His vision grays at the edges with that praise. It doesn't matter what name Orev used, it doesn't matter what Orev calls himself: the tone was familiar and the words meant him, Puppy and Gideon and Jack. The pride and approval was for him.
(He wants to grab Orev's hand and press it to his groin. He wants to drag the other man back upstairs. He wants to kneel, he wants so badly to kneel -) (Draža, he's missed you so. Daddy. God. Everything.)
(He thinks he can't do any of that here.) (What he doesn't think right now is that he can't do any of that ever again.)
His breathing is too steady and his eyes carry a hint of agony in them when he darts another glance at Orev. Whatever response he meant to give (Thank you, Daddy, it's right there on the tip of his tongue), he's abruptly shaken from the moment when Cala asks, "What's well done?"
He tenses abruptly, his cheeks now flushing pale when he remembers where he is, who he's with. He jerks slightly, realizing he'd been pressing himself to Orev's side, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder. The jolt puts an inch of propriety between them; he swallows hard, one hand now digging harsh fingers into the flesh of his own thigh.
"He's being an ass," he replies roughly. "Because I ate my breakfast. Thinks I did it because he told me to."
"Did you?" she bats back, painted brows raised.
Jack clenches his jaw angrily, though his reply comes soft and even-toned. "I was already eating it."
He watches as she shrugs with disinterest and returns her attention to the shared book. Sharply, he turns on Orev and angles an index finger in her direction as if to say, See!?
Which isn't the point. It's not the point at all, he realizes. The point is - The point is...
The point is, Orev doesn't remember anything.
He watches Orev with a growing longing colored with misery in his expression. Abruptly, wordlessly, he rises from the table and makes a beeline for the stairs.
Cala looks up to watch him go, then turns her attention to Orev. "Oh, no."
"He's going to hate seeing where Walter put the doll."
<.>
[ insight: 21
Yep, Orev sees clearly what draws Jack away from the table. ]
The gods only know why Walter got it in his head to carry along that doll.
Really, Orev thinks it likely that no god below, above, or otherwise situated could say.
(In this instance, though, it may prove useful. Averse as Jack seems to be toward the object.)
(It might… Be more useful. If Orev didn’t sense some depth of the conflict plaguing Jack. If he didn’t suspect that some part of what’s drawn the boy from the table is tied to what Orev does and doesn’t remember. To who he is and was, and the experience lost to his knowing.)
He thinks, perhaps, he ought to let Jack manage whatever mangle of feelings Orev’s left him with.
He knows he won’t do that; can’t do that. (This man is (his to care for) not outside of his responsibility.) He’s rising already, dropping his cutlery to the plate, focused fixed. Moving toward Jack without addressing Calamus - thinking, after all, that she knows the push she just gave (recalling Jack’s words about her stupid romantic notions) (thinking maybe, maybe, Jack didn’t entirely believe that, or maybe he’s held those notions too close in the past) - and following quickly, step-with-step. If he can, he’ll reach Jack, fall into step just slightly behind him, and settle a hand on his shoulder.
If he can, he’ll speak low: “To my room.”
When he says it, he might almost be, might as well be saying ‘our room.’
<.>
Jack halts at the feeling of Orev's hand on his shoulder. He doesn't know what he expected, but it really wasn't that Orev would follow him, much less -
Suggest? Command? Direct him to Orev's room? He hesitates, looking from Orev to the door of the room he shares (shared?) with Calamus and Walter. (Those words did sound like maybe it's not Jack's room anymore, didn't they? Like maybe Orev meant "our" instead of "my?
Or that's just wishful thinking on Jack's part. That's just longing and desire and confusion.)
"I - need my bag," he tries weakly, but having said that, he still follows Orev instead of making for his (-not-his) room.
Sometimes, he can resist "soft" commands. If he really wants to, he can.
But -
He feels so muddled. The longing in his chest is a heavy stone, and Orev is behaving in ways that seem so achingly familiar.
<.>
A thought, immediate, as Jack follows: Good boy.
(Odd, how readily the thought comes into mind. How familiar it feels.) (How Jack’s obedience eases, subtly voltaic, through his being.)
He doesn’t look at Jack as he goes to the door. He doesn’t need to; he knows the boy will follow.
(The problem. A problem. Orev doesn’t know what he intends to do. …Help, somehow?) (He doesn’t need a plan. The point was to— Well. To not leave Jack to solitude. (To not leave Jack.))
