It should be like a lightning strike, like being set on fire. It should burn and shiver through him and hurt, hurt like torture, like closing his hand around the blade of a knife. It should make him bleed. And it is doing these things. Part of him wants to pull away, terrified and in pain.

The rest of him surges through it. Lets it burn.

"I love you," he whispers, one hand palming the back of Neil's head, the other tight around his middle. Clinging. On a fucking kitchen floor with tea going cold and a fucking city outside. Stranger things. "I love you. I love you, I'm sorry."