hismelody | (no subject)

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Even now, after more than a year here and the rocky months that preceded his arrival, S still sometimes finds it strange that he barely plays the piano anymore. There is, of course, a whole ton of baggage that comes along with that, too, but every once in a while, he's simply struck by the oddity of it. For such a long time, it was such a huge part of his life, the thing that helped bring him and his boyfriend together, the path he'd chosen for his future, both his schoolwork and his leisure time largely revolving around it. Now he doesn't even play daily, though he works around instruments. At least he has a good environment in which to do so. Playing at home would be out of the question for numerous reasons, not the least of which is that they don't have and can't afford a piano. At work, he can get it out of his system, so to speak, get some practice in so he doesn't lose all his skill. It's not something he has the same drive to pursue anymore. As much as he misses it, he can't force that feeling back. This is enough — a perfect arrangement, really.

He just has to keep telling himself that.

As is fairly usual, it's quiet near the end of the work day, no customers around. With his coworker in the back, the store is momentarily empty, and that feels worth taking advantage of. Sitting down at one of the display pianos — a beautiful grand, far nicer than anything he ever owned or ever really expected to, he remains still for a moment, just breathing in deep, savoring the familiar feeling of it, his hands resting delicately against the keys and eyes closed. When he opens them again, he begins playing Tchaikovsky, the simple, lilting, bittersweet melody coming from him easily. He means to be paying attention to the store still, but with so little time left until they close up anyway, he isn't expecting anyone to show up. He winds up, then, immersed enough in the music that he doesn't notice when the door opens and someone walks into the store.

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Despite all they've discussed, J has to steel himself for S's response, unsure of what he means until he explains himself. The truth of it hurts, too, but it's better than his instinctive fear, the uncertainty that comes from inside of him, and he's thankful he managed to hold himself together. He trusts S in a way he still doesn't and might never trust himself, but that doesn't always mean much against the weight of irrational fear — not, at least, as much as he knows they both wish it did.

He's busy wishing, too, that S had never had to feel that way, feeling, as always, a little guilty for his role in it, until something about the wording turns on a light in the back of his head. It's familiar, is what it is, and he nods absently before he's pieced together his words. "I think," he says, slow even though he's really thinking out loud, "I'm still doing that." He has to. And the thing is, he doesn't, not really, but if he rushes in all at once — it's frightening and it's too much and he's steadier than he once was by far, but he's still unsure and shaky even on his better days. If he lets it all in, he doesn't know how he'd cope or what he'd do, and he's too afraid to find out, but keeping it all at bay doesn't feel natural either.

"It's a lot," he echoes, nodding again. When he's entirely rational about it, after all, he knows that the piano wasn't the real problem, and so keeping himself apart from music serves little real purpose. But that's worse, actually, much worse, and it's not like the piano helped. "But you can. And you have time. You'll figure it out when you're ready, darling." He hopes he will, too, but, these days, figuring out much of anything feels a long way off.

Although it's hardly a revelation in itself, something they've talked about enough for him to have already been aware of it, S still finds himself slightly surprised by what J says. Until now, he never considered it like that, the two of them, as they've so often done, winding up in the same place, just taking entirely different routes to get there. J, he knows, has been worried about what might happen if he leaned wholeheartedly into music again; as much as S trusts him, he can't blame J for not feeling secure in that. For himself, it's just seemed easier to keep it at a distance. He hasn't loved it enough to feel like he was losing anything in not pursuing it anymore, but he hasn't let himself love it, either. This, here, despite how emotional they've both been, is the first time in a long time he's felt even a fraction of what he used to when they played with or for each other.

It's still hard to know how to go forward or what he wants. Even when things were at their best, he never really had J's ambition, and he has even less interest in acclaim now than he did back then. It wouldn't feel right to stoke that fire. Any playing he does will be for himself, for them. That's all he ever really cared about anyway.

"We both will," he murmurs, giving J's hand a gentle squeeze. "We'll figure it out together." Maybe that's the piece that's been missing for both of them, that's made this feel so insurmountable. They've both tried to encourage each other when they could, but if having this together seemed so off-limits, it's no wonder he's been at such a loss. "I really have missed this."