As he opens the door, he comments, “We’ll have your bag later.”
Then enters the room, hand remaining on the door. He’ll wait until Jack has followed - if Jack does follow - before closing it and turning to the man. When he starts to speak, there’s a slight note of hesitation, of uncertainty before his voice evens—
"You keep slipping off." It sounds rather like 'you can't keep slipping off.'
And: “What is it, Jack?”
And. “Tell me.”
<.>
He hesitates at the comment about his bag, a helpless look cast behind him to the hall. Maybe Orev meant that they can go together to get his bag after a conversation.
Or maybe he's saying something else, along with "my room". Maybe he's saying Jack's bag will be brought to and remain in Orev's (and Jack's?) room.
Later.
(After what? A conversation?)
He's trembling slightly, feeling a curl of not-unfamiliar terror in his stomach. (He doesn't want to go in there with Orev. He doesn't want this with a man who doesn't remember himself, much less Jack.
Orev isn't Draza. (Is that true, though? Is Jack only creating a distinction so he can carry out his plan later?))
He steps into the room and watches the door close, waits to see if Orev is going to lock it. (Draza would've locked it.) Then he slides his attention to the other man when he speaks.
He sounds unsure. (Draza never really sounded uncertain.) (Orev isn't Draza.) (He is, though. Look at him. He is.) And still, he commands Jack to speak, which summons a fine sheen of sweat to his brow. The words come because Orev ordered him to tell.
"I'm - trying to get away from you. Trying to be alone." He swallows thickly, trying to silence the words before they form, but they pour out anyway. "It hurts to be near you. It hurts, looking at you and knowing you don't remember me and wondering why, and why you want to be near me at all when you were gone - you were just. Fucking gone.
"And it feels - so good, too. Just being close, but being told, too, like how it used to be -" He grunts with frustration, clearly wishing he hadn't said that. "Except it's not how it used to be. You're not him, you're you; you don't know me. We're not lovers, we're not anything. I'll get excited, sure, but I have to ignore it. I need to breathe through it. Sleep it off. Hope you don't do it again."
<.>
How it used to be, Jack says, and Orev wishes—
Badly. Badly, he wishes he could remember.
(He wishes he could be here for Jack, with Jack, and not only as a shadowed mirror of himself. Not only as this man Jack does and doesn’t know.)
There’s so much here he can only begin to parse. So many words, professions-confessions that pierce Orev, that are clearly thorns lodged seeping in Jack’s skin. So much feeling that works through Jack’s face, catches and pulls at his voice. (So much pain, and such a heavy-hanging loneliness.)
He doesn’t know how to respond. He needs— A moment. A space to let at least a few of these disclosures begin to cohere.
So he begins with the last: Jack’s hope that Orev won’t do it again. And Orev attempts a soft laugh - it’s ragged; it’s a pained noise - and shakes his head—
“You know I can’t promise that.”
Which. He’d intended in jest. But it happens so naturally. The pull to it - to command, to observe, to, yes, to praise - strikes instinctive with this man.
He looks down. Goes quiet a moment. Then seeks Jack’s eyes, and endeavors—
“I don’t know how things were. Between us.” Which is very thank you stating the obvious o’clock, so he tries to hurry onward. “But I have suspicions. From the journal. From my own impulses. And what you’ve described—“
(The ordering. The following.) (‘How it used to be.’)
He sighs, shakes his head. “It can’t be what it was. I— You’re right, of course. What connection I have to that man is clouded. Tenuous.
“I don’t believe it’s gone.” A scowl, a click of his tongue. An emendation: “I don’t believe I’m gone.” Then a thought, and a sharp cant of his head. “I’m not sure I was myself entirely then, either.” Given what he’s seen in the journal.
Which is all beside the point. Which isn’t what requires addressing, and he lifts a hand, seeks to settle it at Jack’s arm.
“I left you. I’m—“ Sorry, he’s so fucking sorry, but what worth’s in an apology from a man who’s forgotten his own crime? (A man who’s forgotten his… Lover? Lover, yes; they must have been.) “I don’t know why, or how I should have sinned so badly. I don’t— I don’t believe I intended you ill.
“What I know, Jack, is that I do want to be near you.
“That you’ve held my attention since we met on that ghost-forsaken train.
“That I find it impossible not to watch you.
“That you look at me. You obey me. You— Smile. And I feel touched by lightning and by dawn’s light.
“I don’t know what I am, or what we were. But I know your importance, Jack.”
