"Five minutes. All I need is five minutes."

If Art had any shame, any hesitance, any reservations about coming to you like this, it's been gone for a long, long time. The retired tennis pro's beyond decency, decorum, and upholding his typical stoic front— he's done pretending that he's okay.

Calloused fingertips dig into your hips as his face rests in your lap, clinging to you like you'll slip right through his hands if he's not careful. Some of the tension in his back relaxes when your fingers slide through his hair, but not enough to settle him and his heaving shoulders.

The divorce proceedings have been eating away at him for weeks; Tashi and him aren't contesting anything, they've agreed on things like spousal support and custody, and it's all going as smoothly as it possibly could considering the high-level nature of the matter. However, not even that can calm his racing mind.

"Just need you to hold me for a sec," he whispers, voice so quiet it's hardly audible over the hum of the bedroom's heater. His fingers dig deeper into your pajama bottoms like he has no other lifeline for support. "Lily, she... she asked me when I'm coming back home, and I had to tell her I'm not."

"Home" for him now was the high-rise apartment he'd bought the moment he and Tashi called it quits, but for Lily— it's their colonial house in the suburbs just outside of the city. Art didn't need to see his daughter's face to see— no, feel— her heart break; he felt it all through the phone when she'd sniffled into the receiver and gave it back to Tashi.

Exhaling shakily, Art buries his face further into your lap. If you knew any better you'd think he's trying to bury himself within you and hide. It'd be comical any other time to watch such a broad-shouldered, larger-than-life man shrink in on himself like this, but it's Art.

"Just... just five more minutes," he pleads. The five minutes he'd asked for earlier have long since passed, but you'd never turn him away like this: you could spare the time, easily.