Paul needs touch like water. He learned this in its absence, learned to dread it as he dreads thirst, and the whisper-thin scars already mostly faded on his joints mark the memory of the first time anyone here gave him relief like this.

He had been so reluctant to let anyone touch him. Like he knew that when they did, it would shudder something in him apart, open up a vulnerable need he would never staunch, and he was right. Kaworu's hand presses innocently and sweetly to his, and it strikes Paul like lightning.

He knows it doesn't burn. He can feel that it doesn't. But his eyes do, salt-stung, and his heart does, splitting apart.

"I love you," he breathes back, and he presses his palm against Kaworu's for one more stolen moment before he pulls it away.

"You understand more than you think you do."