He's awful, J thinks. He assumed worse, that S was worried about how he'd react because of how horrible he was in the past, and he didn't question that because he felt it was fair. But S has never seen him in the same awful light in which J sees himself, even when they've argued and been angry with each other. He wasn't scared of J; he wanted to protect J, the way he always has, and J wrung his hands and assumed S was, quite reasonably, afraid.

"Stop that," he murmurs, fussing with S's shirt, tugging at the fabric. He doesn't want to pull back even a little, which makes the process of moving one hand to S's back unnecessarily difficult, but he does so, palm resting against the small of S's back. "Don't apologize for taking care of me." It is, admittedly, something they should probably talk about. J shouldn't make these assumptions, he knows, though that never seems to stop him from doing so, but S shouldn't make these decisions either, not on his own. He sniffs, ducking his head so he can rub his face against S's shoulder. It's a vain attempt to clear his vision, but it also feels good, soothing.

"I'm sorry." Though he's trying to calm himself enough to take coherently, his voice still wobbles. Over the last year, he's let S make a lot of decisions for them — has, at least, encouraged him to do so, has left choices in S's hands because he knew he couldn't handle them himself. Sometimes even the smallest choices leave him nervous and frozen, and it's seemed better, at those times, to let S lead the way. He doesn't want S to doubt that he means it in those times. But he should have been doing better, saying important things when he could. Maybe then they would have cleared the air sooner. But then, maybe not. This is such a hard thing to talk about, he's not sure how he would ever have approached it otherwise. "I... I should have — I was scared, so I thought you were scared. So I didn't say anything, and I should have. We both should have."