hismelody | (no subject)

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July gives way to August, and with it, though the muggy weather is no less oppressive, S finds his mood lightening a little. It's strange, probably, associating summer with death. It also can't be helped. He's not half as far gone now as he was in those first couple of years, but the loss of his parents is never going to be an easy one to bear, and the days and weeks around the anniversary of their deaths are always going to hurt. Likewise strange is how grief begets grief. For that, he always feels guilty. J is here, after all, alive and well. They've had nearly a year and a half together now that they weren't supposed to have gotten, and S really is, he thinks, the happiest he's ever been. But when that loss rears its head, even happiness hurts. He never got to come out to his parents, never told them how he felt about J. They never got to see him as he is now. They weren't there when he lost the love of his life, a storm he weathered entirely on his own, and something he'll always carry with him. At times like this, it's just a little closer to the surface than usual.

He tries not to let it emerge completely, holding it at bay as best he can. It's a hard time of year, that's all, and at least J knows that already. It makes him a little quieter than usual, and a little more inclined to bring up his parents, something he doesn't typically do all that often, especially knowing that can be a difficult subject for J in different ways. Like a dark cloud slowly but inexorably passing in front of the sun, though, it starts to ease — not like the flip of a switch, exactly, but a more gradual, less noticeable change, some of it lingering still, some of it substantially better. He's still a bit distracted, but he also has a chance to start catching up on the things he didn't feel up to a couple of weeks ago. It's something.

It lets him do more with J, too. Not that he was distant before, but they're both introverted by nature, and with the weight of all that grief, he's more inclined to want to stay in with the one person who understands it, who saw him through it back then. He's tried before, more than once, to try to tell J just how grateful he is for that, how much it meant and still means to him, but there are never the words. All he can really do is attempt to make it up to him in any small ways he can, smiling faintly as J suggests plans, only for him to realize that's the one day he'll be otherwise occupied. "Ah, maybe the day after?" he offers instead, just distracted enough that he doesn't really register what he's saying until the words are out of his mouth. "I have a doctor's appointment that day."

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Put like that, at least, S can almost understand it. He's said the same thing to J before, or close enough to it. This still seems different, but he tries to tell himself that it isn't, not really, not in any substantial way. He's seen the very worst parts of J, and still he accepts all of it and wants to be here; faded though they are, he's learned to live with the scars on J's arm, even if it turns his stomach to think too hard about them. Even now, he wants to insist that it's different — J put those scars there himself, so it isn't on S to decide it's too much for him, and more than anything, they make him sad for J's sake — but the semantics aren't as important as the principle of the thing. He wants every part of being with J. He's known that for a long, long time now. So if J thinks he can handle it after all, it wouldn't be right to deny him the chance to figure it out. If it doesn't go well, at least they'll know, and hopefully it won't be as bad as it was last time.

The thought alone makes his breath catch, but he nods, slight, just enough to be visible, still leaning into J. This is what he wished he'd had then, J with his arms around him, helping him to weather that storm. Though the damage has healed, even with the scars visible still, maybe he can actually get a little of that now. Of course, the thought of that feels horribly selfish, a burden he shouldn't lay on J's shoulders, but that doesn't mean they can't find some middle ground. Even having been so sure that it was the right thing simply to keep this subject buried, it's been hard at times, not being able to talk about it at all, especially with the person closest to him, the one he's spent so long telling just about everything.

"Okay," he murmurs, almost inaudibly quiet, still sounding fairly miserable. He means it, though, holding onto J as if to try to convey as much, curled up small in his arms. "If you think so, then... okay."

It's a familiar feeling, the desperate urge sweeping over J, the plaintive desire to keep S safe. He spent so long trying to protect him, knowing there was nothing he could do. There were things he was capable of to make things easier. Moving out of his home and into the studio with S, anything to keep them together, that was simple. But nothing could undo his grief, and J knew better than to try, even if he'd never felt that himself. They spent their childhood and adolescence fighting for each other. He failed for a long time. He doesn't intend to now.

It's hard to feel anything else when S is like this. All J wants is to make it go away, anything that hurts S, and he can't. In the end, after all, he's the cause of it now — the reason S was injured, the reason S was alone, the reason he thought the sight of himself cause for despair. He just has to try again to content himself with being the one who soothes that hurt, if he can.

"If you think so, too," he says. "If it's too much for you, that's it, okay?" It's not entirely the same, but it's close enough he can't help thinking again of his birthday last year, the careful process of moving past his fear of how S would look at him. It wasn't nearly as difficult as he would have feared, and, in the end, all they'd really needed was to ease into the first time in order to reclaim that part of their sex life. This might take a little more getting used to — for both of them — but it's a relief they'll try. The idea of S staying dressed the rest of their lives because he thinks the sight of himself would hurt J — he should have spoken up sooner.

