cityarcade | [meme] test drive

Entry tags:

meme: test drive

[meme] test drive

Apparently, it's December!

Tag into this post with characters you're thinking of apping to the game (characters who are not currently in-game or currently reserved by someone else). It can be just a tag, a brief EP, whatever you want. You can be new to the game, or simply want to test out a fresh pup. Tag each other with these characters or those already in game, and have fun.

Also, please include the name of their canon somewhere in or on the comment or on their profile page.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He doesn't know what he thought would happen, how he thought he would feel. Some part of him naïvely believed, or perhaps just hoped, that there would be some closure to be gained from confronting the man truly behind what happened. The truth being out doesn't change any of it, though; it can't bring back the dead, or heal any of the wounds of those left behind. Being here doesn't, either. All it has really done is give him more time in his head, and he's had plenty of that already, while waiting out his recovery. He feels like he's still waiting now, though he can't be certain why, or for what. Nothing has even taken place here. No one has heard the sonata that people died to create or heard of its composer. Somehow, that hurts in its own right.

These past few days, or a week, maybe, S has quietly tried to acclimate, all he really can do. It is, at least, easy enough to start to fall into a sort of a routine, despite how disoriented he feels, so far from home and anything familiar. Still, it shouldn't have been enough time for any disruption of that to throw him so completely.

Then again, it isn't just anyone he sees ahead of him.

At first, he thinks it might — it must — be in his head. Then again, when he's imagined J, he's been smiling, at peace, not seemingly fresh from the fire that took his life, here in this strange place. S freezes, as much out of uncertainty as a sharp ache in his chest, one that could just as well be phantom pain in his newly healed wound as something deeper than the physical. He should turn and go, just as he should have turned and gone that last day they saw each other, taking an exit while it was available to him. He didn't have the sense to then, though, and he still doesn't now, though he, at least, gets no closer, held back by wariness and, perhaps, some slight sense of not wanting to get his hopes up.

His voice comes out small when he speaks, more so than he would like, though there's nothing to be done about that after the fact. "Are you real?"

The voice that rises above J's shuddering breath is hardly any louder — by all rights, should be drowned out by his gasp and the thoughts in his head, tremulous, near but not near enough and too close still. It's the only familiar melody at all and he latches onto it, turning faster than he should, head spinning with the sudden motion. He staggers forward then under the weight of it, his balance less certain even than his mind, hands held out to catch himself.

He steadies, draws his arms back to himself quickly, and then it crashes over him: terror and yearning, fury and guilt, a tremendous sense of loss sweeping over him, pulling him under, and this time it's not a cough that shakes him but a sob. "Are you?" he asks, voice trembling, limbs trembling. He's tired, so tired, longing to take another step forward, frozen in place. He doesn't get to. He doesn't have that right, even if he had the physical strength to do more than hold himself barely upright. He clutches his hands to his chest, and, though he aches, it's the absence of real pain that seeps through his swirling thoughts. It should be everywhere, biting at his skin, sinking deep into his flesh, but he's more anguished in mind than body. "I'm sorry," he gasps, "I'm so sorry."

Maybe he doesn't deserve even to get to say that, never intended to have the chance, but it spills out of him too fast to stop, further apologies halted only by the way his breath catches and catches and catches, every attempt to inhale failing him.

I know, S thinks, but the words don't yet come, held back by all that he's trying to take in, the unfathomable shift that's taken only seconds. He's known that since he woke up when he ought to have been dead, learning that he wasn't after all, no matter how close he might have come. J could have finished the job if he'd wanted to, and S has wondered over and over exactly what held him back. He can guess — and he's sure it was something — but in all the time he's had to think about it, he couldn't have imagined that they would see each other face to face like this, not even in a place as impossible as he's been told this Darrow is.

He knows, but it hurts still, seeing J at all, seeing him look like this, seeing him apologize so desperately. The few feet between them feel as wide and vast as a chasm and even more difficult to cross than one, though it would require only a few steps. S wants to take them, to hold J as closely as he clutched his notebook after it came into his possession. The distant yet vivid memory of hands around his throat holds him back, keeps him from moving more than a step forward, though his hands — traitorous, perhaps, or too loyal — move of their own accord, lifting like they mean to reach for J, steady him at least, though he can't quite complete the gesture, and that hurts in its own right, too. It's less out of fear than uncertainty, not knowing if it would be welcome or wanted, or where they stand now. That hasn't always stopped him before, but before, he hadn't been almost killed by J, or had to live with his death.

"I am," he answers, the falter in his voice unmistakable now, his eyes hot with tears. It lets him finally add the rest, at least, and maybe that's like stepping forward in its own right. "I know. I know you are."