It's been a strange journey, figuring out where he stands in regards to music, and he has a lot more to learn and determined. It still feels wrong to J that it's like this, but he knows it's something where he really can't just rush back in. That hurts, too, not just because he devoted so much of his life — too much of it — to music, but because it's tinged so many of the happiest memories of his life with uncertainty. It used to be where he felt safest and most confident, and now it's entirely the opposite. When he does play, he feels a little of that again — not the confidence, necessarily, but the sense of it being right that he missed for a long, long time. Even so, it's too complicated for him to dive back in and start playing again or writing all at once.

This, though, this is simple, all of the complexity nudged aside in the face of what S says. He nods, small, leaning his face against S's shoulder. "Me too," he murmurs. S's patience with him and his quiet support are the main reasons, he's fairly sure, that he's able to sit here at all, at peace enough not to be frightened of the very fact of sitting in front of a piano. Tilting his head up, he leans forward, pressing a soft kiss to S's jaw. "Next time," he adds, just as hushed, "let's play together."

He wants that, he thinks, very badly. And maybe that's why he spent all this time afraid that S didn't want him here, that he'd only think of that last time they played together — because he wanted it. Because he wished he could go back and do everything differently, that he hadn't slammed the keys or walked away. Right now, though, despite how well this has ultimately turned out, his emotions are too wild, his nerves shot, and he doesn't think he could handle playing at all, never mind taking such a big step. Still, it feels good to talk about the future in any form, and to think that they could have that.

Even now, with everything that's happened this evening, S isn't expecting J to say that. For a moment, he goes still, as if trying to be sure he's heard right, drawing in a small, audible breath, but he nods immediately after. He doesn't want to give J the wrong idea; he doesn't want to start thinking too much about what happened the last time they played together, a wound that's never fully healed. J apologized for it that first time they went to Kagura, but S already knew that he was sorry, and he wouldn't have needed to hear it. That may even have been the least fucked up thing that happened that horrible night, but it's stayed with him all the same, how it felt like such a definitive rejection — not just in the present, but of their past, of all the meaning with which that song was imbued and all the times they'd played together before.

Of course he wants to change that, deeply earnest as he tilts his head to try to catch J's gaze again. "I'd really like that," he whispers, thumb stroking the back of J's hand where their fingers are still entwined. Just the idea of a next time, the implicit, quiet promise there, is remarkably powerful. Having a next time that they could share is even more so, one more thing that he really thought he would never have again. They've already been wrong about that a lot of times, in a lot of ways, but for J to play again at all was such a huge step in itself. S never considered the possibility of more than that — that J might want to hear him, might want to play with him. "I never loved playing as much as I did when I played with you."

He's been remarkably composed this past while, trying to keep it together for J's sake, if nothing else. It feels phenomenally stupid, then, that it's his own words that make his breath catch in his throat and his eyes sting. That's what's been missing, though, at least in part. He loved it, but he loved it most because it was theirs. Of course, with that piece of it taken away, it's been hollow. Of course it aches to have even just a tiny part of that back.

Over and over again, J finds himself frightened, and it frustrates him so much. There's nothing to be afraid of when it comes to things like this. He knows now, in a way he didn't before he came here, that S would never reject him or push him away or think less of him. He knows that, on some level, he's only afraid because he knows how badly he's behaved in the past when it's been his turn to step up and provide support, to listen and encourage and accept. It's his own behavior he imagines, not S's, and still he gets scared, nervous when he says things like this. It's something else, he thinks, that was taken from him by whatever happened to make him the way he is. Wanting things — admitting to wanting things — can be terrifying when he's seen how destructive that can be.

So it takes him a moment to look up, though he can feel S trying to meet his eyes, part of him afraid to be told no, he fucked things up too much to be allowed that, and afraid, too, that he'll start crying if he's told yes. What he finds instead, as he looks up at S, is relief, an awe that flutters through his chest. That's not what makes him tear up this time. It's seeing the way S's eyes go glassy when he says that, the way his control wavers, how earnestly he says that.

He loved music in so many permutations, played alone or together, with S or his mother, for an audience or with no one else to hear. He wrote his story with these keys rather than those of a typewriter, and he let himself become powerful, just as he let himself be vulnerable, too, in ways he's only ever otherwise been with S. His relationship with music shaped him long before he went to school for it, long before the Gloria Artis and the professor. There have been other times, he thinks, that he enjoyed it as much as he did with S, but very few of them and almost entirely with his mother.