With a small, soft sound, he nuzzles into S's hair. His legs are starting to hurt, tucked under him at this odd angle, but he's reluctant to try and stand. For one thing, he's not sure they'd hold him yet. More importantly, he doesn't want to let S go. "I love you so much," he murmurs. "I never, never thought you were anything but beautiful, darling. I thought I was the ugly one. Inside. You taught me better." He's hardly a saint, and some part of him remains disturbed and uncertain by the idea he could be good in any way, given what he did, that someone who did such terrible things might not be all bad. In some ways, it was more comfortable to think that he'd become a monster, that he couldn't possibly be who he was. Even with that being true, he's not sure he could have lived this long if he still believed that. If he still felt as irredeemable as he did in that moment, it would break him. It's only having S in his life that's let him see that even the worst parts of him are just part of him.

Try though he might, S can't help beginning to cry again in earnest at that. At least it's quiet this time, just tears sliding hot down his cheeks, but he hates it all the same. Crying is never exactly pleasant, of course, but it's never as bad as in moments like this, when he can't help the continued thought that he wasn't supposed to be upset here, that he meant to be comforting J after fucking up yet again and upsetting him. It's far too late to take it back, though, as if getting this out in the open has not only made him aware of how much it actually has weighed on him, but also caused him to feel it all the more acutely. This, too, is more of the same, even though he doesn't really even know why. J has called him beautiful countless times over the last year and a half, and he knew even in that moment, that day, that J's reaction wasn't because he thought otherwise. S has just felt otherwise, increasingly convinced every time he looks at himself that the sight of those scars is hideous. Usually, with such compliments from J, he'll tease or shrug them off or turn them back on J himself. The truth is, though, that any of those options are easier than thinking about how very much he doesn't see himself that way.

"I'm not," he protests, muffled against his knees. The sight of the scars is horrible, but he doesn't want to say that. J put two of them there, after all, and the last thing he wants is for J to feel like he's the cause of this. S knows far too well that when J plunged a knife into his chest, then drove him through the snow to the hospital, he couldn't have been thinking about how it would alter his appearance. That was never the point.

It isn't now, either, hardly the sole or even primary reason S has been reluctant to want to change the way they've been doing things. Still, the insecurity is there, set aside only because it's difficult to hear J say something like that and not respond to the rest of it. Again and again, he tells himself this wasn't meant to be about him, and somehow he keeps drawing the focus anyway. He can at least try to shift it back now to J in some capacity.

"But I never thought you were anything else, either," he adds, a little quieter now, but clearer, too, these words deliberate. S is far too out of sorts to know if he's actually making sense, but he figures that J will probably understand what he means regardless. Even when J was gaunt and pale that last day in Seoul, even covered in ash and with scars on his arm, even reading every sickening detail in J's notebook, S never saw him as anything but beautiful. "I still don't. I never will."

Squeezing his eyes shut tight, J gives himself a moment of not trying to say anything at all. As much as his instinct is to protest that, he tells himself he can't. It's not a matter right now of whether or not it's fact, only that it's how S feels. J can disagree all he wants. He doesn't get to tell S he's wrong, though.

"Well, you're the only one," he says, trying not to let that sound as dire as it feels. He wants to believe that his mother felt — feels — the same, but in her absence, he'll never be sure or able to shake the part of him afraid it isn't true. Letting out a shuddering sigh, trying to resist the tears starting to well up, he shakes his head. "You are. To me, you are. You can't argue with me on this. I won't give in."

Still, he senses it's more than that. The way S tucks into himself, the way his voice made J's heart ache, it's a hurt that runs deep, and it appalls J to think he didn't see it all this time. If he'd had any idea this was the case — as, at least, he thinks it is — he would have found his courage sooner. "Darling," he murmurs, soft and gentle, "did you think I — I thought anything different?" Even though it stings to imagine that, he also has an uncomfortable understanding of how easy it is to persuade himself of things that aren't true, that he knows aren't true. He still hates the idea of S dealing with that disconnect or feeling — feeling like what? J searches for it in his head, uncertain. Ugly? Unappealing? That J would think so? Tangled up as that must be in his keeping covered up, it's no wonder he wouldn't have said anything, but J wishes desperately that he had.

It doesn't matter to S if he's the only one — or it does, but in a different way than the words themselves might suggest. Ever since they were children, first befriending each other, he hasn't been able to understand why other people couldn't see in J what he has from the very start. His own opinion won't be swayed by what anyone else thinks, but he does think it's painfully unfair that J spent so long cast aside for the flimsiest of reasons. If he's the only one who sees how beautiful he is, then it's because no one else ever bothered to really look, and they'd be wrong anyway.

At any other time, S would say something to that extent. Instead, now, jaw trembling slightly with the effort it takes not to fall apart completely again, he can only try his best to answer J's question, wanting if nothing else to assure him that the last part isn't true. "No," he allows, sounding just deeply fucking sad. He knows that, for J, it hasn't been about his attractiveness, or lack thereof. He knows, too, that J wouldn't say such things to him if he didn't mean them. The problem lies with him, and with what he hasn't let J see again. Of course he doesn't think J thought anything different, but that doesn't mean J wouldn't.