<.>
Having spoken as he was ordered, Jack falls into silence now, his wary eyes tracking Orev's. There's one thing Orev speaks that catches him, furrows his brow with perplexity as he's struck by a thought he never considered before: What did happen to Draža? He wasn't wholly sane, that much is true. What if -
(Is it possible he deteriorated further after sending Gideon away?)
(Did something happen to him? Something over all those months, that resulted in this man before him? Is it possible he missed Gideon, needed him just as badly, was missing him the whole time and yet -?)
No. No, it's more likely that the only reason Orev thinks Jack is important now is he doesn't remember how much of a failure, a disappointment Gideon was as a Puppy. (Remember, there was someone else. Remember, that Other Puppy.)
He carefully takes Orev's hand from his arm and holds it in his own, thumb brushing the backs of his knuckles.
"Don't put too much stock in how you feel now. You had someone else who pleased you better. Right now, you can't recall them, and I'm a novelty," he replies quietly, his smile wry and poorly disguising his sorrow. "Like I was the first time. That's all it is. You'll tire of watching. Of giving me your attention. Of being near."
Again, he thinks, implies, but doesn't say.
"And I'll...cope." As best he can, at least until he can end his contracts. As an afterthought, he adds, "Although, if you wouldn't mind terribly releasing me from one of your prior commands, it would go far towards helping me 'cope'."
<.>
No.
Refusal echoing, a clamor through his mind.
He doesn’t like this.
(This: Jack’s distance, Jack’s assertion that these feelings are passing only, that this man could ever fade from Orev’s interest.) (This: Jack’s sorrow, and Orev’s inability to call him from it.) (This: The notion that Orev might have - how could he have?! - lost interest in Jack. That he could have known this man’s brilliance and tossed him aside.) (This: An attempt to extract himself from Orev, asking that a command be relinquished. One command, what could it hurt, but ah, one command, and then how many others?) (This: Orev’s inability to argue against any of this because he doesn’t fucking know what happened.)
He needs to calm himself. He needs to— Breathe. He needs to breathe. Ease the tension in his jaw. Ease the clenching of his fingers, his— He finds he’s dug his claws into his palm. Wills himself to focus on the brush of Jack’s fingers. To… To…
Think. He has to think clearly. He has to speak. Know what to say to— Stop this cascade. Pull Jack from this withdrawal. Focus on what Jack said (there was something, something that requires addressing) (what was it what was it, about Jack thinking himself a novelty, about something else, someone else?).
It’s difficult to put all this in order. It’s happened so quickly, what Jack said and what Orev said, and he’s only now beginning to register his own words, how deeply he felt them, how much he could, he does believe them.
(And he thinks: No.
And: You are mine.)
He closes his eyes. Breathes in and exhales, shaken. Then finds Jack’s eyes.
“I don’t accept that.
“I don’t know what happened. I’m not certain you do, either.” He’s turned his hand, wraps Jack’s within it, careful now with his claws. And, softer now, “I don’t mean to suggest that you ought to know. Or that I gave you cause to— Trust anything I might have meant.”
He pauses, watching Jack’s hand in his own, thinking yes, this is as it ought to be, this is where his grasp belongs. “Give me time, Jack. There are answers; I am going to find them.”
And. Seeking Jack’s eyes: “Do you want the command relinquished.”
Do you. Really.
<.>
He doesn't know what to say. Orev's response is balanced, the kind of thinking Draža wasn't...always. Given to. Asking for more time to seek answers? Pointing out Jack can't be sure what happened? It's reasonable, and he doesn't remember Draža being reasonable often.
Orev hasn't released his hand, and Jack hasn't let go, either. He doesn't want to be the first to let go. However, when Orev pivots to that question, he rather wishes he didn't feel so pinned down, trapped by the mutual grasp. He wishes he could squirm away.
It's complicated.
"You told me I couldn't touch myself," he replies flatly. "And no one else could bring me satiation, either. Only you, you said. When we were together, obviously I didn't want it relinquished - but that was before I lived nine fucking months without you. How am I supposed to answer that question?"
With a sigh, he adds, "How am I supposed to answer any of this? Give you time? Haven't you had enough? And what happens meanwhile? I follow you around, waiting for you to remember anything at all? I can't stop myself from vying for your attention, or being angry with you, or hating that you left me and only came back when you didn't know who I -"
His voice breaks and quickly he looks away, blinking rapidly against the sting of tears.
