John curls in upon himself, tendrils roiling around him like the thunderclouds overhead. He grits a sigh through unseen teeth.

"... I have problems with my memory." There is something genuinely brittle, defensive, to his tone. That is real, and it's the sort of weakness he doesn't care to put on display. He has spent so much of his existence not knowing who he is or what he's done. "There are parts of my mind I prefer not to examine. Violence... comes as a reflex. It is not something I'm proud of."

He wipes the ichor from his eyes with one coiling tendril, and though one continues streaming, the other peers out at Levi. Hunched over himself, his head hung low before the seething mass of his body, John makes eye contact.

"I... I am trying not to be that way anymore."

Shame. That's what tightens his voice alongside pain. Add this to the long tally of things he would rather Arthur never know, things unworthy of their time together.

"Levi was only defending himself against a monster," he says to SecUnit, voice steadier now, "and you need not hold him accountable."