"It's me," he says, fumbling to try to explain it even as he doesn't want to talk about it at all. He hardly understands how they even got to this subject. They're here now, though, and considering that it was his holding something back that ruined the mood in the first place, the least he can do is try to be honest now. "You might not think anything different, but I do." At least hunched over his legs like this, he feels somewhat shielded, a little less laid bare by all these truths and in no position to take the step that they've just talked about taking. "It's not like I can blame you. For reacting like you did. It looks horrible. I don't know why you'd want to — to look at me like that."

J stifles a sigh. He shouldn't be even a little frustrated with this, not when it's his own fault. Those scars wouldn't be there to begin with if he hadn't lashed out, and they're the only reason S has to feel that way, explicitly so. They're the cause of this feeling and he's the cause of them. It is one of the lesser reasons for him to feel guilty for what he did but he still feels it. All this time, S has had to sit with this and never said a word, and while J wouldn't have asked him for that silence, didn't want it, it's hard to fault him when S must have known mentioning it would only bring J this kind of guilt.

That's the thing, he tells himself. It's only for now. He'll never forgive himself entirely, but he's begun to see that, with time, he can still adjust to nearly anything. He spent his life adapting to survive, long before he graduated high school, and he'll keep on doing so for whatever time he has. He just needs to have something to adapt to, and he can't do that off of silence.

"Because you're you," he says, when he finds his voice again. "Because I like looking at you. Because it's part of life, because, even when I'm mostly used to it, there are still times when I — when you'd normally undress, but you don't, and I have to remember it's because of me, and the only — the only visual I have is that time. And I reacted —" This time, he doesn't trouble holding back his sigh. "Sihyun-ah, it wasn't because I thought it was ugly or you were. It really wasn't. I just hated — I hate — how badly I hurt you, that I... that I struck you that many times." Though he's tried hard to keep his voice even, to be the calming one here, he doesn't quite manage it for a moment, words wavering before he gets himself back on track. Stabbed. Not struck, stabbed. It feels like too much to say even now. "But I got used to my arm because I got to see it all the time."

It might be too many reasons, he thinks, even if they're all true. He's not even sure how much of it S will agree with or process or believe. For himself, the difference between reacting to the knowledge of what he did and reacting to the sight of it is a reasonably big one, but he wasn't on the receiving end of it. He can't ask S not to have been hurt by it. He can't, for that matter, ask him to move on. All he can do is try to ease the pain he caused, his guilt for it less important than how badly it's affected S. If he apologizes, he knows, it's likely S will shut down; that's probably the last thing he wants, even if J thinks it would be deserved.

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. "

S's voice is so soft and he's so curled in on himself that it's muffled, but J is fairly certain all the same of what he says. Twice. He bites his lip hard, willing himself not to get overwhelmed by the fact that S knows precisely when, for J, everything is a contradictory whirl of bewilderment, very little left to his memory but the feeling of the moment.

"It looked like more," he mumbles, then swallows hard, tries to makes his throat feel a little less tight. In that instant, it seemed to him like he must have gone even madder than he'd thought. That isn't really the point right now, though. Closing his eyes, he tries to breathe evenly, tries not to blurt out any other half-formed thought. He makes himself turn those words over in his head, even though they sting. It can't be any worse than the things S has borne for him; they do this together, for each other, and he can handle it. And, besides, if it really was less than he'd come to fear, maybe it won't be quite so shocking when he's not already out of his mind and suicidal.

"I know how that feels," he settles on after a moment, "I think. I... for a long time, I didn't want to look in a mirror at all. I think I was scared of who I'd see. It wasn't... physical like that, but... maybe that's why it was so bad. When I did see myself, I knew I didn't look much different, but inside..." He sighs, shrugging the arm not around S. "I didn't know how to see it differently for a long time. The only reason I can now is because you saw me differently first." It's when he tries to keep things to himself that he really starts to fall apart. S may not be unstable like J is or has been, but J has to believe it would help him, too, being able to share things and to let J love him when he can't see his own beauty. "I can't change what you see. I can't force you to — to feel what I say is true. But maybe I could... do what you do. Show you what I see instead."

Put like that, it sounds fair, enough so that S can't help feeling another sick surge of guilt. If he'd just said something, they could have avoided this whole fucking mess. All of that is in theory, though, when in practice, he still doesn't know how he could have. Had he realized the depth of his feelings about this, maybe he would have thought it was worthwhile to broach the subject, but he thought he was doing the right thing, leaving it in J's hands, not putting any pressure on him. J was the one who said, that first day, that he didn't think he could see all of that yet. S didn't really give it much thought beyond that, his own feelings seeming far less consequential. He thought he'd just accepted it. He didn't know everything had built up like this, growing until it couldn't be contained.

