It'd never been all right. It'd come close in fleeting patches, in stolen moments with his teammates and in their last-second wins, but it'd always been overshadowed by this awful truth. Every time Neil blinked he remembered a little more of his Christmas vacation. Every time he moved he felt Riko's hands and blades and fire on his skin. He'd let Riko take him apart time and time again because it was the only way to survive, because bending should have kept him from breaking, but Neil didn't know if he could pull himself back together one more time. He wasn't strong enough for this. He never had been. His mother had held him up but she was gone now.

"Neil," Wymack said.

Neil, Wymack called him, even when he looked like this, even with his father's face and his father's eyes and the Moriyamas' number on his face. Neil, Wymack called him, and more than anything Neil wanted it to be true. He stopped fighting to get free; the hands that had been trying to wrench Wymack's arms off him now held on for dear life.

"Help me," he said through gritted teeth.

"Let me," Wymack shot back, so Neil closed his eyes. Wymack said nothing else until Neil's labored breathing finally smoothed out. "What the fuck happened? Last I heard you were spending Christmas with your uncle."

"I lied," Neil said. "Andrew's coming back to us on Tuesday, all right? If Easthaven hasn't called Betsy yet to arrange his ride they will soon."

"They called yesterday," Wymack said. "What does Andrew have to do with this?"

"Everything that matters," Neil said.

"That's not an answer."

"I'm sorry."

"Shut up," Wymack said, so Neil subsided. They sat in silence for a couple minutes more before Wymack said, "Can I let go of you and trust you to behave, or are you going to try and cut your face off again? I want to check on your stitches."

"I'll behave," Neil said.

"Forgive me if I don't trust you," Wymack said, but he let go.

They got back to their feet. Wymack meant it when he said he didn't trust Neil, because he took Neil back to the living room and out of eyesight of the knives. Wymack gestured at Neil to shed his shirt, but Neil couldn't move well enough to get it off. Wymack eyed him for a moment, then left to get his cooking scissors. He brandished them at Neil in a question, and Neil nodded. He held perfectly still while Wymack cut his shirt off of him.