While getting back to John's building is a small relief, losing the gentle grip of his hand leaves him feeling embarrassingly bereft. He steps back into the flat, smiling faintly as the cat comes bounding up to greet them, and it isn't until John starts to speak that he looks back.

John looks so tired, wrung out and burdened by so much weight that he doesn't fully understand. Martin sometimes got a sense of this before, that he was carrying too much, or keen to, but the scale was so much smaller, limited to work that they'd thought was just... work. Seeing John like this, it's... it becomes impossible to deny himself the desire to fix it, to try and help in some way. Absurd to think he doesn't have the right, as if the imperative to offer comfort was bound to a full understanding of the damage.

Martin hangs up his coat and turns to face John fully, giving him a more openly assessing look. "John," he says steadily, and reaches out to lay a hand on his arm. "It's okay."

It's tempting to just leave it at that, but it feels hopelessly inadequate, so after a moment's deliberation he adds, "You don't have to... lay everything out right now, okay? We can talk about it more later, or... whenever you're ready. It's just context to me, but you... I mean, it's real to you." He keeps his eyes on John's, steady and determined. "It's okay," he says again, and when that still doesn't feel like enough: "You're okay."