S feels it more than he sees it, the way J moves closer but still leaves space between them, and he has to swallow back the tiny sound that he feels rise up in his throat. Somehow, that just makes it worse, makes him all the more aware of the distance between them that doesn't feel like his to close. He reached out before, took J's hand, and J pulled away. As small a thing as it might be in the grand scheme of their relationship and all the turmoil it has contained, he really doesn't think he could bear it right now if the same thing happened again. It's easier, feeling so terribly alone and adrift, to stay as small as he can, arms wrapped tightly around his legs, forehead resting against his knees. It doesn't make anything better, either, but for a long time, once J was gone, it was the closest he could get to being held, something to relieve just a tiny bit of the tension as he fell apart.
He doesn't want it to get that bad now, distantly has the thought that he doesn't have that right, when he can sort of understand at least some of what J is saying. It's still not the way he sees it, but however minor it might seem to him, he can't discredit the fact that it's apparently much bigger to J. Telling himself that, though — that he shouldn't be shifting the focus here when he's the one who upset J — doesn't stop the reaction that's already taken root in him. His vision blurs with tears, hot when they spill down his cheeks, and his breath hitches. At least on that one point, they can agree. Moving is hard. It's always harder when there's a space between them that he doesn't feel like he can close.
"You've been supporting me," he mumbles, his turn, this time, to speak without lifting his head. "It's not — not something I needed support for. Not here." The last is a quick addendum — half thoughtless, but fully in the interest of honesty. He needed support in the immediate aftermath, and he had none of it. There was no one left to give it, his world shattered in the accident that took his parents, burned down in the fire that killed J. "If I did, I would've told you."
No matter how difficult he knows it would be to bring it up, he means that. He wouldn't have kept it to himself if there were anything he were worried or upset about, if he was doing anything more than just checking in the way he was instructed to. All things considered, he's doing well in that regard. He's healed, even if his body will never be quite the same. That's the issue, really, or part of it, the thing that he thinks J is missing. S has long since stopped worrying about J walking out on him again. What he's afraid of is something bigger, more permanent. He lost J like that once. To go through that again, he thinks that would be the thing to make his heart give out, that would be more than he could take. Impossible as it is to be entirely certain, given everything that happened then, he vaguely recalls thinking the same thing that day, too, in that span of time when he couldn't ask J to stay alive but desperately needed him to.
Most of the time, he doesn't worry too much about that. There's always a little concern in the back of his head, but it's not an active fear, not most of the time. Just talking about this, though, being left with what feels like such an impossible choice, brings it back to the surface. He knows he has to say something, after all, to be more specific, to try to convey what's held him back from mentioning this beyond just finding it inconsequential. Trying to bring it up feels terrifying, like tempting fate somehow, speaking it into possibility, but despite how well they know each other, he thinks they tend to fuck it up when they try to guess what's going through the other's head. "But how — how am I supposed to talk about that," he asks, quieter and shakier, "when you can't even look at me?"
no subject
He doesn't want it to get that bad now, distantly has the thought that he doesn't have that right, when he can sort of understand at least some of what J is saying. It's still not the way he sees it, but however minor it might seem to him, he can't discredit the fact that it's apparently much bigger to J. Telling himself that, though — that he shouldn't be shifting the focus here when he's the one who upset J — doesn't stop the reaction that's already taken root in him. His vision blurs with tears, hot when they spill down his cheeks, and his breath hitches. At least on that one point, they can agree. Moving is hard. It's always harder when there's a space between them that he doesn't feel like he can close.
"You've been supporting me," he mumbles, his turn, this time, to speak without lifting his head. "It's not — not something I needed support for. Not here." The last is a quick addendum — half thoughtless, but fully in the interest of honesty. He needed support in the immediate aftermath, and he had none of it. There was no one left to give it, his world shattered in the accident that took his parents, burned down in the fire that killed J. "If I did, I would've told you."
No matter how difficult he knows it would be to bring it up, he means that. He wouldn't have kept it to himself if there were anything he were worried or upset about, if he was doing anything more than just checking in the way he was instructed to. All things considered, he's doing well in that regard. He's healed, even if his body will never be quite the same. That's the issue, really, or part of it, the thing that he thinks J is missing. S has long since stopped worrying about J walking out on him again. What he's afraid of is something bigger, more permanent. He lost J like that once. To go through that again, he thinks that would be the thing to make his heart give out, that would be more than he could take. Impossible as it is to be entirely certain, given everything that happened then, he vaguely recalls thinking the same thing that day, too, in that span of time when he couldn't ask J to stay alive but desperately needed him to.
Most of the time, he doesn't worry too much about that. There's always a little concern in the back of his head, but it's not an active fear, not most of the time. Just talking about this, though, being left with what feels like such an impossible choice, brings it back to the surface. He knows he has to say something, after all, to be more specific, to try to convey what's held him back from mentioning this beyond just finding it inconsequential. Trying to bring it up feels terrifying, like tempting fate somehow, speaking it into possibility, but despite how well they know each other, he thinks they tend to fuck it up when they try to guess what's going through the other's head. "But how — how am I supposed to talk about that," he asks, quieter and shakier, "when you can't even look at me?"