And even then, thinking on it now, he knows that there's more to it than that. "I know," he murmurs, nodding, squeezing S's hand in return. He lifts their hands together, presses a kiss to S's knuckles. "That was... that was the proudest I ever was, I think. The happiest. When I wrote that song and... and you liked it. And you smiled when I knew that was hard, and I realized, ah, I have that power too. I can make music that means something too, that makes things better for him, just for a moment. That was the best."

Although he's never once judged J for being emotional, S feels unbelievably stupid when a few tears spill over down his cheeks again, his breath a trembling exhale. It's not like he didn't know all of that meant something to J, too. It just got lost somewhere, he thinks, under the ambition and the fights, the way J seemed to hate him for playing and composing and to believe that nothing of his own was good enough. To S, he'd already done enough. J was the one who helped get him through those awful months following the loss of his parents, and S knows he would have done so even if neither of them had ever been musically inclined. Still, it meant the world that he went to those lengths, writing that song at least in part to try to cheer him up. It got him to smile when nothing and no one else could; it shaped the rest of his life, or at least the few years that have followed, moving him enough that he was inspired to try his hand at writing, too.

For a while since then, S has started to regret that he ever did so, wondering if everything would have been easier if he'd just left piano and composing to J. This, though, reminds him of why he chose that. No matter how much he'd loved music already, he hadn't realized just how much difference one piece could make. In a way, this isn't so different. All they're doing is sitting here; there's no one watching them, no one around to hear anything either of them might play. He played the first part of an old favorite piece of his, out of practice and without finishing it. And yet it's made all the difference in the world just to be here together, like they used to be so often. They shared their first kiss sitting at a piano like this, and countless hours both before and after. It hasn't felt, this past year, like their relationship has been missing anything, but being here together now feels, in a way, like coming home.

"I could tell you how much that meant to me," he says, sniffling, "but I think you already know." That much, he has to be certain of. He made no secret of it back then, after all, and the way J has framed it, all those pieces are bound up in each other — the music J wrote, the effect it had on S, how J felt as a result. "It's still my favorite. Always will be."

J nods, disentangling their hands just enough to free one, lifting it to S's cheek. Brushing his knuckles along that familiar curve, sweeping away tears, he leans in to kiss him, brief but utterly tender. His chest is tight, knots of old hurts pressing painfully against his lungs, but he's pretty sure all of this is a good thing in spite of that. It's just that it's impossible to talk about these things without brushing up against the scars and bruises of the past, or pulling apart something he didn't realize was wound up just so.

He can't pretend that what went wrong in him was just ambition. He was ambitious for a long time before he began to unravel, and he doesn't think that was intrinsically wrong or harmful. It was when things in his head went awry and he lost sight of the things that mattered most that he fell apart, when he let his ambition mingle with his insecurities and his fear of being insignificant swept away the heart of why he loved music to begin with. The heart of music's power is precisely this, the way he could write something that could make S feel a little better. How something of his could be someone's favorite song — his favorite person's favorite song, for that matter. Whether he ever had an audience or not, whether his name was known, none of it would signify if his music didn't say something, move someone. But he got so caught up in trying to prove he could do that, he stopped being able to. It's hard, he thinks, to write profoundly about things he'd never experienced, and he let himself think those were the things that became art. In truth, he sees now, nothing could be more powerful than writing something to coax light out of grief. He spent too long in shadows to understand it then.

"I was stupid," he says softly. "I let myself forget why I was so proud of that. This is what matters, how it makes us feel. How I could make you a little happier, how free I felt when I played. We shared it because it made it even better when we did. I was a fool to see it any other way." Still close, he tips his head forward again, kissing S's cheek this time, his hand cupping S's jaw. "It's my favorite thing I wrote, too. Just for you."

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."

Though J wants to protest, he lets it go, if only because he can hear something in S's voice that sounds like he might be smiling. J's too close to be sure, his eyes half-shut, warmth against his palm like an echo of that kiss. S wasn't stupid. He knows that. J is the one who messed things up. And he knows he can't just pretend that S got everything right, because he didn't, and it wouldn't be fair to say otherwise. At the end of it, though, S's mistakes were made with his not having much information to go off of, and they came from sincere love. He worked with what he knew, and J worked against everything he'd once understood.

