Even now, S knows he's getting this all wrong. As usual, he should have just kept his fucking mouth shut, always making things worse by somehow managing to mangle his words. Especially with something like this, though, he doesn't know how to explain it. All these past months, he's tried not to even think about this, telling himself that it didn't bother him all that much or even matter at all. He's certainly never talked about it. Aside from J and the doctor he's seen, no one else here even knows what happened to him, and in the case of the latter, it hasn't involved any details beyond the medical ones. It should only stand to reason, then, that he would stumble over trying to say what he means. That doesn't make him feel any better about it, frowning to himself as he tries to figure out what to say next.
So, of course, what comes out first is completely unintentional. "Twice," he nearly whispers, more to himself than to J. "It was twice." He knows all of those messy, gory details — how the stab wounds punctured his left lung and his heart, how close he was to dead when he got to the hospital, how for a minute or so, he was dead, flatlining on the operating table before they managed to bring him back. Over and over, he was told how lucky he was. For a long while there, it was luck he didn't want, survival feeling more like a curse than a blessing.
At least he hasn't gone and said that. It's stupid, probably, to be thinking about the secrets he should still keep when his doing so was what prompted all of this in the first place, but he can only imagine how much that would hurt J to hear. It wouldn't be worth it, not when he's long since gotten past that point. This is already messy enough as it is, a tiny sigh escaping him in turn before he tries again to say what he means.
"And I know that wasn't why. I do," he insists, quiet and shaky though his voice is. "I know you didn't think that." The whole thing happened so quickly, a transition so abrupt that it left him reeling, that he's not sure J would even have been able to think it. Neither of them was exactly at their most clear-headed at the time. Ultimately, the cause hasn't mattered when the effect was the same, when he still looks the same way. "That's not even why... I haven't wanted to try that again. It's just there. In my head, whenever I see myself. "
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So, of course, what comes out first is completely unintentional. "Twice," he nearly whispers, more to himself than to J. "It was twice." He knows all of those messy, gory details — how the stab wounds punctured his left lung and his heart, how close he was to dead when he got to the hospital, how for a minute or so, he was dead, flatlining on the operating table before they managed to bring him back. Over and over, he was told how lucky he was. For a long while there, it was luck he didn't want, survival feeling more like a curse than a blessing.
At least he hasn't gone and said that. It's stupid, probably, to be thinking about the secrets he should still keep when his doing so was what prompted all of this in the first place, but he can only imagine how much that would hurt J to hear. It wouldn't be worth it, not when he's long since gotten past that point. This is already messy enough as it is, a tiny sigh escaping him in turn before he tries again to say what he means.
"And I know that wasn't why. I do," he insists, quiet and shaky though his voice is. "I know you didn't think that." The whole thing happened so quickly, a transition so abrupt that it left him reeling, that he's not sure J would even have been able to think it. Neither of them was exactly at their most clear-headed at the time. Ultimately, the cause hasn't mattered when the effect was the same, when he still looks the same way. "That's not even why... I haven't wanted to try that again. It's just there. In my head, whenever I see myself. "