Probably he should have. There is, he thinks, something deeply ironic in the fact that this started because of him not telling J something, when the times he's let himself think about it, he's hated feeling like he couldn't talk about it. Keeping things from J has felt unnatural for practically all the time they've known each other, and this is something so big, a whole several months of his life that he hasn't been able to bring up. Even now, he doubts it would do any good to get into the details.

Most of them, anyway. Everything J has said is a lot to take in, especially when he feels like this, still so shaken, but the quiet surprise in J telling him it looked like more sticks in his head over the rest of it. At least getting that out of the way seems simpler than all the rest of it. "Of course it did," he says, likewise quiet, not having it in him to look at J as he says this. "Look like more. I had surgery." That scar is the worst of them, too, and the hardest for him to look at, a prominent line down the center of his chest. Already he half-expects J to say that it makes no difference, given that he wouldn't have needed surgery in the first place had it not been for the stab wounds, but the very fucking least he can do is provide clarification.

That part is simpler than the rest of it, though it probably shouldn't be. S knows it just makes sense, and that he can't deny something that he's been so insistent about offering. He doesn't want to need it, doesn't want to make J have to deal with this, but it's too late to take it back now. Breath catching, shuddering, he makes himself give a slight nod, eyes shut tight as if that will hold back more tears. It doesn't. "Maybe," he allows. "Maybe you could."

J has to bite his lip to hold back a sound, an odd, giddy thing twisting in his throat, inappropriately amused. Surgery. Fucking surgery. He has no way of knowing how much of what he saw was caused by that, but he hadn't considered the possibility that any of it might have been. He'd assumed he'd snapped even more wholly than he'd believed, shocked by the extent of his cruelty in a way he probably shouldn't have been, given all he did before and after he grabbed that knife. Being confronted with the whole of it so suddenly, though, and on that scale, had been too much, and of course, of fucking course, the lingering hurt of it was based partly on his imagination.

It doesn't make it less awful, not really. The scars were there because of what he did, whether he left them behind or doctors did. Still, there's something soothing about the notion that they weren't all of his making — or, rather, that they were, both the scars he left with his own knife and the ones left by the doctors who saved S, the ones he managed to get S to just in time. Proof, he said a little while ago, that S lived.

Before he can think to explain this or even how to start, though, he focuses in on S again, drawn back to the present by the way S shakes a little, breath rippling through him. Half-formed thoughts and feelings, his own whirling reaction to this idea, they can wait. This is much more important, a spark of hope and relief. After this, it would be impossible for him not to wonder and worry about what S might keep from out of his idea of what's best for J or some sense he shouldn't share. But maybe they can put this right.

"I want to try," he says, soft but fervent — so much so that tears prick at his eyes, surprising him a little. It's always hurt, though, those times when he's had to watch S ache and not be able to do anything about it. To have any chance to make things a little better is a relief. "And even if I can't, I... I want to be here for you. To talk to, to tell things. If you want to." He huffs, shaking his head, unable to help coming back to it. "I didn't even think of surgery." He didn't know it left marks like that behind, for that matter. He's never had a surgery, rarely even been to the doctor. It makes obvious sense if he thinks about it for even a moment, but he just never did. That first moment of shock froze an idea in place in his mind, and he never questioned it.

While he knows it can't be J's intention at all, S only feels worse hearing that, the uncertainty in if you want to nearly enough to make him fall apart all over again. He manages not to mostly because he's just too exhausted for that, and there are still tears streaming down his cheeks anyway. It's embarrassing, really. Nothing even happened to warrant all of this, or at least it feels that way when he didn't realize before now that he was having such a hard time. What J says only increases the guilt he feels, though, enough that it's hard for a moment to speak, or to process that last comment J makes.

It shouldn't be a question. There shouldn't be any doubt in it. S is at least pretty sure, though it's hard sometimes to be certain if he's remembering the past accurately or not, that there was a time when it would have gone without saying, and it feels like his own fault that it apparently doesn't anymore. He still doesn't have the first idea what he would have done instead, having been too convinced that he shouldn't bring it up, that it would only hurt J for him to do so, but evidently he chose wrong, and has done far too much damage in the process. Always it seems to come back to this for him, and he's sick of it.

"Of course I want to," he says, his voice tiny and faltering and sad, deeply apologetic. "I hated feeling like I couldn't talk about it. I really didn't think you'd want to hear it. Didn't want to... to pressure you." When the subject never came up again, he just assumed J wasn't ready, that maybe he never would be, and even with how much it stung, S was fine with the idea of that. He hated it, but he was fine with it, not wanting to risk what the alternative might be. The whole thing was all wrong, though, and he has no idea now how to fix it, or how to explain himself when he can barely manage to catch his breath. At least J is here, holding onto him, so it can't be as bad as it was earlier, his fingers still clutching at J's arm in turn, but if J doesn't know that he would want to talk to him, then it still can't be very good, either.

