J hums, nodding, bolstered by the look S gives him. "That's about as good as I could hope for," he admits, his expression softening into something reticently rueful. "I feel like I pushed you too hard."
Even so, the way S responded to his first question didn't sound so much like S reluctantly agreeing to something he doesn't want at all; it just sounded small and tired, and that, too, is about as good as J can hope for right now. Whether he pushed too hard or not, they're here, and he's not about to back down.
Hand trailing down from S's cheek, he runs his fingertips along S's neck, palm resting at his shoulder. "I don't know," he adds quickly. "Maybe I —" He stops, snorts, rolls his eyes at himself even as he smooths his hand over S's skin, going slow and careful. "I definitely worry too much. I just... don't want to make this harder on you than it is, and I..." He bites his lip, trying to shake that off again. Apologies can wait until they're on steadier ground, since S will tell him off if he gives one now anyway. "I hate that I didn't know."
He didn't know a lot of things. He should have figured, he thinks now, that there would be doctor's appointments and that surgery would have caused at least some of the scars he saw. He should have known that S taking things in stride didn't mean it was easy for him, that it didn't hurt, whether or not he saw it himself. It's frustrating to get something so important so wrong.
His heart gives an awkward lurching leap as he runs the pads of his fingers slowly along the line of a scar, his throat going tight. It doesn't feel much different from his own, the jagged characters he touches absently at times, though he's pretty sure it's always going to seem different to him, simply because of why and how he caused both. It makes him uneasy, stomach and chest tight, but he can almost feel a kind of relief in it, something in the back of his head, dancing up his spine, that helps. His touch light, he traces a shaking finger over a line he knows has to be from what he did, then slowly down the one that runs down the center of S's chest, the one too long to be from what he did.
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Even so, the way S responded to his first question didn't sound so much like S reluctantly agreeing to something he doesn't want at all; it just sounded small and tired, and that, too, is about as good as J can hope for right now. Whether he pushed too hard or not, they're here, and he's not about to back down.
Hand trailing down from S's cheek, he runs his fingertips along S's neck, palm resting at his shoulder. "I don't know," he adds quickly. "Maybe I —" He stops, snorts, rolls his eyes at himself even as he smooths his hand over S's skin, going slow and careful. "I definitely worry too much. I just... don't want to make this harder on you than it is, and I..." He bites his lip, trying to shake that off again. Apologies can wait until they're on steadier ground, since S will tell him off if he gives one now anyway. "I hate that I didn't know."
He didn't know a lot of things. He should have figured, he thinks now, that there would be doctor's appointments and that surgery would have caused at least some of the scars he saw. He should have known that S taking things in stride didn't mean it was easy for him, that it didn't hurt, whether or not he saw it himself. It's frustrating to get something so important so wrong.
His heart gives an awkward lurching leap as he runs the pads of his fingers slowly along the line of a scar, his throat going tight. It doesn't feel much different from his own, the jagged characters he touches absently at times, though he's pretty sure it's always going to seem different to him, simply because of why and how he caused both. It makes him uneasy, stomach and chest tight, but he can almost feel a kind of relief in it, something in the back of his head, dancing up his spine, that helps. His touch light, he traces a shaking finger over a line he knows has to be from what he did, then slowly down the one that runs down the center of S's chest, the one too long to be from what he did.