"The fuck're you sorry for?" He's stopping suddenly, turning, pressing Neil back against a wall that's all old peeling posters and scribbled-on concrete, and he hears a murmur behind him that he completely ignores. Neil crying has always brought gentle love or hot fury out of him and now it's bringing out a strange mix of both. He reaches up with one hand, traces the tear-tracks down Neil's cheeks with his fingertips, fights down the sudden violent impulse to lick them away.

"Don't you say that," he whispers hoarsely. "Don't you ever fucking say that. Not about this shit."