J turns his head, pressing a kiss into S's hair, holding him tight. Even when he doubted, when he let whatever cruel thing wrapped itself around his mind persuade him that S didn't know who he was, he didn't doubt that. It's a strange distinction, to have known that S loved the person he thought J was more than anything and still to have let himself somehow believe that S didn't know him anymore. But S had to doubt. S had ample reason to. J doesn't know if he can say he loved music more than S, but he loved it as much at some point, before it started to unravel him, until his desperation outweighed his love. S can forgive him, S can move on, but J doesn't know if he'll ever be able to forgive that in himself.

"You're my best friend, too," he murmurs, eyes shut tight, then lets out a hiccuping laugh. "My only friend, but you'd be my best friend even if I had a hundred others." He wouldn't want even a quarter as many, but the point still stands. No one could compare to S. No one ever has or will. "I'll try to apologize less. And to be better. I don't want it to get like that ever again, even close to that."

It isn't just the way he treated S, though that is a key reason to want things to change. The way he felt back then, though, was so overwhelmingly painful and frightening, he would have felt suffocated even if he hadn't decided that S was trying to baby him or expected him to get better. Maybe talking about it won't stop things from getting bad again, but he has to try. "I'm right here, darling. I've got you."