Even now, there's a softness in his voice that is more — not merely a hush, but a gentleness that J knows he doesn't deserve. It isn't forgiveness, but it's something akin to it. That's a relief, though, in a way. He's not sure he could bear forgiveness. The guilt might kill him again. Those hands held out to him now are so familiar, and J is drowning, gasping for breath; it should be so easy to reach out, to cling to the lifeline offered so instinctively.

But it's all he can do to hold onto himself, to keep himself from floating away, shaking clear of his skin, clutching at his own shoulders to steady himself. It only serves to remind him of S doing the same, not holding but pushing, clawing desperately for escape.

His back hits the nearest wall before he knows he's moved at all. The jolt is enough to let him catch a breath somehow, as if it makes his body forget it's not allowed.

He shouldn't get to be here. He shouldn't be breathing. When he glances up, S is hazy in his tear-blurred vision, but real, so real, and J doesn't need clear vision to see the pain in his expression. Somehow they always end up in this place, an aching void between them he's done everything to cause, a look of understanding he shouldn't get to see. "I'm sorry," he says again. He doesn't know any other words for it. None of them are enough. "I didn't — I never — I couldn't."

But he did. He very nearly did, and the thought overwhelms him again, another anguished sob clawing at his throat.

At once, old instinct kicks in. J staggers back, reaching the wall behind him, and S moves forward, following after as he's done so many times. He can't be sure what it says about him, this inherent need to comfort his would-be killer, but that's so far from all J has ever been to him. Maybe, sensibly, those last few moments and the recovery that followed should have changed that, overridden the rest, but it didn't, it never, it couldn't. Even if it could have, he has the proof now anyway that the blame doesn't rest solely on J's shoulders. He wants to say that, too, but he hardly knows where to start. This conversation isn't one he was ever supposed to have, and what he's played out in his head was never as fraught as the exchange between them now.

It probably makes more sense this way, but it was easier to believe that J would be at rest, no longer haunted by what drove him at the end. S could never have dreamed up a place as strange as this, though, where they'd both be alive and face to face again. He wants to be grateful, and deep down, he is, but it's hard to think as far as second chances or anything outside of this moment, with the both of them just in pain again.

"You didn't," he says, gentle but firm, one undeniable truth that he can offer. He didn't die. He got to — had to — live with the aftermath instead, picking up the pieces and trying to set things right, as much as that was even possible. "It was close, but... You're right. You couldn't." There's a comfort of his own in hearing that, at least, however certain he'd felt of it.

S moves closer, close enough that J could reach out and touch, and his hands tremble with how he aches to do just that. But how can he? He's the one who closed the door time and again, the one who created this divide. He's the reason they're like this now. "I almost did," he chokes out. "I wanted to — for a moment, I —"

It isn't a lie. In that instant, the desperation, the anger rose up so sharply, and he'd just wanted it to be over, wanted to do whatever it took to end all of this, to write the final movement, to stop being so jealous, so thoroughly reminded of all he'd lost and all he'd never have. For a flicker of a moment, it had felt like killing S might accomplish that. A heartbeat, a heartbreak. An instant, and then a fiery madness, but a truth all the same. One S should know. Maybe hearing that, he'll have the sense to leave J to his misery, alone, as he should be.

"Isn't that bad enough?" he asks, desperate for agreement and reassurance both. "That I could have? That I tried?" One hand slips free of his shoulder, fingers shaking, stretching, clasping closed again. If S knew all he'd done, the bodies that lay strewn behind him, the times he did more than try, he wouldn't stand here still, but J can't even begin to put that into words. Selfish as it is, he can't bear to chase off one last taste of love, one hovering, painful moment more.

"Yes," S says, the word and its heaviness leaving him unbidden, though he feels all the more weighed down for it, suddenly so deeply sad. It's a strange feeling, grieving someone who's standing in front of him now, the fact of J's presence still all but impossible to reconcile with his death. The loss of what was between them has been one more thing to mourn, no matter how it ended. Yes, it's bad enough, and yet it's still not so much that it makes him want to turn and leave, no matter how much more sensible that would be. He would rather try to close the remaining distance between them, but it's still hard not to think of the last time he did, both the way it ended and the way J rebuffed him before that. In this time that's followed, he's wondered about that, too, if it was in earnest or if it was an attempt to spare him from what ultimately followed or some combination of the two.

