“You’d be surprised.” Neal shivers, goosebumps rippling along behind Malcolm’s fingertips. “After it happened… When we came back, the ones who died… there was something wrong with some of us. This. Need to put ourselves in situations where we could get hurt, or worse. You felt it yourself, even though you hadn’t gotten hurt that time. But you still talked me through it, told me how you learned to ignore the little voice that told you how to do things to other people the same way.”

He rests his hand over Malcolm’s at his waist, keeping it there, against his shirt, against the scars hidden underneath. “You understood what was happening to me, that I wasn’t trying to upset you, even when other people… didn’t.”