[ No answer, but the answer to her question is obvious without the clarification. There's desperation in the way his tremors amplify as he holds her forearms tightly, keeping her rooted where she has him held, trying frantically to grasp reality and keep it close enough to hold himself together.
Too tight. Might be hurting her, he realises for the briefest second before that thought too is consumed by a selfish urge to survive. It's certainly hurting him, but at the moment that pain is good. Out of everything he's feeling, the searing hurt of reconstructed bones and once-ruined tissue is a familiar face in the crowd.
He urges himself to pay attention to it. To the sensible pain. The enduring pain that exists outside of this layer, outside of this simulation.
Finally he manages to acclimate enough to remember the rest of his body, that it functions outside of all that's crushing it. A nod in belated answer to her question, unconvincing perhaps for the breath that's still yet to fully slow and the eyes squeezed tight shut, but it's something. He's even managed to relieve one of her arms of his hold, pressing his fingers instead into the dusty ground at this side to keep the pain burning him a path back to stability. ]
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Too tight. Might be hurting her, he realises for the briefest second before that thought too is consumed by a selfish urge to survive. It's certainly hurting him, but at the moment that pain is good. Out of everything he's feeling, the searing hurt of reconstructed bones and once-ruined tissue is a familiar face in the crowd.
He urges himself to pay attention to it. To the sensible pain. The enduring pain that exists outside of this layer, outside of this simulation.
Finally he manages to acclimate enough to remember the rest of his body, that it functions outside of all that's crushing it. A nod in belated answer to her question, unconvincing perhaps for the breath that's still yet to fully slow and the eyes squeezed tight shut, but it's something. He's even managed to relieve one of her arms of his hold, pressing his fingers instead into the dusty ground at this side to keep the pain burning him a path back to stability. ]