Head resting against his knees again, he tries to take a few deeper breaths, though he doesn't quite succeed, his chest too tight. He still doesn't know what to say, but it is, at least, in that lull that J's last remark finally has a chance to sink in, his frown deepening a little. He's not sure what difference it actually makes, but it seems to for J, and that's enough to make it significant. "What, did you think that was you, too?"

J wants to argue, but he can't. Of course S worried he wouldn't want to hear it. It's not as if he doesn't have perfectly good reason to believe that. It just hurts, knowing S damaged himself in favor of protecting J from himself.

He hesitates, something twitching in his cheek, at S's question. "Of course," he murmurs, heat rising along his neck. It's fucking stupid. He's had a long time to grow accustomed to the fact of what he did, far longer than he would have imagined possible, and sometimes he can talk about it without falling apart. Right now, though, the trade off for not breaking down is the awful sense of shame heating his skin. "I — of course I did." He didn't have any other way to frame the scars in his mind. All of them, as far as he knew, had to be at his hand. Though he knows he snapped that night, he didn't realize it was quite that bad — the stabbing part, at least — but he didn't know how else to see it, and his memories of that night are too blurred in places for him to feel entirely confident in any of it.

He lets out a short, sharp exhale and shakes his head. "Sihyun-ah... I want to hear it," he says, because he doesn't want to get sidetracked before he says the important part sticking in his head. "Even the things I won't like or that will upset me. And... and you were right. I wouldn't have been able to then. But I — I can. And you can, you can talk to me, I swear. I don't — ah, it's the worst feeling, to have it in your head and your heart and never be able to say it. I don't want that for you." Even if it's a different kind of awful from what J endured and what he still struggles with, it's still awful, and the idea of S alone with this makes him want to start crying all over again.

Until today, until now, S didn't know he felt like this. It's just one more thing he doesn't fully know how to explain. That day, in the immediate aftermath, it was awful, and then it was quickly overridden by fear and his ensuing breakdown. When he said he didn't mind leaving his shirt on, he meant it. Were that not the case, he might at least have tried to come up with some kind of a better alternative, though he doesn't know offhand now what that could possibly have been. The rest, the parts that have reduced him to a crying mess today, he deliberately kept out of his head as best he could, so he wouldn't have to feel the weight of what has apparently been in his damaged heart.

What he knew was that he didn't want to have to avoid something so significant, that it felt wrong to leave such a prominent part of his life almost completely unmentioned to the person he trusts and loves the most. Even that, though, he was used to — not the secrecy, exactly, though he's had plenty of that in his life, but the bearing it alone. He isn't on his own anymore, and he's so unbelievably fucking grateful for that, but he was for a long time. Had he wanted to talk about what happened to him, he wouldn't have been able to. It made holding it back here a little easier, an instinct he already had. That one thing just didn't change, staying put away, what seemed like the best place for it.

"Promise you'll — you'll tell me if it ever is too much?" he asks, soft and pleading. It isn't as if he would jump straight to the most unpleasant parts of it anyway, but even now, he's not sure he'll feel like he can say any of it without that reassurance, still too worried that he might go too far. "You're the only person I've ever really talked to. It always feels wrong not to just tell you everything." He pauses a moment, at least coherent enough to know that that probably sounds fucking stupid right about now. "It just... felt more wrong to bring it up."

He still doesn't know how to explain it, and he doesn't think that's quite right. Still, it's something. While the circumstances are vastly different, much like J could only promise to try to stay that first day, he can only promise to try to open up about this, something easier said than done. "I'm sorry. I should've..."

"Yah," J says, though it comes out soft and soothing as he shakes his head, "no, don't — I'm sorry too. I should have said something." As badly as he wants this now — not just, of course, to see S properly, but to be able to truly talk about things, to get one step closer to accepting the parts of this that affect their daily lives — he really doesn't know how long he would have kept it to himself. They both could have spoken up.

He hasn't made things easy. Throat aching, he closes his eyes. No matter how hard they try, there always seems to be something they're holding back, not out of a desire to hide but because it's all so fucking complicated.

"And I promise," he continues, "I promise." He'll say it as many times as S needs to hear it, and he'll do it, too. It's better, he reminds himself. The same way he'd want S to tell him if he approached a line, knowing that would hurt less than going too far would, he has to do the same for S. Better to find some way to extricate himself from the conversation than to let himself fall apart and make S think he has to continue keeping things to himself. "If I need a moment or I can't handle it, I'll tell you. But you have to remember it's because of me, not you, okay? If it is too much, that won't be because of you. Understand?"

He's not sure the difference in these things will be all that apparent to S either, but he has to try, voice soft but firm. He doesn't want a miscalculation on his part in what he can handle or the memory of what he did to be the reason S shuts this down and decides to carry this alone again.

Even as S nods, he knows it won't really be that simple. He means to try to remember that, and he knows J means it. Making himself truly believe it, though, is going to take some doing. Despite his having been aware, deep down, of what J was reacting to that first day, it still felt like it was because of him, the distinction that J has made not as clear to him. After months, it's going to be hard to undo that train of thought. He can do his best, though; he can give J a chance to do the same. Considering how much it still feels like he's fucked up, it seems, really, like the absolute least he can do.

