He probably did need it. He should probably say that, too. S can't even be sure how long he actually slept, waking with such a start that it both made him very alert very quickly and has left him feeling not rested in the slightest, though if J has just been out here watching TV, it probably couldn't have been that long. Given how absolutely minimally he's slept in the past several days, just accidentally, briefly dozing off a few times the other night, he shouldn't be relieved that that's the case, but he is. As awful as he feels — both in terms of whatever is happening to him now, and for making J worry — it might have been worse if he was asleep too long, if he left J alone with his thoughts for hours and hours.
And maybe that's the problem, or part of it. The immediate worry has passed, but the source of it hasn't. Everything is okay now, nothing happened this time, but there's no telling what might happen next time, or how much or how little it might take to tip J back into the frame of mind he was in that first day here, when they sat crying on this same couch. It doesn't explain this, how he trembles and gasps with such an overwhelming panic, but at least it makes sense of why he can't just shake this fear off and move on. He has to be able to, though. He has to live with this. If the cost of impossibly getting to be with J again is having to fear for his safety, then S will spend the rest of his life paying it if that's what it takes to have that time together. Knowing that doesn't make it any easier to face the fact that J might not be able to stay, that S could so easily lose him again.
"I thought..." he tries again, though he still doesn't know how to say this. It wouldn't be an easy thing to talk around even if he were mentally at his sharpest, which he isn't, and he doesn't feel like he can just be straightforward about it, as if saying I was afraid you might have killed yourself would just remind J of his desire to do so. He doesn't seem to have been clear enough yet, though, which is unsurprising even as it leaves him fumbling for a different approach. He should probably stop, just focus instead on trying to breathe, but he doesn't want to worry J more than he has already, hates that this keeps happening, that he continually needs comfort when he should be the one giving it. For so long, he tried to be steady for both of them. Granted, that failed catastrophically, but knowing that doesn't keep him from feeling like he should be again now.
He draws in another shallow, faltering breath. It helps, at least, to be held close like this, both for the physical comfort of J's arms around him and because it means he doesn't have to look at J as he struggles to try to say this. He doesn't know if it will do him any good, but it isn't like just sitting here with all of this still cycling through his head is calming him down at all. "That you might not be," he continues after a moment too long, words coming out between unsteady breaths, though he thinks he might have said something similar already. "That if... you were alone... and things got bad for you..." He still can't say it, shakes his head again instead, tries to let the relative steadiness of J's breathing and heartbeat soothe him.
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And maybe that's the problem, or part of it. The immediate worry has passed, but the source of it hasn't. Everything is okay now, nothing happened this time, but there's no telling what might happen next time, or how much or how little it might take to tip J back into the frame of mind he was in that first day here, when they sat crying on this same couch. It doesn't explain this, how he trembles and gasps with such an overwhelming panic, but at least it makes sense of why he can't just shake this fear off and move on. He has to be able to, though. He has to live with this. If the cost of impossibly getting to be with J again is having to fear for his safety, then S will spend the rest of his life paying it if that's what it takes to have that time together. Knowing that doesn't make it any easier to face the fact that J might not be able to stay, that S could so easily lose him again.
"I thought..." he tries again, though he still doesn't know how to say this. It wouldn't be an easy thing to talk around even if he were mentally at his sharpest, which he isn't, and he doesn't feel like he can just be straightforward about it, as if saying I was afraid you might have killed yourself would just remind J of his desire to do so. He doesn't seem to have been clear enough yet, though, which is unsurprising even as it leaves him fumbling for a different approach. He should probably stop, just focus instead on trying to breathe, but he doesn't want to worry J more than he has already, hates that this keeps happening, that he continually needs comfort when he should be the one giving it. For so long, he tried to be steady for both of them. Granted, that failed catastrophically, but knowing that doesn't keep him from feeling like he should be again now.
He draws in another shallow, faltering breath. It helps, at least, to be held close like this, both for the physical comfort of J's arms around him and because it means he doesn't have to look at J as he struggles to try to say this. He doesn't know if it will do him any good, but it isn't like just sitting here with all of this still cycling through his head is calming him down at all. "That you might not be," he continues after a moment too long, words coming out between unsteady breaths, though he thinks he might have said something similar already. "That if... you were alone... and things got bad for you..." He still can't say it, shakes his head again instead, tries to let the relative steadiness of J's breathing and heartbeat soothe him.