He makes a noise. Her fingers skim the place where she'd hurt him, out on the shitty cobblestone street of somewhere that doesn't matter, with a tidy lance of bone through the brainstem. He isn't mad about that. But he'd forgotten it had been this way: that she'd touched him this freely, crowding into his space with her palm smoothing up the nape of his neck. No reverence, no silent gravity. She just does it.

He tips his head and lets her. The little crease of distress between his brows waxes and wanes. His lips part, but he doesn't provide a comeback, which is dire. Instead, he touches her too.

He thumbs his way up her arms, over her bony elbows, fingers dipping up into the sleeves of her too-big nightshirt. He takes her unoccupied hand and rubs clean the hollows between her fingers, the nailbeds, the creases of each joint. He can see her now as he hasn't seen her since Cristabel died. In the absence of that burning void, she is tiny and radiant, perfectly complex.

It goes on too long. John isn't sure he can scan what funny business means, anymore. She's always been too clever to think he needs this much contact for anything. Still: he strokes his palms over her shoulders, soothing and reflexive, and the scum dries gritty in her shirt. He cards his fingers through her hair and a soft patter of dust falls out of it.

"If I were in charge, locally," he says, as he collects the goop from her eyebrows, "there would be at least fifty percent less slime. Just personal taste."