Maybe it will wind up being a disaster, but at least they'll know. Maybe, if nothing else, even if it doesn't work out, he won't have to be quite so fucking cautious doing things like showering or changing his clothes. That would be a huge relief in its own right.

"It was really hard," he admits after a long few moments, the words sticking in his throat. "Not — not here, but... before. Dealing with it alone. Not having you to talk to." Especially early on, before he got and read J's journal, it was one of the most painful things about it — knowing that J was the one who hurt him, and still wanting nothing more than to have J with him. He doesn't really know how that turned into feeling like he couldn't or shouldn't talk about it at all, except that it was easier not to bring it up than to risk the harm it might do. If he didn't say anything, didn't do anything, then nothing bad could come of it. Only it did anyway, if not in the way he would have expected, and even with J telling him not to apologize, he's still just so fucking sorry.

Given some of the things S has said, J isn't surprised to hear that, but it still hurts, heart heavy, chest too tight, thinking of S alone, recovering from surgery all by himself. He's thought about this a lot more than he's wanted to, but the surgery part was always an afterthought somehow. Now he can't help thinking how hard that must have been. Any surgery must be exhausting, but one that would leave scars bad enough he would mistake them for his own work must have left him so drained, and J wasn't there.

Turning his head, he kisses S's hair, then carefully lifts his hand to S's cheek, nudging him to look toward J. He wants to kiss him, something small and simple, just a reminder he's here, but he also doesn't want to force S if S isn't ready to look up. "You can talk to me now," he says, voice a little too thick, and swallows. "I know it doesn't change before, but... Ah, it must have been so hard, darling."

It remains one of the things he most regrets about his past, and he's both adjusted enough and grown too tired to feel bad about that. He loves S. Of course it would be, to J, one of the worst things he did — not just hurting him physically, but leaving him to endure the aftermath alone. "I hate the idea of it," he murmurs. "I wish..." He sighs. It doesn't matter. He can wish all he wants. It won't undo his mistakes. "I know it's not the same. I wasn't there then. But I am now, no matter what."

Reluctant though he is, knowing he must look flushed and tear-streaked and horrible, S lifts his head a little at J's prompting, enough to be able to look at him. He wishes, too, even though it's nonsensical. Wishing doesn't change anything, and had J been there with him, he almost certainly wouldn't have had those injuries to deal with in the first place. Even so, that was the thought he kept coming back to, wanting J with him, even more than he wanted his parents. At least their loss, he'd had a long time to come to terms with, as much as a person can ever do so. J's was still fresh, and he was the only person S could really imagine himself talking to about what happened anyway, somehow existing in his head in duplicate: the J who tried to kill him, and the J who'd been his best friend for so many years, who'd supported him through his grief in losing his parents, the love of his fucking life.

Now, of course, he knows J is right. He is here, and S has never for one second stopped being grateful for that. In J's presence, though, that separation no longer exists. It isn't as if S looks at him and only sees his would-be killer — if anything, it's been far easier than it should to put that away — but of course it's harder to talk to J about it when he knows the guilt J harbors over having done it. He got all of this terribly, devastatingly wrong, but he also doesn't think he could have made any other choice. He was never going to be the one to bring it up, at least not on purpose.

"I know you are," he murmurs, leaning into the hand at his cheek. "I — I think I don't really know how to talk about it? I never have." Saying that, piecing that part together, takes him a little by surprise, eyes widening slightly even as he continues. "But I do want to talk to you. I always want to talk to you."

There's a soft look of understanding on S's face, like something just clicked, and J hopes fervently that it's something good. It doesn't seem bad, at least. And what he says is familiar enough to J, and he tried not to make everything about him and how he gets what S is saying, but this is something he gets, and he just has to hope that helps.

Before he says anything, though, he leans in to kiss S, soft and brief, thumb sweeping over his damp cheek. "I love you," he murmurs, resting his forehead against S's. "And I want to listen. It doesn't matter if you know how to talk about it or not. I never really know how to talk about..." He doesn't know how to describe it. He never has. There's no good word to sum up not just his history but also the state of his mind and how it functions or doesn't. "All of... me. And you see how well it goes when I don't talk about it. I just have to blurt things out and hope they make sense."

He knows, at times like that, he's lucky if that happens at all. His sentences get long and winding, he knows, and he's not sure he conveys what happens inside his head in any helpful way. But he knows S wants to hear what he has to say regardless, no matter how convoluted or painful. Making himself understand and believe that has been a long process, and he needs constant reminders. If that's what S needs too, then J will just have to step up and give him that.

