Alec isn't very strong, but Richard still stumbles back a step, caught off guard. "I'm not pretending," Richard replies, his voice strained and just a touch of heat finally coming into it. "I'm not your babysitter, no one's paying me to do this, I want to. If you didn't matter to me, I could walk away right now. Which I'm not going to do, for the record."

There's a fierce intensity in his eyes, daring Alec to challenge him. He knows that everything Alec is saying has been bubbling under the surface since they met, and the drugs have just loosened his tongue and sharpened it at the same time.