They should stop, probably. S has thought so intermittently today — back on the couch, when they first started kissing in his bedroom — and he does so again now, but the thought is a distant one, there but not enough to make any kind of difference. A few moments more of this won't hurt, with J's mouth so sweet against his own, J's hand soft and warm where it rests over his. J loves him, and even if he once knew that, or at least believed it, it's so different to hear it now, after everything, to get to be close like this again. If he weren't so tired now, his body aching, his heart still pounding, he'd be half-tempted just to crawl into J's lap and start this all over again, show J just how much he's loved, but he thinks he's finally too worn out for that. Already he's pushed himself further than he probably should have at once, though it's hard to hard to care about that when he feels so good as a result.

It's strange, really. Earlier today, he was miserable. He's been grieving for months. While he knows it makes sense that he's all the more appreciative of this because of that, S still wouldn't have expected that this kind of — joy, really, could stem from all of that unhappiness. He never expected he would be happy like this again at all. Fine, probably, eventually, but he would always have carried that loss around with him, always had a part of himself carved away, leaving a space he would never be able to fill. He's not actually sure that won't still be the case — what happened still happened — but this can exist alongside it now, nothing short of a miracle.

Even now, he wants to keep saying it, to tell J that he loves him over and over, to make up for all the time he never got to, as if doing so might somehow keep him here. S kisses him again instead, which is close enough to the same thing anyway.