He thinks--as it happens, as he lets it happen, helps it happen, pushing up under Neil's hands with a neediness that startles him in how intense it is--that he's never been comfortable being weak like this with anyone else. He's never been comfortable being weak, period--all his training has been against that, every second of pain and stress and terror ending in a hard, determined wall. Nothing can touch him. He won't allow it to.

But that's not true anymore. And as he spreads his legs, wriggling to slide his pants down further and sucking gently at Neil's tongue, he thinks that what this amounts to is a betrayal of something that he doesn't even believe in anymore.