[It might be the longest that Jay's ever allowed himself to talk at any one time, at least in recent memory. It's not like his memory is the most serviceable thing most days, but it's different, when it's in the moment - not just written out in text.]
[Guilt is a familiar taste: fermented and sour and bitter as copper, like the tang of sweat and post-nightmare adrenaline sick in his throat. Guilt because, once again, it's something he never bothered to ask. Something he never thought about, and, from the way it arrests Jay in the moment, it seems it's something that he never thought much about either.]
[The choice to leave it be is, in that instant, about as tempting as simply getting up and leaving.]
[Wouldn't that be simpler? Pleasant, even?]
[He swallows, hard.]
Didn't, uh. [Speak around it: the knowledge that you don't ask anything that you don't have to. That, in the end, you're hardly any better than Jay for it.]
no subject
[Guilt is a familiar taste: fermented and sour and bitter as copper, like the tang of sweat and post-nightmare adrenaline sick in his throat. Guilt because, once again, it's something he never bothered to ask. Something he never thought about, and, from the way it arrests Jay in the moment, it seems it's something that he never thought much about either.]
[The choice to leave it be is, in that instant, about as tempting as simply getting up and leaving.]
[Wouldn't that be simpler? Pleasant, even?]
[He swallows, hard.]
Didn't, uh. [Speak around it: the knowledge that you don't ask anything that you don't have to. That, in the end, you're hardly any better than Jay for it.]
Didn't know you had a sister.