His heart takes another of those stuttering, stumbling leaps that can't possibly be healthy, as if her falling in toward him knocks it bouncing off track, but even as his stomach drops out through the cold, splintering boards beneath him (and right off the face of the Planet, after that), it's quick to resume its maddening pace. She's close enough, now, that he's imagined the faint, flowery scent of some perfume or shampoo, under all the cold and dust and the smoky, cloying smell of burning wood. Imagined or not (and he thinks, he's sure, it is), it hits him with a wash of giddy lightheadedness, too close to outright hysteria to feel quite right.
That idiot dizzy spell passes just as quick as it comes, though, and as a deeper shudder wracks him, he wonders if it mightn't be better for them both if he did just pass out. (Or maybe pretend to.) Horrible as a fact, but unavoidable nonetheless, there's no way she can't feel the too-rapid rate of his pulse, pressed into his chest like that - he could almost make it believable, even, if he felt his head make another attempt to detach from the whole doomed operation completely. And then she could huddle as close as she liked, and he wouldn't have to worry-
And perhaps it's not the worst plan in the world, except for one tiny little detail. Leaving her alone, or even pretending to, is too cruel even for Clyde the Mysteriously Mute Trooper. For that, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself.
Against her intent, her quiet little Thank you only serves to remind him that he's still not doing enough to help, and the last of that hateful, anxious paralysis begins to lose its grip on his limbs. Sitting still so close is all well and good, the very same voice that laughed at him suggests (if in fewer words), but moving keeps the blood flowing. Friction will have to do, with neither of them in any shape to get up and start shuffling about, so he starts to rub his hands (a little mechanically, it's all he can do to keep going) over her upper arms, the way he might've done for himself if he hadn't been too busy being terrified of letting on his identity to think of such reflexive gestures sooner.
His fingers feel stiff and rough to the touch inside his gloves, though, and so after only a second or two, he stops and lifts a hand to his mouth, the glove he tugs almost delicately off in his teeth falling limp into his lap. With his bare hand, he strips the other, then picks them up and holds them out with only a superficial tremor to betray him.
"Here."
It's the first thing he's said to her, and even as the (hoarse, whispered, hopefully - please - unrecognizable) word leaves his numb lips, he wishes to take it back - but not the offer.
if only dw had devil horns and minions, too. even I've been forgetting you're an evil mastermind
That idiot dizzy spell passes just as quick as it comes, though, and as a deeper shudder wracks him, he wonders if it mightn't be better for them both if he did just pass out. (Or maybe pretend to.) Horrible as a fact, but unavoidable nonetheless, there's no way she can't feel the too-rapid rate of his pulse, pressed into his chest like that - he could almost make it believable, even, if he felt his head make another attempt to detach from the whole doomed operation completely. And then she could huddle as close as she liked, and he wouldn't have to worry-
And perhaps it's not the worst plan in the world, except for one tiny little detail. Leaving her alone, or even pretending to, is too cruel even for Clyde the Mysteriously Mute Trooper. For that, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself.
Against her intent, her quiet little Thank you only serves to remind him that he's still not doing enough to help, and the last of that hateful, anxious paralysis begins to lose its grip on his limbs. Sitting still so close is all well and good, the very same voice that laughed at him suggests (if in fewer words), but moving keeps the blood flowing. Friction will have to do, with neither of them in any shape to get up and start shuffling about, so he starts to rub his hands (a little mechanically, it's all he can do to keep going) over her upper arms, the way he might've done for himself if he hadn't been too busy being terrified of letting on his identity to think of such reflexive gestures sooner.
His fingers feel stiff and rough to the touch inside his gloves, though, and so after only a second or two, he stops and lifts a hand to his mouth, the glove he tugs almost delicately off in his teeth falling limp into his lap. With his bare hand, he strips the other, then picks them up and holds them out with only a superficial tremor to betray him.
"Here."
It's the first thing he's said to her, and even as the (hoarse, whispered, hopefully - please - unrecognizable) word leaves his numb lips, he wishes to take it back - but not the offer.