For all the answers he has, written in J's notebook, now kept safely in the small, sparse apartment that was waiting for him when he arrived, there's still so much he doesn't know, and can't be sure if he wants to ask. The answers might be worse than the absence of them. Except that doesn't feel true when J has outright said it now, that he couldn't, no matter how close he came to it, and when he's heard from the professor himself about the role he played in what took place. Even if it were, though, he would have some certainty instead of hovering in this strange, tense space without any of it.

It's bad enough, but he doesn't step back, he doesn't leave, incapable of turning away when J is alive now. At least, even if J goes back to wanting nothing more to do with him after this, and even with the quiet agony of this moment, he'll have a better last memory of them than bleeding on J's floor, the life nearly drained from him. "Of course it is. But I know why you did. And... You're here."

"You don't know." The venom of their last encounter has drained from him, leaving only a vast weariness, a yearning he thinks can never be satisfied. To be so close, to feel them so far apart — he was so sure, so sure he could never go back, with a sense of certainty and purpose that he finds in so little of his life. There was nothing to do but keep moving forward, and doing so meant leaving everything behind. It was worth it, or he knew it would be, to serve the music.

Except that he's gone to such lengths to do just that, and still he feels like this, horrorstruck and tired, miserable. If there's any anger left, it's for himself. Still, to hear S so calmly say he knows, to suggest he understands, sends up sparks. He can't know, he could never understand, his heart too soft ever to do the terrible things J has done.

He's so close, J can almost feel him, a touch like a ghost, a phantom warmth not made of flame. "I did something terrible," he says, the confession leaden in his mouth, suddenly too dry. "Unforgivable. If you knew the things I've done, why I did them..." His breath hitches, and he lifts his hand to wipe away his still-falling tears, but all it does is afford him a slightly clearer view of the man he's hurt so badly. "You would want nothing to do with me. And you'd be right."

"But I do," S counters, and he can't be sure which part he means — that he does know, or that he does want something to do with J. Both are true enough, even if he hasn't yet fully grappled with the latter, unsure of what it means or where to go from here. What he is certain of is the fact that he can't just walk away, even now, or perhaps especially now. He won't leave J like this, no matter how foolhardy it might be to keep standing here, so close to the man who tried to kill him. After everything, he's not sure he could stand it, being the one to turn away now.

At last, he reaches out instead, his hand catching J's as it lowers. It isn't much, just a quick brush of his fingers against J's bloodstained ones, a fleeting, momentary contact before he lets his own hand drop. Just to actually feel him there, tangible and real, is something — not nearly enough, and more than they were ever supposed to have gotten, and capable of breaking his heart all over again. He never felt so tentative before, even when they fought, but he never expected what happened the last time they saw each other, either. Trying to reconcile the memory of that with the longing he still feels seems as impossible as their being here, J's being alive, at all.

"You wrote it all down," he explains, his voice reedy with his own tears but sure all the same. "Your notebook didn't burn in the fire. I've read it." He doesn't say that he has it still, though there's no real need to conceal that fact. "So, yes, I do know. The things you've done, and why you did them." What he doesn't know is what to do about it now, or what comes next, or even what he wants. He's had time to sit with the knowledge he gleaned from J's journal. This is something he could never have seen coming.

It's there, unspoken. Even as J's mind reels, catching on this new twist, he finds himself unable to ignore that. S may not say it, but it's there all the same — that he knows, but hasn't turned away. That he knows, but came closer all the same. The brush of his fingers is too brief and too much, sets J's jaw trembling all over again. Leaning against the wall to keep himself standing, it's shock alone that prompts him to look up and meet S's gaze.

"Then you know," he says, quiet, hoarse, "what I am." The truth of the matter, the thing he's always known but never quite been able to say, is that S always deserved better, more. That J was never good enough. And now, it seems almost a sin even to share this space, this breath. It bites into his heart, cruel, and he looks away again, tries to set his expression like stone again, but he can't. The tears keep coming, undoing any effort he might make at appearing at all sure. "And you're still here."

Every inch of him is tense, his fingers curled close, nails digging into his palm, to keep him from reaching out again. There's an ache in his gut, in his lungs. His heart burns. All he wants — but he doesn't know what he wants: to push S away or to pull him close, to clutch at his coat, to fall into his arms and let himself break down, or else to run, to spare them both —

To spare S any further pain. For himself, he doubts there will ever be a reprieve from this, not until he takes his final breath.

