"Yeah- yeah, I mean, when you boil it down to it." He laughs, but it doesn't reach his eyes, and he can't look at any of them. Merely turns his head to stare out the window and try to calm shot nerves that are frayed beyond repair.

"You know, Ben would always end up crying in his sleep after his training. I could hear him through the wall." And more than half the time, when they weren't monitored anymore, he'd snuck into Ben's room and slept on his floor to keep his own nightmares at bay.

"I think dad made him constantly try and summon the horror for longer and longer, you know-?" It's so much easier talking about trauma when it isn't his own, and he's a coward for holding himself just at the edge, refusing to take the plunge.
"He was always inventing tortures for us, you know? All of us."