Despite his relief that things are a little more settled now, at least between the two of them, S still feels nothing short of miserable. It's just hard to shake something like this, especially with so many different pieces at play. His guilt over having kept this to himself and upsetting J, the panic from feeling so stuck with no good option and from thinking about those horrible few minutes the day J arrived when S thought he was going to lose him all over again, actually considering just how hard it was to recover from such a serious surgery alone, all of it just builds, making it that much more difficult to pull himself together. All of this was the last thing he wanted. Maybe it's for the best that it came out this way — chances are it would have had to at some point — but knowing that doesn't make him feel any better about it, at least not yet.

"I guess it makes sense," he mumbles, pausing to worry at his lower lip with his teeth. "That I wouldn't know how to talk about something I've never talked about." Even with doctors, he never really has. He's been told all of the physical details, of course, and answered questions when applicable, but he's stopped far short of going into the toll it's taken on him. Beyond that, it's a subject he's avoided, even with J, especially with J, and in avoiding it, it's become that much harder to do anything else.

He swallows hard, exhales slowly, still leaning into J and clinging to him as if afraid of the damage he's potentially wrought here. "I really didn't realize," he adds, not sure now if he said this before or only thought it. "How... big it got in my head. How much it got to me. Like I wasn't just keeping it from you, but from me, too."

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."

It's a start. However awful and huge this has felt, S knows that's all it is. They still haven't acted on it, after all; he hasn't shown J the scars under his shirt, or talked about the wounds or his recovery from them in any kind of detail. Even trying to take to heart what J has told him, it still scares him a little, the idea that it might prove to be too much after all, the damage that might do. It won't be like it was that first day, he does believe that, and it won't be because of him, which he's trying to believe, but it still might be bad. Knowing would be better than not knowing, freeing him of the need to have to guess and hide, but there's safety, too, in leaving it unaddressed, staving off whatever reaction might come, not having to see the way J looks at him change.

Still, this is something, a better place to be than they were in before, however awful he feels. He meant it when he said that he hated feeling like he couldn't talk about it at all. Some of it, he wasn't aware of — how bothered he was, for one, and how afraid — but he found himself thinking on more than one occasion that it felt wrong not to be able to talk about that chapter of his life at all. Given what brought it about, it will never be easy, but he would so much rather talk to J than not. Keeping anything back from him has always felt wrong. That's probably part of why he didn't let himself see what he was doing that way.

"Yeah," he agrees, still frowning a little, though he leans his forehead against J's, savoring the gentle brush of fingers through his hair. Such simple gestures were exactly what he so badly longed for back then — someone to hold his hand or stroke his hair, to stay at his side when he tried to make himself eat something or when he was too grief-ridden and tired even to get out of bed. He thought losing his parents the way he did was the worst thing that could happen to him, but at least he had that then, J with him every step of the way. At least he can have a little of that now. "I don't know what comes next, but it's a start."

"I don't know either," J says. He could make something up, but he doubts that would be helpful. The only way they get through this, really, and everything else in their lives, is together. Besides, he got upset in the first place because the idea of being left out, the choice made for him, was too much, veering too close to his old fear of being seen as unable to care for himself. He's been handling that someone better lately, because they've talked things through more, but having it come out of nowhere shocked him. He's not going to make decisions for S in turn, not when it's not necessary for some reason. "Whatever we want to come next, I guess. You can talk to me about... whatever. Anything you want to say."

Now that they've broached the subject of his actually seeing S's scars again, much more prepared and stable this time, though for a relative value of both, he wants to make it happen. He just also wants to do it on S's time. Pushing him will make it worse for both of them, the worst possible way to handle it. A gentle nudge might do, but no more.

And, too, there's a part of J that hopes it will go well enough that they can actually, if not have sex, at least mess around with S shirtless, not even so much because J thinks about sex an awful lot, but because hearing S like this makes him want fiercely to show S precisely how beautiful J really thinks he is. More than that, he wants to make S feel it. He can't change how S sees himself, he knows, but he can show him how he's seen, and maybe that will make a difference. It does for J.

"I do still want to see," he adds finally, soft. "I think... it might be good for me? But only when you feel... as ready as you think you can." He knows better than to suggest S will ever be fully ready. Some things have to be done well before all preparation is done, or they'll never happen. He has a hazy memory of his own fear at showing S his scars that first day, and S isn't the one who caused those. He can't expect S to be giddy to show off a sight that, previously, pushed J into a panicked self-reflective spiral that made him want to die. Again. All he can really do is, without quite thinking of it, say the things he wishes he'd heard sooner. "It doesn't have to be now or even today or tomorrow. And you don't have to say everything today either. I'll be here when you're ready."

Just like so much else has, J's words take him by surprise. S would never have thought of it that way himself, that it might actually be good for J; he's spent all this time far too convinced of the opposite even to entertain the possibility. Even now, he has his doubts, stemming partly from the fear that's stayed with him since that first day and partly, he thinks, from not wanting to get his hopes up in case this does go badly. He knows better than to say so, though, not wanting to seem yet again like he's deciding what would be best for J. This is already more than he would have expected, anyway. The more time passed without J bringing it up, the more S came to believe that he never would, that things would just stay the way they were. He told himself he was fine with that. He was fine with it. He just didn't know how much hurt was alongside it, buried too deep to acknowledge.