S nods, his chin quivering, as if there's any sense in trying to maintain his composure, as if there's any left to maintain at all. "Yes," he says again, his voice and his heart both breaking with it. He knows, and knowing it nearly kills him just as the knife in his chest did; he knows, and he still can't turn away, still wants to be closer, to have back what he lost, and he's not sure which is worse. Part of him thinks that it should be enough to know that J is here, alive if clearly not alright. Having that assurance, that neither of them is dead, they could go their separate ways. He could get back to the life he's just barely started to build here. Just the thought of it makes him feel sickly empty, though. A piece of him has been missing since he first found out about J's death — since before then, really, though there was always a sliver of hope then that they would find their way back to each other, one he held fast to — and he has no doubt that would remain the case if they stayed apart now.

Maybe it should be enough anyway. Maybe he shouldn't still care as much as he does after what was done to him and how close he came to dying. It was simpler, surely and strangely, when it was all bound up in grief, when J was gone and there was no getting him back. This is relieving and terrifying, infinitely more complicated, a situation he never expected to face.

He shakes his head, sad and resigned, lost and longing. "Where else would I be?"

"Anywhere else," J says, bitter, even as he knows that isn't right. It should be. A person with more sense or less at stake would be gone, would never have approached at all — might, in fact, have turned and found a payphone, called the police instead. It would, perhaps, be the smart thing to do. As much as he'd like to think he'll never again try to hurt anyone the way he did before, he isn't sure. Having even a taste of that inspiration was intoxicating, addictive. What music can he possibly hope to make without it? What's to stop him from caving and killing again?

But this is S. And J has never understood, not once, how he can be the man he is, how he can stay, wait, follow, when J has never been fit to lead. He's never been worthy of all that affection. Even now he sees it. There's a hurt in his expression that J knows is just a mirror, a shadow of love, and he doesn't get why. What has he ever offered, what has he ever given, to merit even a hint of this devotion? Run and run, cut to the quick in heart and in hand.

Maybe, he thinks, the notion flickering across his mind too fast to catch hold of — maybe, in his own strange way, S is just as sick as he is, to keep the company of a monster.

And so he knows he should push him away for both their sakes. But he doesn't even know where he is, or how it is that S got his journal at all or has had time to read it. He's lost and shaken, bruised and cracked open, a phantom pain seizing at his arm though the marks have inexplicably all but healed. He groans and shakes his head. In all the world, there are only two familiar things, two constants, the pain and him, him, him. All J has ever done is bring those things together. "Somewhere safe," he says, shame dancing across his features. "Where I can't — can't hurt you."

In a funny way, he realizes, it's the closest he's come in a long time to admitting that his love is still there, has never once faded.

It's probably true. Logically, rationally, S knows that it would be smarter, better, safer to leave, to put as much distance between them as he can. In a purely physical sense, he barely survived their last encounter, but the same feels true emotionally, too. He doesn't know that he could take being hurt like that again, whether it came by being stabbed and strangled or just rejected with the same sort of finality. But then, losing J hurt just as badly, and after all of that, S doubts he would have the strength to stay away, still mourning the loss of someone now alive and within the same small city.

With no neat answer here, no clean break, he might as well face it. Besides, if J were going to harm him again, S thinks he would just do it, as swiftly as the last time, instead of issuing a warning. He wouldn't be standing here in tears, or have apologized so despairingly. For whatever reason, whether knowingly or not, he couldn't finish what he started before. It's a thin, fragile little hope, but S wants to believe that the same would be true now.

The thought of it doesn't give him confidence enough to do what he really wants to, step forward and take J into his arms, or at least J's hands in his, something to hold onto when he's felt so alone in J's absence. It keeps him where he is, though, swallowing hard before he tries to answer. "Are you going to?" he asks, a slight waver in his voice, indicative of his uncertainty — his fear, even — but easily lost when he already sounds so wrecked from crying. "Hurt me again?"

If he is — if S has been wrong through all of this aftermath as he's pored over J's journal, just trying to understand — then it would be better, S thinks, to find out now, to get the worst over with. At least he'll know what he's inviting.

It surprises him to feel his mouth curve, the dawn of a smile, however mirthless. Meeting S's eyes is hard to do, impossible to resist, as he gives a small shake of his head. "When have I ever done anything else?" He huffs out a breath, not quite a laugh. There's no humor in it, just brittle hurt. "I don't know. Don't you see? I don't know."

He never would have expected himself to become this. Mere months ago, the thought of ever taking another's life would have appalled him. And, in truth, it still does, but clearly that hasn't been enough to stop him. The taste of metal floods his mouth, and he doesn't know if it's his own blood or memory, or if he's suddenly too aware of that which stains his hands — S's blood and his own, blended together more closely than they can now allow themselves to be in any other way. It would never have occurred to him to kill. And yet, once the thought was in his head, once he'd known the intimacy of death, it was all too easy to succumb to its call. He's only ever been inches from it, then, not even knowing it himself. If he could fall so readily, what's to stop him from doing it again? What will keep him, next time, from finishing the deed?

