The touch at his jaw is as arresting as the words that follow. Devin would be hard pressed to say which is more astonishing, and all he can do is stand there, frozen and wide-eyed as he listens. Seconds pass like a dream, the traitorous part of his mind trying to confront the reality before him, to keep him from letting the words in.

Shock and gratitude and fear and battered affection make his chest tight and leaden his tongue. He couldn't see past his own failings to the possibility that his presence might actually be a good thing in someone's life. Being a protector and an ally was not the same as being a friend, and putting others before himself only seemed natural. But the Fool views him through a remarkably different lens, and values him not as a tool or a resource but as a person.

The kiss burns insensibly against his skin, and whatever composure Devin had managed to gather back flees him. He's so stunned he almost doesn't hear what the Fool says next, his breaths coming unevenly like his lungs are stumbling over the air. To know what he means to the Fool, and to know he hasn't lost him yet despite all he purports to lack, is a balm on his gaping wounds: not comfortable, but no worse than the pain he's already feeling.

Without thought, without looking, Devin reaches out and just barely brushing his fingertips against the Fool's arm as he passes by. He can't find his way back to words to even try to stop him from leaving.

Devin isn't certain how much time has gone by before he drifts back to sit heavily on the stone, head in his hands as exhaustion weighs down his frame. Left with something so precious, he is utterly adrift in uncertainty. The fog he hoped would lift is becoming a permanent fixture in his life, and Devin is at a loss for how to find his way free of it on his own.

Hours later, he finally wanders back to Aifaran.