Even before J has finished speaking, S shakes his head, though he listens, waiting until J has finished before he speaks up. For him, though, that couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, there was a time when things weren't good between them, when J seemed to feel threatened by or angry about anything he did rather than supportive or encouraging. In the grand scheme of things, though, that was only a tiny fragment of their relationship, a significant but ultimately short span of time, easily outweighed by all the rest of it. Not prone to the same dramatics as J, S wouldn't go so far as to say that he wouldn't have survived his parents' deaths without J there with him, but he would have been much worse off, alone in the world and without any choice but to leave home. Except for that one bad year, J has always been there for him. That, at least, is how S has always seen it.

"I think you're better at being supportive than you think you are," he murmurs, lifting his hand so he can brush an errant tear off J's cheek with his knuckle. "You're here. And when something matters to you, you care so much." Ever since they were children, S has considered himself lucky to be on that list. It was one of the things that made him realize he'd fallen in love with J — how passionate he could be, how dedicated. His being supportive is just a different aspect of the same thing, really. "You definitely didn't break it."

What's held S back has been himself, really. Maybe some of it may have been for J's sake, but not because he thought J wanted it a certain way or that he might get angry. The few times it's come up, J has been the one who wanted him to have that option. That, he thinks, unquestionably counts as being supportive.