Right now, though, he doesn't want to argue or retread threadbare disagreements. Stroking his thumb along S's cheek, he nods. "I want that," he says softly. "A little at a time, I think, and this is a start, isn't it?" He hesitates a moment, not so much doubting his words as uncertain how to string them together. "Maybe... maybe it'll make the rest of it easier. I'm still... unsure about playing sometimes." He knows S is aware of that, but it still bears saying. His comfort with playing wavers, especially now that it's been a while again. "I know it's ridiculous. It's not the piano's fault. But I think too much and it becomes difficult again. But... but like this, you and me, maybe it'll be easier."

To S, it doesn't seem ridiculous at all. Unnecessary, surely, and nothing he's worried about, but it isn't like he can't understand why J would be so uneasy about playing now. If anything, J's reluctance increases his own certainty. He would be a lot more concerned if J took the matter more lightly, impossible as that is even to imagine. He's always been, at least in S's mind, too hard on himself. Maybe it should be different where murder is concerned — maybe too hard on himself is a threshold that shouldn't exist under such circumstances — but S doesn't think so. Nothing good would come from J punishing himself forever, and that would be a wild oversimplification of what actually happened. It's not as if J just woke up one day and decided to kill people to fuel his compositions. The truth, as it so often is, is messier, far more complicated, sadder.

"Maybe it will," he agrees, his own voice soft in turn, a quiet but noticeable optimism there in the words. He thinks he's always been a little better at that than J has, or at least these last few years, but one of them needs to be able to look at things positively. If they could get this far, though, he can only take that as a sign that they might be able to get even just a little of that feeling back. It's more than he's had any reason to believe they would have again. "You can go as slow as you need. Always. And if you want to stop..." Maybe this isn't the time for what ifs, but it feels important to say anyway. "It won't change this. Us. Nothing will."

Though J doesn't really have a certain answer as to what he wants or where he wants to go with music from here, he's relatively sure he doesn't want to stop, not completely. It can't ever be what it was to him, for so many reasons, and maybe he won't ever feel comfortable enough to play in any serious way. Even if he did, he's not sure he should even be permitted to write. It doesn't sit easy in his chest, that thought, and that's not entirely to do with the reasons why he thinks that's so or the part of him that wishes he felt the way he once did about composing, felt that old confidence. It's partly just that he's always hated the idea of needed permission to do things. Too many people scolded him over the years for trivial matters. Too many people thought less of him for things that weren't anything to do with him. He wanted always to follow his own passions, and to hell with anyone else's opinions.

This is more, though, than quiet disobedience. When he wrote music, he invested too much of himself in it, and it ended in death. He may be doing much, much better here most of the time, but he can't guarantee he won't start to unravel again were he ever to try his hand at composition once more. It's frustrating to feel this way, but it's better, he knows, than his dashing in headlong the way he once would have and heading into disaster.

"I know," he says first, soft, nudging S's nose with his own. "I know that now. I... I don't want to stop. Not really. But slowly, yes, and... together maybe." He doesn't want to back S into feeling they have to play together now, that his heart is set on it. As much as he'd like it, as much as he knows S would too now, he still wants to leave room for S to change his mind for whatever reason. Still, even if they don't literally play together, they can sit together like this, and he thinks it would make a big difference. "I think I feel safer when you're with me." He huffs, shaking his head. "I know I do, but I mean with music specifically."

As difficult as it's been, having his own passion for music wane, watching J spend so long feeling unable even to touch a piano at all, in a way, S is grateful for that distance. Their relationship never existed without music before they wound up here, after all, and music was at least part of what ended it the first time around. To have come back together without it, both of them thinking they never would have that back, and to have rebuilt something even stronger, is deeply reassuring, and means more than he would know how to say. Nothing ever would have changed things for him anyway, but at least they both have seen firsthand now that it isn't a necessary facet of what they share. J chose music over him before. It's nice — and moving — to know that J would choose him now even without music in the picture at all.

And if it aches a little to consider J needing to feel safer when he plays, it's not as if S can't understand why that would be so. Nodding, it's his turn this time to lean in and press a soft kiss to the corner of J's mouth, brief but tender. "If you do, then I'll be here," he murmurs. He doesn't add that he would have assumed the opposite, that J wouldn't have wanted him to be a part of any playing he did at all, not wanting to circle back to how terribly they misunderstood each other. Although he knows perfectly well now that there was far more going on that last night in Seoul than he was remotely aware of at the time, it's hard not to have been haunted by the way it ended when they played together then, how J couldn't even finish the piece without getting angry and rejecting him again. Of course, after everything, S could only assume that, if J played again at all, he wouldn't want to share it anymore. Again, and as with so much else, it's nice to have been wrong.