He should, he thinks, just say that he will. Swear it and end the uncertainty, whether he means it or not. Better to sever ties at last than to risk it. But it comes to him too late to do so, and, anyway, he's too much of a coward, too selfish, to do so. Too small, too fragile, to watch S walk away just yet. Soon. He'll have to soon. But not yet.

"I don't want to," he says quietly, a confession in its own right. "But I..." He doesn't trust himself, not anymore. These same hands with which he made such beautiful music have caused too many deaths for him to be certain anymore just who he is.

"Then don't." S doesn't know where it comes from, the sudden rush of bravery that pulls the words, a quiet plea, from his mouth, that makes him catch J's fingers with his own. It came so easily before, such simple contact. Even when there was distance between them, even when J pulled away, he never thought twice about it. Everything feels different now, and there's no going back from that, no undoing what's been done. He has the scars to prove it, and J's own words seared into his head. He doesn't know what he wants — or he does, but he knows that he shouldn't want it, too — except that it isn't to walk away, to turn his back on J, for the both of them to be alone here. After last time, it feels entirely too naïve to think that he might be able to help somehow, but leaving isn't likely to do any good, either.

At least now, there won't be anyone else whispering in J's ear, coaxing out of him impulses that wouldn't otherwise have existed. All those things that J did, he wasn't acting alone, not really. S believes that, and he knows he won't be the only one who does. He could say all of that — but it feels like too much for this fragile moment to invoke that specter. They've barely put words to it yet, speaking instead about what they both know; he can't bring himself to change that, not least when J looks like he does, his cheeks stained with tears and soot both. Despite how S knows he must look, too, that hurts in its own right.

Maybe that ought to prove J's point, that hurting him is all he's ever done, but S doesn't believe that, either, shaking his head in belated disagreement. "You've done so much more than hurt me," he says, though he hurts now, his chest still aching where his wound is just barely healed. "You don't... have to do what you thought you needed to."

Such warring needs flood through him, leave him shaking. To touch S is to be reminded of all the things he wishes he could forget, how close he came to killing him, and he wants desperately to push him away again, to run as far as his unsteady legs will carry him. Instinct kicks in first, though, his fingers threading tight between S's, clinging to him, a silent plea for help.

It's so futile to think he can be helped now. Another wracking sob heaves through him and he finds himself crumpling further, pulling in on himself without yet letting go. "What else can I do?" he asks. He knows what S means, knows he thinks J has somehow given him something, not just taken and taken. But he hears, too, another meaning in the words, one he doubts the other man even means.

He's hurt so many more people than just him.

And still the idea of letting go of all he did, the music he made, is terrifying. It feels like everything is spinning, unsteady, his breath hitching again. He can't go back. To languish again in mediocrity, in nothingness — it's a crippling thought, as if it would somehow undo what little good the music wrought. Those sacrifices he never should have made, that weren't his to make, wasted, if all he does is go on flailing desperately at the keys, making music hardly fit to be called as much. If he gets to go on at all.

Nothing without a price.

"What do I do?" His voice sounds pathetic to his own ears, a muffled whimper. Without the music, he's nothing, but the cost of being able to compose is too high by far. Staying close to S is dangerous, but to be alone might be the end of him. Not long ago at all, that seemed like the answer. Here now, clear of the flames, barely even letting himself recognize the faint possibility of forgiveness, the idea of dying is at once tantalizing and terrifying. He reaches out blindly, other hand grasping at the hem of S's coat, daring nothing more. Just something to ground himself, that's all, before he shakes free of his skin.

What happens next, what J can or should do, S hasn't the first idea. All he knows is that having J grip his hand back is an overwhelming relief, one that punches the air from his lungs in a quiet sob. It's hardly anything; it means the world. Even if it doesn't change or fix anything, at least, right now, he hasn't been pushed away again, and at least, whatever happens next, he will have had this. It's a small comfort with the both of them such a mess, but it's still better than the last memories of J he had before now, and something for him to cling to in turn for however long it lasts. J might push him away after all, or he might come to his senses and realize how insane it is to be standing here like this with the man who almost killed him, but until any of that happens, it feels like a lifeline, one he's needed more badly than he's wanted to admit even to himself.

