For a few moments, J thinks he's gotten himself under control, but that sets him off again, his lips pressed tight together, tears too hot down his cheeks. He was so stupid. He was stupid and cruel and blind, and they paid so dearly for it. If he knew nothing else in all the world, he should have known S would never stop loving him, and he can only call it proof of how far apart he fell that he ever thought otherwise. Even now, he wants to believe he'd never make that mistake again, the evidence of this last year too powerful to deny, but he's not sure. It's hard to imagine now that he could ever doubt this again, but he would have thought, in the months before he started to crumble, that he could never doubt it at all. It's scary to know how easily everything he relies on can break down, if only and most potently within his own mind.
"A little," he says, hoarse, trying hard to crack a smile, though it comes out embarrassingly wobbly. He sniffs, struggling to find his words or even the ability to speak, his throat gone rough and tight. "I'm trying not to say," he admits after a moment, "that I don't deserve that." The loyalty and love S has shown him, the depth of grace and forgiveness — J knows it for what it is now, an act of devotion and courage at the same time that it's as natural and automatic and unthinking as breath, and he doesn't know how to show how thankful he is that S has that strength and that instinct alike. It's hard to think he's done or been anything at all that would merit that. He's done an awful lot that wouldn't. At the end of it, though, it's S's choice and S's heart, and he knows S sees in him so much that J simply can't. He's trying so hard just to let himself have this, not to argue or debate, just to let S love him.
He's worked, too, to be better and do more so that, whether or not S thinks it's necessary, he can feel for himself that he's more worthy of the luck and love he's been given. It can't be like before. "It doesn't matter," he adds, "if I do or not. I want it either way. To be loved by you like this. With or without music."
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"A little," he says, hoarse, trying hard to crack a smile, though it comes out embarrassingly wobbly. He sniffs, struggling to find his words or even the ability to speak, his throat gone rough and tight. "I'm trying not to say," he admits after a moment, "that I don't deserve that." The loyalty and love S has shown him, the depth of grace and forgiveness — J knows it for what it is now, an act of devotion and courage at the same time that it's as natural and automatic and unthinking as breath, and he doesn't know how to show how thankful he is that S has that strength and that instinct alike. It's hard to think he's done or been anything at all that would merit that. He's done an awful lot that wouldn't. At the end of it, though, it's S's choice and S's heart, and he knows S sees in him so much that J simply can't. He's trying so hard just to let himself have this, not to argue or debate, just to let S love him.
He's worked, too, to be better and do more so that, whether or not S thinks it's necessary, he can feel for himself that he's more worthy of the luck and love he's been given. It can't be like before. "It doesn't matter," he adds, "if I do or not. I want it either way. To be loved by you like this. With or without music."