He should be patient and listen, J knows, and he's really tried to get better at that — has, he thinks, actually done really well over the last year — but now he can't help shaking his head, emphatically disagreeing, before S is done talking. "No, no," he says. One hand still steady at S's waist, he brings the other up, lifts it to S's cheek, though they're all tangled up already. "That's not true. It wouldn't have helped, I don't think it would have. And we were happy when we played together. I..." Try as he might, he can't quite keep his voice from shaking, thinking about this. He ruined it. They can't go back. "I don't regret that."
He would have loved S just the same, he knows, even if S had never done more than sit beside him when he played and turned his own interests elsewhere. They would have been happy and in love even so. But they made so many memories, playing together, talking about music, dreaming about their future, conjuring up new melodies. He doesn't want to let that go or let what came after darken it. He's not sure, anymore, if he gets a say in that.
"Darling," he says softly, thumb stroking along S's cheek. "Please." He shakes his head, at a loss for words until they tumble out. "As long as I have you, I could walk away too." He lowers his gaze, shame coloring his cheeks. "I got that wrong before. But I know I was wrong. I made a mistake. It cost us so much. I thought it cost that, too, that — it didn't help, not hearing you. I only missed it and thought about how I fucked that up. I would have said so if I knew that was why." He shouldn't have made stupid assumptions; he should have asked, should have known better than to believe he understood why S made the decisions he did, when J knows full fucking well that his mind jumps to broken conclusions. "I should have anyway. It's just... so hard to talk about."
And he thought, too, that S didn't want to talk about it. He was lovely all this time, gently encouraging, understanding, but actually discussing music in any real way felt so utterly off-limits. It was a boundary J was content to live within, because the topic itself still unnerves him. It's too complicated and painful now.
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He would have loved S just the same, he knows, even if S had never done more than sit beside him when he played and turned his own interests elsewhere. They would have been happy and in love even so. But they made so many memories, playing together, talking about music, dreaming about their future, conjuring up new melodies. He doesn't want to let that go or let what came after darken it. He's not sure, anymore, if he gets a say in that.
"Darling," he says softly, thumb stroking along S's cheek. "Please." He shakes his head, at a loss for words until they tumble out. "As long as I have you, I could walk away too." He lowers his gaze, shame coloring his cheeks. "I got that wrong before. But I know I was wrong. I made a mistake. It cost us so much. I thought it cost that, too, that — it didn't help, not hearing you. I only missed it and thought about how I fucked that up. I would have said so if I knew that was why." He shouldn't have made stupid assumptions; he should have asked, should have known better than to believe he understood why S made the decisions he did, when J knows full fucking well that his mind jumps to broken conclusions. "I should have anyway. It's just... so hard to talk about."
And he thought, too, that S didn't want to talk about it. He was lovely all this time, gently encouraging, understanding, but actually discussing music in any real way felt so utterly off-limits. It was a boundary J was content to live within, because the topic itself still unnerves him. It's too complicated and painful now.