"I don't know," he admits, because it wouldn't be fair to lie and because he doesn't know what he would say if he tried to do so. All he can do is be honest, especially when it goes for both of them. He doesn't know what to do, either. This isn't something he could have planned or prepared for, and everything that happened between them and everything he's read about makes it impossible to find a simple way forward here. The things he wants, by all rights, he shouldn't; the things he should do, he can't fathom doing. Still at a loss but with that same rush of courage that drove him to reach out a moment before, he rests his free hand on J's shoulder, not pulling him into an embrace but offering the unspoken invitation of one.

He's trembling, too, he realizes, with the tears that haven't stopped coming and, if he's truthful with himself, a little fear. As much as he hates that that's the case, he can't put what came before out of his head. It still isn't enough to push him away, though, or to change the fact of what he says next. "But I'm here."

Nothing about this is right. They're too close and there's too much distance between them. He's too weak if he stays, too weak if he runs, disdainful of S's willingness to remain with him and desperate to keep it that way. He flinches instinctively as S's hand comes to rest on his shoulder, but doesn't yet pull back. It's too gentle. It makes him uneasy. He wouldn't expect anything else, but he wishes for it, wants a fury out of S that he knows he'll never get. Wants, he thinks distantly, to put the knife in S's hand, to let him get some measure of justice, though an eye for an eye was never his way. It would be right, though, it would be fair, for him to gut J and twist the knife, for him to strangle him right here in the street.

He wants to shout, but his voice won't let him. Even if he weren't still half-choking on the smoke in his lungs, it feels impossible. They're shaking, both of them, he realizes. He's not the only one trembling, S's hand pressed to his own. For a few moments, all he can do is stare at him, taking in the tears streaking his beautiful face, wishing he could make S understand how foolish he is for being here at all, for wanting to stay. Wishing he weren't always the cause for the hurt in those eyes he's loved so well.

He can't let go of S's hand, but he does drop his hold on his coat, faltering a moment before slowly, slowly, he raises it. Brushing his thumb gently along S's cheek does little to stem the tears — might even cause more, he thinks — and he knows he's sending mixed messages, but he can't quite hold back, not like he should. To see him like this and not comfort him — monster though he might be, J doesn't think he could be as heartless as that, even if it would be better for both of them if he were. "Then you're as crazy as I am," he murmurs. "Are you sure you're real? I'm not dead?"

He is crazy, probably. S certainly feels like it in more ways than one, for seeing J here at all, a dead man in a foreign street, and for staying this close, being so relieved when J doesn't pull away from him. That alone would be enough to make this feel like it's worth the risk. J's hand on his cheek, the soft brush of his thumb, is all the more unexpected, drawing a tremulous breath and a fresh burst of tears from him. Instinctively, S leans into the touch, trying to memorize it. He's had a wealth of better memories than this to think back on, but he didn't know when they happened what would become of the two of them. In an odd way, this means more for what came before it, his heart feeling like it's lodged up in his throat as he looks at J, so close and still not enough so.

"I'm sure," he replies, though with his unsteady voice, he doesn't quite sound it. That is one thing he has no doubt of, though. If he weren't real, he wouldn't hurt as much as he does, or feel so unmoored even while holding onto J's hand like it's an anchor. He almost lost his life, but he did lose J, and it's as if, now that that's somehow been undone, now that J is in front of him, real and warm to the touch, all of the grief that he's been carrying can no longer be contained, spilling out of him with a mess of other emotions that are impossible to properly untangle. "I'm real. You are, too."

As to whether or not J is dead, that's a more complicated question to try to answer. Without prompting, S thinks he would have stayed away from it for now, when he has no idea how to begin to explain what's just occurred, but now that it's been brought up, he can't avoid it. "You were dead," he says, barely able to hold J's gaze as he does. "The fire... It's been a while since then, for me. But you aren't now. This place, it's strange."

You are, too. Why does it feel this way to hear such words? What about this makes J's heart clench tight as a fist in his chest? In some way, he supposes, it hasn't felt true in a long time, not really. He's existed, that's all, no more real or alive than a conduit. Or, anyway, he's tried not to be anything more than that, as if to lose himself in the music might in some way absolve him. If he thought too much, if he did anything more than that, he would have fallen apart even sooner, unhinged entirely at the knowledge of all the crimes he's committed. He's drifted between emptiness and madness, a placid nothingness and an all-consuming creative fire. What there was of him, he thinks, must have dwindled almost to nothing at all. Perdendosi.

And he still doesn't want to think, not really. He doesn't want to consider what this place is or how he got here or how long a while might be. If he does, even for a moment, there are too many questions, and he can hardly push away the one that pulses through his mind now. Will S still feel this way tomorrow, still accepting, somehow, of what J did? Or is this only how he feels in the wake of seeing a ghost? Will he come to his senses, change his mind?

