In the back of his head and the back of his throat are words that S knows he can never, ever say. Despite how much they've discussed even just in this last little while how much they need to talk to each other, this one thing has to stay off limits. Even if he wanted to, he doesn't know how he would possibly bring up J's last piece anyway, beyond what he's already told J about the professor stealing it and winning the Gloria Artis with it. Holding it back feels wrong, too, but he doesn't think any good would come from saying that he's heard it, that he's played it, that it was some of J's best work. That the movement J wrote for him broke his heart all over again. That he played it enough to commit much of it to memory. If he wanted to, which he very much doesn't, he could turn toward the keys again and play it now.
What worries him is the idea of seeming like he would be saying that what J did to write it was worth it. Despite the worries J has expressed, S knows it will never come to that again. It's just how it might make him sound, and how upsetting he can too easily imagine that being. It seems better, safer, just not to go there at all, to leave the sonata in the past, no matter how beautiful it might have been.
"Is this the part where I get to say I told you so?" he asks instead, the gentlest sort of teasing, the tip of his nose brushing J's when he leans forward to rest their foreheads together. He wouldn't really want to take that stance, and he hopes J knows it. It isn't that the past doesn't matter, but what matters infinitely more is that they're here now, having found a way to take back a little of something that was once so utterly theirs. For him, that was just always what drove him — not awards, not prestige, but just how he felt when he played, and then even more how he felt when he played with J. Really, it's no wonder that he fell out of love with it when he lost J. There was nothing good to be found in it anymore, just painful memories and longing. "You weren't stupid. Or if you were, we both were." He tilts his head just enough to press a kiss to J's hand where it sits against his jaw. "But maybe... maybe we'll be able to feel a little of that again."
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What worries him is the idea of seeming like he would be saying that what J did to write it was worth it. Despite the worries J has expressed, S knows it will never come to that again. It's just how it might make him sound, and how upsetting he can too easily imagine that being. It seems better, safer, just not to go there at all, to leave the sonata in the past, no matter how beautiful it might have been.
"Is this the part where I get to say I told you so?" he asks instead, the gentlest sort of teasing, the tip of his nose brushing J's when he leans forward to rest their foreheads together. He wouldn't really want to take that stance, and he hopes J knows it. It isn't that the past doesn't matter, but what matters infinitely more is that they're here now, having found a way to take back a little of something that was once so utterly theirs. For him, that was just always what drove him — not awards, not prestige, but just how he felt when he played, and then even more how he felt when he played with J. Really, it's no wonder that he fell out of love with it when he lost J. There was nothing good to be found in it anymore, just painful memories and longing. "You weren't stupid. Or if you were, we both were." He tilts his head just enough to press a kiss to J's hand where it sits against his jaw. "But maybe... maybe we'll be able to feel a little of that again."