When they were younger, J found it intensely helpful to hear that S felt many of the same things he did. When he grew older and his mind started to change, it was the certainty that no one reasonable could think and feel as he did that made him feel so alone, so unable to speak. The trouble is, because he knows his own mind to be unreliable and his understanding of the world to be different from most, he's not at all sure how useful it is to understand what S feels on any level. Maybe it doesn't matter, he tells himself. Even if what S feels isn't normal either, then at least they'd be odd together. At least he'd feel less alone in it. J just feels uneasy at the idea that S might have to endure any of the things he's had to. But this is normal, he tells himself. It has to be. He's done that before, well before his thoughts grew strange.

"I've done that," he says, lifting a hand to comb his fingers through S's hair. "A lot, really. It's... scary, I think, how much we can hide from ourselves." It's ruined him in all kinds of ways, not quite knowing what he hides from himself. He can't help thinking that, in a roundabout way, that's exactly what got them into this whole mess. If he'd been a bit more honest with himself — if he hadn't let himself hide the truth from himself of how much he craved that connection to his father — that would have been one thing fewer for the professor to use against them both. If he could have acknowledged it, he might have been able to steel himself against it, or to hear S better, more honestly.

It's useless to think about now. There are bigger lies he's told both to him and to S, and he's afraid to find out how many he's still telling. What's done is done.

"You know now," he murmurs. "And so do I. That's a start."