Considered from that perspective, maybe it would be good for him, too. S doesn't really think so, but it's not impossible. At least that, too, would be a start. At least he wouldn't have to try to keep himself so hidden. He would settle just for being able to change his fucking shirt without having to turn away or leave the room. Even that, he knows, isn't guaranteed. None of it is. They might try it and one or both of them decide it's too much after all. Still, he thought the same thing about having sex facing each other with J on top of him, and was wonderfully proven wrong when they stumbled over that particular hurdle. Maybe it will be the same now. If nothing else, there's a chance of it.

Reassuring as it is to have J so gently leave the choice with him, it's a little overwhelming, too. S doesn't know what he wants or what would be best. Just thinking about it, his instinct is to push it aside even now. It's that realization that makes his decision for him. Probably it's a bad one, but there's not really a good option with a subject so fraught.

"I... I think if I wait... then I might never do it," he admits, ducking his head as best he can without pulling away. "I'd just want to put it aside again." He sniffles. Already a tear-streaked mess, he doubts this kind of vulnerability will make him feel any better, but going back to holding onto this is all but guaranteed only to make him feel worse, especially after all they've just said. "Would that be okay? If I just... do it?"

Despite S's uncertainty, J smiles, soft and fond and faintly amused. It's logic he's given countless time for his own bravado, charging forward for fear he'd otherwise turn back. It's for the best, too. For as confident as he's let himself sound, it's still a big thing to face. He might lose his nerve, too, if he had to wait. Now that he's set his mind to this, they should probably go ahead and do it.

"That would be okay," he agrees softly, leaning close to try and kiss S's cheek. For a moment, he considers suggesting that he be the one to handle it. If he does the unbuttoning, he can pause as needed. But he knows S, knows how much he likely needs control of this moment. He can't take that from him. Leaning his head against S's, he sighs. "I love you. And you trust me, darling. So trust that, if I need... a moment or to stop or... I will say so. And I wouldn't say this if I didn't believe it. I wouldn't do that to you."

S knows this. J is sure he does. It still awes him to know that S does, because there's a long list of reasons why S shouldn't trust him or believe him at all. Sitting here, though, cradling him close, trying to soothe S's fears as best he can, he's surprised to remember that there's an even longer list of reasons why S might, built on a long history of friendship and intimacy. A lot of what J has figured out about handling this, his awful whiplash instinctive reaction notwithstanding, is because S has held his hand through so much, given J a metric for what support looks and feels like that he can hold up alongside what he knows of S and of his own needs. It's a strange patchwork, but he thinks it works. At least, right now, it makes sense to him, and as long as it makes sense to S, too, that's all that matters.

He draws back just the slightest bit, still bent close but not pressed against S's hair now. Being able to focus on S through this helps keep him settled, but it doesn't prevent the flicker of nerves in his gut, or the worry he's miscalculated. Whatever happens, he tells himself, they'll know. They'll have talked. It will be out in the open, and they'll both be better off because of it.

That, at least, is something with which S can agree without hesitation. He does trust J, and he knows too well the kind of trouble it's caused when he's tried to make decisions for J's sake. He still isn't sure that this has been that, exactly, the situation one that feels more complicated, but it would be if he didn't take J at his word. If he stops, it has to be because he wants to or because J makes it clear that he isn't comfortable going any further. Either very well might happen. Even if it doesn't, S hates this — hates how big it has become and how he looks, hates how self-conscious he feels around the one person he's ever been most comfortable with, hates the odd sense of shame that comes along with it, even though it isn't as if he stabbed himself or even knew about the surgery until after it had happened. Like so much else in his life, he had no say over it at all, something that spun rapidly out of his grasp before he could do anything about it.

At least the rest of this isn't like that, not entirely. The circumstances are, but where they go from here is up to the two of them, and he won't know what comes next until then. That's exactly why he feels like he has to do this now. If he doesn't, he very well might never do it, and then they'll just remain stuck where they are now, not knowing what might work and what won't. Keeping himself covered around J has been a measure of control in a way, too, preventing the possible fallout, but a desperate one, the only option he saw available to him. Maybe after today, that won't still be the case. Or maybe it will, but at least he'll know then instead of basing it only on frightened guesswork.

Resolved as he might be to attempt this, he can't look at J as he does it, nor can he look at himself. He glances past J to the wall instead, keeping his eyes there as he unbuttons his shirt with shaky hands. It's been so fucking long now — he's been so careful not to do exactly this — that it feels wrong now, almost enough to make him want to change his mind, but he's determined now to see it through. So instead, he waits, all but holding his breath as he unfastens enough buttons that the shoulders of his shirt can fall loose, hoping that he hasn't just made a really big fucking mistake.