcome they got. They would have had no school and nowhere to live, their careers over before they ever had a chance to start. At least they would have had each other, though. Then again, that was always all he needed anyway; J was the one who wanted more. Even then, though, even if J got angry and blamed him and shut him out, he might still have been alive, without a slew of deaths on his conscience. That alone would have left them better off than they were by far.

Edited 2021-09-08 06:55 (UTC)

The words catch J off-guard, ringing in his ears, tears pricking his eyes before he's finished processing what S has said. "Hey," he murmurs, pulling S closer, as tight as he can, as if he can take away everything hurting S right now if he just holds him near enough. "No, no, we can't — we can't think like that, okay?" It would be hypocritical of him to say they can't think about the past when he's pulled back to it daily, when the evidence of all they endured is still written into their bodies. But if they start down the path of what might have been now, when they're already tired and sad, he doesn't know how he'll pull them back out of it.

"Darling," he says into S's hair, eyes closing tight. "We don't know what would have happened. And I —" He hesitates, unsure he wants to finish saying what he almost said. It's hard to be sure it could actually be at all helpful, but it's honest and that feels called for. "Maybe I would have. But I'm not sure. You saw how lost I was, how unhappy I was." They would have been together, and maybe that would have been enough to help him pull through. Maybe if he'd had something outside of himself and his own tunnel vision to cling to, something to push him forward, he would have found his own way out. Or maybe he would have been depressed and homeless, without any access to music, without any sense of hope or any idea of how to help support them. It was hard enough to find halfway decent work without anyone knowing he was gay. And the idea of his mother finding out —

He doesn't know. It's hard to know, to be sure, what she would say or think. He wants to believe she'd understand, that she, of all people, could get what it means to love someone you're not supposed to be with, to defy convention for love. But she'd also have had to live with knowing the danger he was in just by existing. And if she'd found that out from someone other than himself, it would have wrecked him.

"It isn't like that was the first time I thought about it," he admits quietly. He isn't sure if S already knows that. It's not like he talked about it then, but he hasn't really hidden it either. "What I did. I didn't... make plans or anything, I didn't really want to do it, it just... crossed my mind sometimes. So... maybe. Maybe not."

It isn't exactly comforting. It isn't exactly surprising, either, which might be the worst part. Back then, S knows, it isn't as if it was something he was often consciously worried about. Much like J has just said, it only crossed his mind sometimes, little flickers of concern when J was at his lowest points, when days turned into weeks without any apparent reprieve from all that darkness. Before it actually happened, he had no way of knowing it was something about which he should specifically have been worried. That fear was more nebulous, just that nothing would ever be enough to make J happy again. He certainly wasn't.

Now, it's different. Even a world away, safe with each other, only barely entertaining some hypothetical situation, having lost J like that once, he's terrified of doing so again, the very idea that much more real. It shouldn't matter when they can't change any of it — when he knows that J is right, that they can't think like that when there's no undoing what's been done and no way of actually being able to say for sure what outcome it would have had — but it hurts anyway. Just like they don't know what would have happened in their past, he doesn't know what their future holds, either. They've been doing so well these past few months, as happy as people who've been through what they have can be, he thinks, but that doesn't mean it will last. They were happy before, too, after they first became a couple, and then they weren't anymore. If things go in that direction again, if J winds up that lost and unhappy —

It's quieter now, at least most of the time, but the memory of the conversation they had that first day J arrived here is always in the back of his head. J didn't promise that he would stay, he promised that he would try. Still certain he can't ask for more than that, S is absolutely terrified that it won't be enough to keep him here.

He doesn't say anything at first, crying softly into J's shoulder, fingers clutching at J's shirt again as he pulls him close. What might also be the worst part is that it is comforting, in a strange, awful way. J didn't talk about any of this then. However much it might hurt to hear, it has to be a good thing that he is doing so now. "I know," he finally mumbles, just so deeply sad. "I know... we don't know. I just —" He's always had a hard time accepting that sort of helplessness. The thought that they might have been doomed regardless, that something would have come between them, that there was nothing he could do one way or the other, fucking hurts. "I just want you to be okay."

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