"We can try something like this again," he suggests, still staying close, careful to keep his voice low. "You can come around at closing, play when no one else is here. Just the two of us."

It's not the first time S has said as much, but it feels different now, J thinks. Maybe it's because he's had more chances to play at Kagura, even if it's been a while, or maybe it's because today has changed things. He'd been uncertain about coming here, part of him drawn to it, part of him afraid. Being alone with S and a piano — he didn't worry about what he would do, but he was scared, he thinks, that it would be uncomfortable. And it was, admittedly, when he arrived, so he wasn't wrong. It hurt as much as he'd feared, for that matter. It also gave them the chance to figure this out, and he's grateful for that. No matter how often he learns it's better just to get things out in the open, it's unnerving to do.

But here, seated beside each other, S's breath warm against his cheek, that uncertainty has melted away. He's safe, sheltered by S's presence, and it's going to be okay. Letting out a soft exhale, he leans into S, nodding a little. "Yes," he murmurs, and though he didn't think he felt particularly tense, he can feel it ebbing away from him. These conversations are hard. Somehow it surprises him every time how exhausted he feels after, drained by feeling so much in such a sustained way, but there's such a relief in feeling things piece back together again. He huffs out a tiny laugh, half-pouting. "On purpose next time. Ah, really, I'd like that, darling."

And when that happens, he thinks, they can take turns playing for each other, maybe even try to play together like he said. Whatever it is, they'll take it little by little. They'll make it work, like they always do now. "Just tell me what day is best," he says, "so I don't work myself up trying to decide, and I'll be here." He feels silly having to say that, but he knows it's true. It's one of the other reasons he'd yet to come play; he always talked himself out of it or made himself too nervous to follow through. Even now, part of him is aware they should probably wrap up here so S can finish and they can go home, but he can't bring himself to move. It's been so long since he could sit comfortably like this at the piano with the man he loves, even if he hasn't touched a single key.

With all the crying they've both done, it's ridiculous that J should be so adorable right now. That little pout, though, is nothing but, one of S's favorite expressions of his. Nothing comes close to when he really smiles, of course, bright and pleased, but this is still deeply endearing. Smiling a little, tired but so very fond, he leans in just enough for the tip of his nose to brush J's for a moment. If anything, he should probably ease back, start getting them ready to head home, but he can't bring himself to move yet. It feels too good just to sit here together. Even though he sat at J's side when J played the piano at Kagura, he was reluctant then even to do that much, still misinterpreting everything, wanting to let it be J's. This, though, feels like finally getting back something he thought he would never have again, and he wants to savor it just for a little while longer.

"I'd like that, too," he murmurs, nodding slightly. They don't need to have a specific plan for what they'll do then; if anything, he thinks it might be better not to, leaving it open for whatever either of them is in the mood for. If J wants to play or wants to listen or wants to play together, or any combination of those things, then he'll be able to, and maybe, the more they try it, the more S will start to feel like it's something that could be his again. What that would look like now, he has no idea in the slightest. He never was all that ambitious, and if anything, he's even less so now than he used to be. As long as he can have a quiet life with J, he'll be happy. Letting the piano be a part of that again just makes it even better.

As for J's request, though, S has no intention of just telling J when to show up. That could too easily cause too many problems, would feel too much like the things that drove J so crazy before. "And how about," he continues, quiet and thoughtful, figuring out what he wants to say as he goes, "you tell me when you're feeling like you want to come try it, and then I'll tell you what day is best?"

J considers that, nodding. It seems like a reasonable compromise, he supposes. S can't just assume, after all, that he'll be in the mood to try whenever it seems convenient. It took most of a year even for him to touch a piano again. It's been a frustratingly slow process, letting himself play at all, and he still finds himself afraid at times. He still doesn't understand why he thinks and feels and behaves the way he does, or why he started to do so at all; how can he really be sure what will or won't set him off? The times when he feels confident enough to try aren't consistent. Even planning ahead may not help, when he might easily change his mind on the day, but at least he's likelier to go through with it if he has a day set.

