Oh, I do that for you.

[Paul says it very casually, paired with a loose and easy shrug.

He should be flustered. (He will be tomorrow, and astonished at himself, and very, very sore.) But for now, he hears the affection behind the words as much as the words themselves, and to object or deny seems a kind of defensiveness that would be ugly in this gentle place.

And sometimes he is a little bit of a bastard, after all.]

You work so hard to take care of me. It's the least I can do, even if I'm sorry there's not much to look at. I am trying.