There's a small gasp, the rush of air into his dry throat as he tries to suck every noise and tear back into himself at the sound of Credence's voice. That hush picks him up and punts him out of the feeling, leaves him sitting disoriented next to it while the train of wild and ugly thoughts leaves him on his ass to run the bases.

Another breath, he looks between the gaps of his fingers at his skinny legs tangled with a shovel in a hole. Dirt streaks on his scrubs, mud on his knees. Credence saying words he doesn't really follow

He sucks the snot back into his throat, fingers sliding down his brows to wipe at his cheeks, the sleepless bruises under his eyes, and he finally turns them up to Credence like he isn't sure how he wound up out here in a hole at all. "Yes," he says, hardly knowing what he's saying yes to. The words catch up as he hunts back for them, voice torn into something soft and ragged, but it works. Tears still leak from the corners of his eyes, blinked away and renewed, but he stops sobbing, and he stops--thinking, turning all of his concern to a person and a task, to get away from himself. "Yes, I--I should eat. Thank you."

Hunger registers only distantly, behind cold, and he finds his coat at the base of the tree, the top of the hole: "If you could just, hand me my coat--I'll be fine. I'll come up and eat." Hopefully the moment it takes Credence to fetch it will give his legs the strength back to carry him.