"What if there aren't answers about me? What if it's just that you grew bored and left me to rot like this because you thought it was funny?"
no subject
(He wants to grab Orev's hand and press it to his groin. He wants to drag the other man back upstairs. He wants to kneel, he wants so badly to kneel -) (Draža, he's missed you so. Daddy. God. Everything.)
(He thinks he can't do any of that here.) (What he doesn't think right now is that he can't do any of that ever again.)
His breathing is too steady and his eyes carry a hint of agony in them when he darts another glance at Orev. Whatever response he meant to give (Thank you, Daddy, it's right there on the tip of his tongue), he's abruptly shaken from the moment when Cala asks, "What's well done?"
He tenses abruptly, his cheeks now flushing pale when he remembers where he is, who he's with. He jerks slightly, realizing he'd been pressing himself to Orev's side, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder. The jolt puts an inch of propriety between them; he swallows hard, one hand now digging harsh fingers into the flesh of his own thigh.
"He's being an ass," he replies roughly. "Because I ate my breakfast. Thinks I did it because he told me to."
"Did you?" she bats back, painted brows raised.
Jack clenches his jaw angrily, though his reply comes soft and even-toned. "I was already eating it."
He watches as she shrugs with disinterest and returns her attention to the shared book. Sharply, he turns on Orev and angles an index finger in her direction as if to say, See!?
Which isn't the point. It's not the point at all, he realizes. The point is - The point is...
The point is, Orev doesn't remember anything.
He watches Orev with a growing longing colored with misery in his expression. Abruptly, wordlessly, he rises from the table and makes a beeline for the stairs.
Cala looks up to watch him go, then turns her attention to Orev. "Oh, no."
"He's going to hate seeing where Walter put the doll."
<.>
[ insight: 21
Yep, Orev sees clearly what draws Jack away from the table. ]
The gods only know why Walter got it in his head to carry along that doll.
Really, Orev thinks it likely that no god below, above, or otherwise situated could say.
(In this instance, though, it may prove useful. Averse as Jack seems to be toward the object.)
(It might… Be more useful. If Orev didn’t sense some depth of the conflict plaguing Jack. If he didn’t suspect that some part of what’s drawn the boy from the table is tied to what Orev does and doesn’t remember. To who he is and was, and the experience lost to his knowing.)
He thinks, perhaps, he ought to let Jack manage whatever mangle of feelings Orev’s left him with.
He knows he won’t do that; can’t do that. (This man is (his to care for) not outside of his responsibility.) He’s rising already, dropping his cutlery to the plate, focused fixed. Moving toward Jack without addressing Calamus - thinking, after all, that she knows the push she just gave (recalling Jack’s words about her stupid romantic notions) (thinking maybe, maybe, Jack didn’t entirely believe that, or maybe he’s held those notions too close in the past) - and following quickly, step-with-step. If he can, he’ll reach Jack, fall into step just slightly behind him, and settle a hand on his shoulder.
If he can, he’ll speak low: “To my room.”
When he says it, he might almost be, might as well be saying ‘our room.’
<.>
Jack halts at the feeling of Orev's hand on his shoulder. He doesn't know what he expected, but it really wasn't that Orev would follow him, much less -
Suggest? Command? Direct him to Orev's room? He hesitates, looking from Orev to the door of the room he shares (shared?) with Calamus and Walter. (Those words did sound like maybe it's not Jack's room anymore, didn't they? Like maybe Orev meant "our" instead of "my?
Or that's just wishful thinking on Jack's part. That's just longing and desire and confusion.)
"I - need my bag," he tries weakly, but having said that, he still follows Orev instead of making for his (-not-his) room.
Sometimes, he can resist "soft" commands. If he really wants to, he can.
But -
He feels so muddled. The longing in his chest is a heavy stone, and Orev is behaving in ways that seem so achingly familiar.
<.>
A thought, immediate, as Jack follows: Good boy.
(Odd, how readily the thought comes into mind. How familiar it feels.) (How Jack’s obedience eases, subtly voltaic, through his being.)
He doesn’t look at Jack as he goes to the door. He doesn’t need to; he knows the boy will follow.
(The problem. A problem. Orev doesn’t know what he intends to do. …Help, somehow?) (He doesn’t need a plan. The point was to— Well. To not leave Jack to solitude. (To not leave Jack.))
As he opens the door, he comments, “We’ll have your bag later.”
