[Touch does pull focus, it picks up those fraying threads and directs them gently towards Fitz, pulling out an exhale. Breathe. Air in his lungs representing the space in his mind, all of it feeling too loose and easily shaken — always has, ever since his forced transition into a human body, twisting the world into sensitivity that he can’t keep partitioned behind militant lines of code, multitasking and prioritizing. Even Markus, emotional creature that he is, misses the feeling of an organized spirit.

(Or so he tells himself, believing that the loss would sting less, in a mind able to parse it better.)

And yet the question is an easy one, the easiest thing said between them thus far.]

Of course you are. An irreplaceable one.

[The quirk of his lips, barely-there.]

One of the best humans I’ve had the pleasure of knowing, even if you do fret too much.