It's terrible, really. He spent so long trying to rid himself of S. Now the thought of his leaving, really leaving, scares him.

"Don't cry," he says, quiet, pleading, as if he isn't still crying himself. By now, he thinks, he should have put out all the flames he set and then some. Anyway, he isn't worth the tears. "I wanted to be. It's okay. But I'm here, too. I must be." Whatever he might have imagined an afterlife for himself might hold, if he'd stopped to consider it long, he knows he would never have expected to find S there. He's too pure of heart for the places J should go when his life ends.

S huffs out a breath, one that doesn't quite manage to be a laugh and isn't amused. It isn't okay. It hasn't been for a long time, longer and in far worse ways than he knew the day he went to see J, not knowing it was — or would have been, if not for this, now — the last time he would do so. That J wanted to be dead doesn't make his death any easier to bear. If anything, knowing that it seemed like the only way out makes it all feel that much worse. All of it amounted to nothing, a finished sonata, however brilliant, in S's mind, not nearly enough to make all of that death worthwhile, J's included.

He's replayed it in his head so many times, wondering if he could have done anything differently. Pushed a little harder, or pushed less, or shown up sooner, though it was J who summoned him that day. Tried to see the signs in and despite their lack of contact to know that something was terribly wrong. He can't fault himself for it, nor can he fault J alone — and there is, at least, some solace to be found in knowing that the professor will pay for his crimes, the guiding hand he played in the murders J committed — but even so, it's been impossibly difficult not to think of what might have been.

They're both here now regardless, and maybe that's a what might have been all its own. It's strange, though. He feels at once closer to J than he has in a long time, and still, even with the distance between them closed, like they couldn't be farther apart. Between everything that's happened and how unsure he is of where to go next or even what he wants, he doesn't know what this means, and it's hard to trust that it will last, that J won't just vanish again like a ghost.

"You're crying, too," he points out, and thinks, again, that that must be telling in its own right. J wouldn't be standing here in tears, wouldn't have apologized like he had, if he were entirely alright with what he'd done, or if he didn't still feel something, despite how insistently he seemed to be trying to act otherwise when last they spoke.

Briefly, he turns his face into his shoulder, as if his coat will do much of anything to hide the evidence of or stop his tears. It doesn't. He can't look away from J for long, as if, despite the hand clasping his, S needs to see him to believe that he's really there. "I don't know how it happens. People who died aren't dead anymore here. I heard about it, but... I never thought I'd see you."

Even when he lowers his hand from S's cheek, he can't bring himself to pull away entirely. He hesitates, hovers, fingertips brushing against S's neck before he settled his hand against his chest instead, fingers curling lightly in the fabric — pulling him closer, bracing him away. It's too familiar, though it's been a long, long time since they've been like this. He wishes he could simply rest his hand against S's neck — wishes he could draw him to him, close this stupid distance between them — but he's far too conscious of the last time he touched him there. He doubts S has forgotten, even if he doesn't seem to hate J for it the way he should.

He doesn't want to fall back into old habits. The new ones didn't exactly serve him well, but what good would it do to be stepping ever backwards into the past? People shuffle by them, and he catches hints of movement, suspects they're being looked at. That's fair, he thinks, they must be quite a mess. He's too tired, though, to care what strangers might think of how close they are to each other or any of the rest of it. Having died once, that kind of thing seems suddenly beside the point.

"You weren't supposed to see me again," he says, petulance creeping into his tone. He doesn't like to be called out, but then, he's had worse blows to his meager pride of late than being reminded he's crying. Under the circumstances, he's entitled to his tears, if nothing else. It's hard to know what to feel, at once resentful of and relieved by the fact of his own existence. "That was the point. I wanted..." He doesn't know. To stop it all, the agony of existence, of living with himself, the possibility he might give in and kill again. It's overwhelming in a way that crashes down over him once more, threatens to pull him down beneath the smoke. His grasp on S's shirt tightens, the world too bright, too loud. Words escape him, and all he can do is close his eyes and try to breathe.

Although it lasts only a fleeting instant, S can't help the way he instinctively tenses at the light brush of fingertips along his throat, his heart beating a little faster, and not in the way it used to when J would touch him. Embarrassed by it, as if his reflexes have somehow betrayed him by drawing further attention to what he hasn't wanted to discuss in detail, he casts his eyes down, watching as J's hand rests against his chest instead. It's still not enough, not really. The part of him that thinks all of this is probably too much for where they are can't be bothered to do anything about it. Far more important is how close they are — yet still not close enough — and the fact that J is here. Even his own fear, however justified, comes second to that, doesn't seem worth imposing more distance between them again now when there's already more of that than he'd like.

