He's been away a few years too long, to be hoping for anything like salvation, in this mess - but he does it, anyway, and it isn't Sephiroth he hopes for. The thought makes him antsy to check his cell again, even though the reception won't have improved just by thinking of it, and he pushes the notion away as firmly as he wants to push back that cold, through sheer force of will, alone. This far up the mountain's a checkerboard of dead zones, and those black squares cheat at the edges to overlap more than their fair share of the white; "spotty" is an optimistic estimation of service.
(So maybe he's not quite so great a pessimist as he makes himself out to be.)
The impulse is easy enough to overcome, but the careful fidgeting is impossible to stop, completely - especially so when she scoots over to him. Then it's almost an urge to flee, altogether, as the initial horror of coming home begins to creep back out of the not-so-deep, dark place he thought he'd shut it all down inside the first night after passing through those painfully familiar gates and into his own personal hell. Nothing is ever that easy, though. The same way he won't be saved by the guy who called him a weirdo for wearing his helmet, just the other day, who's been watching his back so long now he's very nearly forgotten how to think it strange that anybody should bother.
He doesn't move away, but he does seem to have finally frozen over. The talent's almost innate, after all the time he's spent going straight-backed rigid anytime somebody barks an order in his vicinity, and he stares right through her for one second, from under the safe shelter of that dimly glowing visor.
When his eyes focus again and he sees what she means, in the too-pale tint of her lips (pale to begin with, but they all were, weren't they - grown up close to the sun but under the constant veil of fog, Nibelheim didn't make much by way of tans). In the tremors that should've been obvious - especially since he'd grown up watching out for them, himself - would have been, had he not been so busy trapping himself up inside his own mind.
He nods hastily, uncertain what she's expecting, no guesses leap to mind. Agreement seems a safe enough gambit, though, even as he swallows concern. It's only a figure of speech, after all. No one really freezes - not inside stuffy little shacks with miraculously intact windows. Not in a passing storm, not people with friends no more than an hour's walk away.
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(So maybe he's not quite so great a pessimist as he makes himself out to be.)
The impulse is easy enough to overcome, but the careful fidgeting is impossible to stop, completely - especially so when she scoots over to him. Then it's almost an urge to flee, altogether, as the initial horror of coming home begins to creep back out of the not-so-deep, dark place he thought he'd shut it all down inside the first night after passing through those painfully familiar gates and into his own personal hell. Nothing is ever that easy, though. The same way he won't be saved by the guy who called him a weirdo for wearing his helmet, just the other day, who's been watching his back so long now he's very nearly forgotten how to think it strange that anybody should bother.
He doesn't move away, but he does seem to have finally frozen over. The talent's almost innate, after all the time he's spent going straight-backed rigid anytime somebody barks an order in his vicinity, and he stares right through her for one second, from under the safe shelter of that dimly glowing visor.
When his eyes focus again and he sees what she means, in the too-pale tint of her lips (pale to begin with, but they all were, weren't they - grown up close to the sun but under the constant veil of fog, Nibelheim didn't make much by way of tans). In the tremors that should've been obvious - especially since he'd grown up watching out for them, himself - would have been, had he not been so busy trapping himself up inside his own mind.
He nods hastily, uncertain what she's expecting, no guesses leap to mind. Agreement seems a safe enough gambit, though, even as he swallows concern. It's only a figure of speech, after all. No one really freezes - not inside stuffy little shacks with miraculously intact windows. Not in a passing storm, not people with friends no more than an hour's walk away.