"No," It's soft, but certain, at the newest tap to his sternum. Something like a whisper, but it isn't a whisper. Soft. Quiet-soft, but certain, too. Maybe that part is the part that's most uncertain. The certainty of the certainty. The fact the fear isn't in that single word, or the way his head shakes just as sure as it had nodded a second.

His fingers tighten, the same way it feels like his ribs do, because he could just agree. He could roll along. He could say nothing and follow Victor. Follow the soft expression on his face, and the soft brush of one of Victor's fingers having found his wrist. Brushing back and forth, so soft and distracting, over his pulse.

"This part doesn't feel different." Not just the words, and not him unchanged, but not new.

How he felt about Victor. That it wasn't some magical shift and switch. Every touch was new. Every reaction. But. Under it. He still wanted to make Victor proud, to show Victor he'd been worth all his sacrifices. He could feel the way he still found Victor exasperating, surprising, impatient, annoying, beyond the highest bar of inspiring, incomparable, beautiful and smart as he was forgetful and arrogant, affectionate, safe, trustable, over-excitable. "It -- I still feels like I did."

"Before." Before this room. Before Victor kissed him. Before this morning and two days ago.

He's not sure how far before reaches to. Which day, where, it started.
How long he's possibly been pushing it back. Drowning it.

He knows when it wasn't, back when he couldn't let Victor in, couldn't dream Victor would ever want to see the real him, but he's here, now, and it's everywhere all around him, in every thought, every feeling, like it's always been right there, all around him, inside of him, for so long it's like it's just been waiting for him to catch up and open his eyes.