...When Alex kisses Neil, it's not demanding. It offers things rather than takes, and Alex cups his hands around Neil's shoulders, as if to keep him. They stay like that for a moment, before Alex breaks away.

"I know," he states quietly. "I knew from when you let me hold you on that pier. Then that girl mentioned you hadn't been sleeping, and then you let yourself go the moment I had you. Then with me bringing you here, and letting me handle things... You let me take care of you, let me... basically fuck around in your head, and trusted me to do what I could to make you better. You listened to me when I told you to focus and remember about the ocean. And when those assholes were in that room, you let me protect you instead of pushing your way past me.

"It's new," Alex continues. "It's not something I expected to receive from you. I don't know--" What changed. "--Why that is. Why you trust me to all of those extremes. You put your life in my hands and trusted me not to break it."

He swallows, looking like something caught between sadness and loss. "I don't know what happened to cause that."

Because I don't think that I deserve it.