He supposes this is his own fault, really, for adding this to a fraught discussion during a tender period. He had his reasons: that terrifying brush with their future had frustrated him, that the words were unspoken, that he might have to leave Arthur before he spoke them. And the wild trilling bell of sensation he feels in the core of his being at those feelings being returned is a direct counter to the emotional freight train blow from earlier, not that he thinks that's changed and he takes it as a personal challenge.

But now he has the problem that Arthur put himself out like that to him, spoke words that might as well be gold in every sense, words he will treasure as much as any poem... and proceeded to follow it up with the stupidest fucking thing he's ever heard.

'What worth'? The very core of his understanding of the thing, the source of his very means to love, to know what it is, it's value on a personal level, the very stuff that entangles them-

[You let me worry about that. Suffice it to say, it holds great worth to me.]