Then enters the room, hand remaining on the door. He’ll wait until Jack has followed - if Jack does follow - before closing it and turning to the man. When he starts to speak, there’s a slight note of hesitation, of uncertainty before his voice evens—
"You keep slipping off." It sounds rather like 'you can't keep slipping off.'
And: “What is it, Jack?”
And. “Tell me.”
<.>
He hesitates at the comment about his bag, a helpless look cast behind him to the hall. Maybe Orev meant that they can go together to get his bag after a conversation.
Or maybe he's saying something else, along with "my room". Maybe he's saying Jack's bag will be brought to and remain in Orev's (and Jack's?) room.
Later.
(After what? A conversation?)
He's trembling slightly, feeling a curl of not-unfamiliar terror in his stomach. (He doesn't want to go in there with Orev. He doesn't want this with a man who doesn't remember himself, much less Jack.
Orev isn't Draza. (Is that true, though? Is Jack only creating a distinction so he can carry out his plan later?))
He steps into the room and watches the door close, waits to see if Orev is going to lock it. (Draza would've locked it.) Then he slides his attention to the other man when he speaks.
He sounds unsure. (Draza never really sounded uncertain.) (Orev isn't Draza.) (He is, though. Look at him. He is.) And still, he commands Jack to speak, which summons a fine sheen of sweat to his brow. The words come because Orev ordered him to tell.
"I'm - trying to get away from you. Trying to be alone." He swallows thickly, trying to silence the words before they form, but they pour out anyway. "It hurts to be near you. It hurts, looking at you and knowing you don't remember me and wondering why, and why you want to be near me at all when you were gone - you were just. Fucking gone.
"And it feels - so good, too. Just being close, but being told, too, like how it used to be -" He grunts with frustration, clearly wishing he hadn't said that. "Except it's not how it used to be. You're not him, you're you; you don't know me. We're not lovers, we're not anything. I'll get excited, sure, but I have to ignore it. I need to breathe through it. Sleep it off. Hope you don't do it again."
<.>
How it used to be, Jack says, and Orev wishes—
Badly. Badly, he wishes he could remember.
(He wishes he could be here for Jack, with Jack, and not only as a shadowed mirror of himself. Not only as this man Jack does and doesn’t know.)
There’s so much here he can only begin to parse. So many words, professions-confessions that pierce Orev, that are clearly thorns lodged seeping in Jack’s skin. So much feeling that works through Jack’s face, catches and pulls at his voice. (So much pain, and such a heavy-hanging loneliness.)
He doesn’t know how to respond. He needs— A moment. A space to let at least a few of these disclosures begin to cohere.
So he begins with the last: Jack’s hope that Orev won’t do it again. And Orev attempts a soft laugh - it’s ragged; it’s a pained noise - and shakes his head—
“You know I can’t promise that.”
Which. He’d intended in jest. But it happens so naturally. The pull to it - to command, to observe, to, yes, to praise - strikes instinctive with this man.
He looks down. Goes quiet a moment. Then seeks Jack’s eyes, and endeavors—
“I don’t know how things were. Between us.” Which is very thank you stating the obvious o’clock, so he tries to hurry onward. “But I have suspicions. From the journal. From my own impulses. And what you’ve described—“
(The ordering. The following.) (‘How it used to be.’)
He sighs, shakes his head. “It can’t be what it was. I— You’re right, of course. What connection I have to that man is clouded. Tenuous.
“I don’t believe it’s gone.” A scowl, a click of his tongue. An emendation: “I don’t believe I’m gone.” Then a thought, and a sharp cant of his head. “I’m not sure I was myself entirely then, either.” Given what he’s seen in the journal.
Which is all beside the point. Which isn’t what requires addressing, and he lifts a hand, seeks to settle it at Jack’s arm.
“I left you. I’m—“ Sorry, he’s so fucking sorry, but what worth’s in an apology from a man who’s forgotten his own crime? (A man who’s forgotten his… Lover? Lover, yes; they must have been.) “I don’t know why, or how I should have sinned so badly. I don’t— I don’t believe I intended you ill.
“What I know, Jack, is that I do want to be near you.
“That you’ve held my attention since we met on that ghost-forsaken train.
“That I find it impossible not to watch you.
“That you look at me. You obey me. You— Smile. And I feel touched by lightning and by dawn’s light.
“I don’t know what I am, or what we were. But I know your importance, Jack.”