"Okay," he says. "I want to." He's not ready right this minute, he knows that. If he were, there'd be no need to talk about scheduling this. He would make a go of it here and now. But, no matter how well they've resolved things now, he's still worn out from the emotions of the last half hour or so — he really has no idea how to measure time anymore, he thinks — and still feels shaky and unsure. He knows he wants to try, he knows he wants to change things, but he doesn't think he could do it now, not without crying or panicking. He's too shaky for that. S's presence makes him feel a lot better, but that doesn't mean the worries are gone or that his body has caught up to his mind. It just makes all that easier to bear.

If anything, it would be simpler to do as he has done before, to say yes, he'd like that, he'll think about it, come by sometime, then never follow through. He doesn't want to make it so easy for himself to wriggle out, though.

S nods in turn, lifting one hand for a moment to smooth it over J's hair. Even with the dim awareness he has that it's ridiculous to be doing all of this at his work, he isn't about to hold back for a second. No one is here; no one is going to come in. In moments like this, it always tends to feel like the rest of the world may as well not exist, anyway. It's quiet, peaceful in spite of the turbulent emotions they've both been overwhelmed by, and it's just the two of them, the way it always should have been. He never should have let anything take this from them. It wasn't all on him, he knows that, but it's still too easy to think of the many, many things he could have done differently and the pain it might have spared them. Keeping his time at the piano here to himself was meant to be a way of combating that. He got that horribly wrong, too, but at least they have a chance to start to put it right now. Whatever it took to get them here, this feels like a good step.

"Okay," he echoes, hand finding J's again to give it a gentle squeeze. That has to be a good thing, too, J wanting to, even if he knows it's not as simple as just that. Maybe it never will be simple again, a thought that admittedly makes him a little sad, when it used to be the simplest thing in their lives. Through the chaos of his losing his parents, their moving in together, barely having enough money to get by, worrying about grades and college, the pressures of staying closeted, music was always there, simple and easy and right. Now, there's so much baggage attached to it instead. Still, however much the fact of that might hurt, it's better to let it become something new and figure out what that might be than to wish for things to go back to the way they were.

"How soon, do you think?" he asks. J might be trying to leave this at least somewhat in his hands, but it isn't a decision he feels wholly comfortable making. There's too much messy history there, and ultimately, it's about what J feels up to, anyway. "Later this week? Or next?"

J opens his mouth to answers, then pauses, making himself actually think about it first. His gaze darts away, as if looking elsewhere might prompt some other part of his brain to function better, willing himself to come up with the answer that will work out in spite of all his worries. Part of him, now that he's come this far, thinks it might be better to wait after all — not very long, just a week, enough time to let himself settle down. But then, he might only get wound up instead, he thinks. More time means more thinking. S is good at helping with that, but he can't be home with J all the time, and he can't stay up all night. It was a disaster even before he had a job.

"This week," he says, tentative, looking back at S. Uncertain though his voice may be, he's determined, mouth set in a small, firm line even as he presses S's hands again. "Or I'll think about it too much first. It's better to do it soon since I've made up my mind. And if I change my mind again, we can do it later, but I — I don't wait to put it off and decide I can't do it."

He wants this back. He's gotten so much back that he thought he'd never have again, and he feels rather greedy for wanting to add this to the list, but he didn't get as far as he did — before it all fell spectacularly apart — without demanding more and pushing himself. Their happiness was taken from them by circumstance, by the professor, by his own warped thoughts, and now they're clawing it back. He won't give this up altogether without trying when they've regained so much already. It's not like he wants to go back to how things were — when he can see through the doubt and the hurt and the frustration with himself, he knows they are, in fact, better and stronger even than they were before, and he's happy with that, proud even. But he doesn't think they should have to give up things they like, things that meant something to them, because of things that are gone or that he's worked to improve. They've conquered death and time, madness and mourning, and no small amount of trauma; they can have sex in a way he thought they couldn't again and he can play the piano without panicking, more or less, and they understand each other a little better all the time, something he didn't know was possible. They can do this too. He can play for S and S can play for him, and perhaps they'll be able to play together, the way they did when they were just kids, falling in love. If that means he frets for a couple days and battles his anxiety all the way to this bench, he'll do it.

A moment later, the fierceness dies away a bit, his nose wrinkling up, rueful. "If there's a chance, at least, for me to come here without it causing any trouble." They'd survive alright for a bit without S working, but he doesn't want to jeopardize this job even so. It helps them both, he thinks, for S to have something to do, for them to have a bit more financial security, and for him to have some space during the day.

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