Even in the half-darkness of the room, John's expression opens with soft and breathless surprise. He has never, in all his long existence, been called safe.

It feels nice.

"Oh." Now he is flustered. John again frets at his right hand with his left, uncertain of what to say. "I am... glad. To be someone you can trust in that way."

He flees to the bed they will share, which he apparently sees as less loaded than lingering over that admission. Perhaps the closest he's heard came from Arthur, eons ago: I've come to trust you, John. That was perhaps an hour before John tried to subsume his soul.

"You should get some rest," he says gruffly to the blankets, as he straightens them. John has learned to make a bed only by watching the work of Arthur's nurses, and he is accordingly precise. "We both had a long night."