<.>
Having spoken as he was ordered, Jack falls into silence now, his wary eyes tracking Orev's. There's one thing Orev speaks that catches him, furrows his brow with perplexity as he's struck by a thought he never considered before: What did happen to Draža? He wasn't wholly sane, that much is true. What if -
(Is it possible he deteriorated further after sending Gideon away?)
(Did something happen to him? Something over all those months, that resulted in this man before him? Is it possible he missed Gideon, needed him just as badly, was missing him the whole time and yet -?)
No. No, it's more likely that the only reason Orev thinks Jack is important now is he doesn't remember how much of a failure, a disappointment Gideon was as a Puppy. (Remember, there was someone else. Remember, that Other Puppy.)
He carefully takes Orev's hand from his arm and holds it in his own, thumb brushing the backs of his knuckles.
"Don't put too much stock in how you feel now. You had someone else who pleased you better. Right now, you can't recall them, and I'm a novelty," he replies quietly, his smile wry and poorly disguising his sorrow. "Like I was the first time. That's all it is. You'll tire of watching. Of giving me your attention. Of being near."
Again, he thinks, implies, but doesn't say.
"And I'll...cope." As best he can, at least until he can end his contracts. As an afterthought, he adds, "Although, if you wouldn't mind terribly releasing me from one of your prior commands, it would go far towards helping me 'cope'."
<.>
No.
Refusal echoing, a clamor through his mind.
He doesn’t like this.
(This: Jack’s distance, Jack’s assertion that these feelings are passing only, that this man could ever fade from Orev’s interest.) (This: Jack’s sorrow, and Orev’s inability to call him from it.) (This: The notion that Orev might have - how could he have?! - lost interest in Jack. That he could have known this man’s brilliance and tossed him aside.) (This: An attempt to extract himself from Orev, asking that a command be relinquished. One command, what could it hurt, but ah, one command, and then how many others?) (This: Orev’s inability to argue against any of this because he doesn’t fucking know what happened.)
He needs to calm himself. He needs to— Breathe. He needs to breathe. Ease the tension in his jaw. Ease the clenching of his fingers, his— He finds he’s dug his claws into his palm. Wills himself to focus on the brush of Jack’s fingers. To… To…
Think. He has to think clearly. He has to speak. Know what to say to— Stop this cascade. Pull Jack from this withdrawal. Focus on what Jack said (there was something, something that requires addressing) (what was it what was it, about Jack thinking himself a novelty, about something else, someone else?).
It’s difficult to put all this in order. It’s happened so quickly, what Jack said and what Orev said, and he’s only now beginning to register his own words, how deeply he felt them, how much he could, he does believe them.
(And he thinks: No.
And: You are mine.)
He closes his eyes. Breathes in and exhales, shaken. Then finds Jack’s eyes.
“I don’t accept that.
“I don’t know what happened. I’m not certain you do, either.” He’s turned his hand, wraps Jack’s within it, careful now with his claws. And, softer now, “I don’t mean to suggest that you ought to know. Or that I gave you cause to— Trust anything I might have meant.”
He pauses, watching Jack’s hand in his own, thinking yes, this is as it ought to be, this is where his grasp belongs. “Give me time, Jack. There are answers; I am going to find them.”
And. Seeking Jack’s eyes: “Do you want the command relinquished.”
Do you. Really.
<.>
He doesn't know what to say. Orev's response is balanced, the kind of thinking Draža wasn't...always. Given to. Asking for more time to seek answers? Pointing out Jack can't be sure what happened? It's reasonable, and he doesn't remember Draža being reasonable often.
Orev hasn't released his hand, and Jack hasn't let go, either. He doesn't want to be the first to let go. However, when Orev pivots to that question, he rather wishes he didn't feel so pinned down, trapped by the mutual grasp. He wishes he could squirm away.
It's complicated.
"You told me I couldn't touch myself," he replies flatly. "And no one else could bring me satiation, either. Only you, you said. When we were together, obviously I didn't want it relinquished - but that was before I lived nine fucking months without you. How am I supposed to answer that question?"
With a sigh, he adds, "How am I supposed to answer any of this? Give you time? Haven't you had enough? And what happens meanwhile? I follow you around, waiting for you to remember anything at all? I can't stop myself from vying for your attention, or being angry with you, or hating that you left me and only came back when you didn't know who I -"
His voice breaks and quickly he looks away, blinking rapidly against the sting of tears.
"What if there aren't answers about me? What if it's just that you grew bored and left me to rot like this because you thought it was funny?"