In this blended, blighted family, fear has a different hold on Niall, played as an adolescent by Mitchell Robertson.
In the 1980s, Niall’s path is set on a lifelong collision course with Ruben, his “brother from another lover”, brought to life in his younger years by Stuart Campbell.
It’s a decade in which homophobia has taken a seat at many families’ dinner tables.
As Niall’s gaze lingers on a poster of shirtless men and his nerves skyrocket in the company of girls, he may still be under an illusion – but we aren’t.
The Aids crisis is devastatingly rampant and Scotland is having its own, distinct grapple with it.
No good comes from Niall being in the closet, but he’s convinced far worse would come from stepping out of it.
The journey that fear takes him on isn’t a slow-motion car crash, it’s a full-throttle run of joyless rides.
No one is safe from being collateral damage by the time Jamie Bell plays Niall later in life.
Time passes and society shifts, but Niall either can’t see others’ fear, or he’s too consumed by his own to care.