"We have history, right?"

The question arose one night as Jason and Erin lazed around on the couch in Erin's cheap apartment, fiddling with chopsticks and shoveling takeout into their mouths. Erin looked over at Jason oddly, squinting at him for a second before swallowing the food and putting the take-out box to the side.

"Uh— yeah, sure we do. Why?" they asked, a bit confused.

Jason shrugged his shoulders, and replied, "I mean— we've known each other half our lives. Met before either of us were…" he gestured between them haphazardly, "this."

Erin blinked, following his gesture and furrowing their brow. "I mean, yeah. But—"

"Why did you stay?" He asked suddenly, eyes fixed on the take-out in his hands. "I mean, after I came back. We have completely different ideas about… everything, now. So why did you stay?"

The question hit Erin like a ton of bricks. Why did they stay? Why wouldn't they? But that answer seemed too simple, even in their head. He was right. Erin vehemently disagreed with Jason's form of justice, yet was okay enough with it to stick by his side, even after they tried to kill each other one rainy night, awful night.

So they didn't answer just yet. Jason's fingers twitched on the chopsticks in the silence, clearly anxious about the response, yet unable to look Erin in the face. The question wasn't really like Jason, either. He wasn't exactly forthright about his emotions in casual conversation, no matter how explosively he expressed them.

Erin hummed, leaning back against the couch and crossing their arms as they figured out how to word their answer.

"Because… you're still my best friend. God, that makes me sound like I'm twelve— I mean, because—because, no matter what you've done, no matter what we disagree on, no matter what we've done to each other, you're still somebody who… who…"

Erin trailed off, face down, and Jason blurted, "Who what?" Like the answer was more important than he was letting on. He asked it as though the answer would make or break… something. The something that their relationship turned into. Quiet moments. Stolen glances. Brief brushes of hands, and quiet laughter late at night. Knowing each other's moves before they made it. Something unspoken, that had bloomed into a sort of relationship that meant the other could come to them in their darkest, most vulnerable moments— even if they didn't always want to.

"Who I care about, I guess."

That answer didn't seem to satisfy Jason at all, and, truth be told, it didn't satisfy Erin, either. He just huffed and turned back to his food, stuffing his face full of lo mein.

Someone who I need. That was the answer. But that felt too honest, too real. So Erin just picked up their food and their chopsticks and started eating again.