Once this moment ends, prolonged as it's been, he can't tell what happens. Maybe he'll finally come to his senses; maybe J will revert to trying to push him away. S wants to make it last as long as he can. Despite all of the baggage attached to it, despite his flinch and both of their tears, it's been a long time since they were this close, and he's missed it, all the more so since J's death. At least before that, he wasn't without hope that they might one day reconnect, that J might answer the phone when he called, but he couldn't have imagined that there would be another chance after something so finite. He won't waste this one.

"I know I wasn't," he says a bit forlornly, not knowing what to say to the rest of it, or, perhaps, just too afraid to ask if that's still what J wants. S doesn't think he could take it, getting J back only to lose him again. He feels J's fingers tighten in his shirt, though, and sees his eyes close, and then S inches a little closer, settling his hand more firmly on J's shoulder, the most he can do without giving in and embracing him. "But I'm glad I can."

With his eyes closed, J wavers on the edge of chaos, fire still glowing red behind his eyelids even as he feels the subtle shift of S coming closer. Everything is confusing now, too much and not enough. To have him near is overwhelming, makes J want to cut and run if only to get some air, and still some wild and lonely part of his brain can't quite understand why he isn't closer still. He's always been like this, too many conflicting desires, unable to settle into certainty about anything but the music, but it feels more now, as if that aspect of himself has become more pronounced, burnished and sharped by the flames. Maybe it's that precisely, the war in heart and mind to make sense of his being here at all, dead and alive all at once.

Sometimes S's proximity is too much. He wants things J isn't sure he's ever been capable of giving, not the way S deserves. He expects too much, thinks too highly of J, and it can be exhausting, trying and failing to live up to that. Right now, though, he's desperate for it, finding something steadying in the familiar weight on his shoulder. He doesn't understand this, none of it — how he can be here or why S still says these things, still wants to see him, still cares.

Even so, he's able to take a deeper breath, heart slowing just enough for him to feel like he's settling back into his body. There's so much he wants to say, but he doesn't know how, isn't even sure what. Go, get away from me. Please stay. I'm sorry. I hate you. I love you. It's cruel. It's pathetic. He doesn't want to move, to speak, to disrupt this moment. He doesn't want to know where he is or how he got here if it means thinking about something other than this, and he doesn't want to stay in this moment either. It's dangerous — certainly for S, maybe for J, too.

"I don't want to be here," he murmurs, more to himself than to S. Now his eyes open, head lifting enough to meet S's gaze again, stammering. "Not — not here. I mean, out here..." He shrugs vaguely, hoping S understands that he doesn't like to be outside like this, all these people coming and going, the light, the sound. It's too much. And yet it also feels like too much to ask for anything at all. That doesn't stop him from starting to do so. "Is there somewhere — you don't have to."

He has no right to ask for them to be somewhere else, alone, no right to ask for the trust that would require now.

At once, S stills, uncertain at first of J's meaning. It could be that he doesn't to be here, in this place, alive; it could be that he doesn't want to be here, with him. Either, perhaps both, feel painful, frightening, though they would both make sense, too. Why should J want to be alive when he meant to die by his own hand? Why should J want him here, when he went to such lengths to get rid of him, first shutting him out and then attempting something even more permanent? S knows that it isn't really that simple — that he wouldn't have lived if it were, and that J wouldn't be holding him onto him so tightly if he only wanted him gone — but even so, in that moment, he's fearful all the same, and still not as much as he probably should be while standing this close to the man who almost killed him.

It's just that he can't see J as only that, one moment not enough to override all of those that came before or to erode the feelings he's had since long before then. Maybe this would all be easier if it were, but he can't even bring himself to wish for that, having seen J like this and knowing what he would be turning away from if he could manage to cut ties.

The clarification that quickly follows is more relieving than it ought to be, some of the tension easing from S's shoulders, though he hates that he has to hesitate to respond. He knows before he does what his answer will be — there's only one he could ever have, even now — but it doesn't come so easily. It's not the one he should give. And yet, especially with this strange, impossible chance they've been given, S doesn't see how he could do anything else. He can't just leave J to take this all in on his own, or make him stay out here on the street, where anyone could pass by.

At least, if things go the way they did last time, if he's been wrong about all of this, he won't be so caught off-guard. He will have invited it this time, and he'll know that he misread all of this, misjudged J. For now, he'll just hope that isn't the case.

"I live nearby," he says, nodding in agreement. There's so much more to try to tell him — and an apartment that will be waiting for J, too — but that still seems like too much to get into just yet. "We can go back there."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject