John has spent so much of the last few years being stripped of his agency, manipulated and injured and scarred. He doesn’t even get treated like a person anymore, so of course it doesn’t feel like he’ll ever have his boundaries respected. And as a sex-repulsed ace, he doubts he’ll ever have the sort of romantic relationship he wants.
But then there’s Martin, who has seen everything he’s been going through, who understands. He wants him to have those lines so he can respect them, because he’s seen how he’s suffered. And he knows what it’s like, he’s been a carer for so long, sometimes he forgets what it’s like to be a person too.
Together, they finally get to find all of their boundaries and set them, because they know they’ll be respected by each other. Even if one of them doesn’t always understand, they know the importance of it, they know what it’s like to try to scrape together what’s left of themselves and try to live again, try to find who they are after all that pain. They can finally begin to rebuild themselves, to have support. To love and be loved and find that comfort and safety in each other.
