The new wave of tears is--frustrating. He wants to lash out, to strike Ranboo to the floor and make him get up on his own power. But something else--some painful clutching in his chest, a searing swell of panicked emotion in his stomach--stops him.

"No," Dirk says, with the bluntness and finality of an axe to the face. "You don't need help. You did it. You're alive. You're not going to die. They won't have you, not now and not ever. You died and came back and you're still free."

His grip on Ranboo's face is unyielding, his gaze unwavering. His teeth are gritted slightly with the force of his own determination--the driven madness of a man who believes in the man whose tears he's denying.

"You're alive. You're going to live."