"I'm starting to think you just want to see me with my shirt off," he says, too tired to reach the flippancy the words the deserve, voice going hoarse and trailing on the last few syllables. He hasn't slept since the morning before Ren died, and he's put his body through too many things it's never had to do before: move a body, search a burning house, dig a grave.

How can he trust her, with her own body recently dragged from the fountain, fed and rested one night, thrown frenzied into the digging of a grave? How can he put the responsibility on her, when he can't promise the same?

He isn't strong enough, wasn't--has never been. The end of this physical rope hangs by the frayed end of his spirit, and he wants to give this to her, he wants to let her help if it will make her feel better, but guilt drags claws under his skin. Heats his cheeks and sets him crying again, refusing to look at her. He feels like a child, like he's responding to tragedy like a child--confused and helpless, shutting down sooner than a grown man should. "I can't," he starts, but it chokes off, and he breaks out one inverted sob, a cat swallowing back a hairball, before he crosses his own arms in a placating self-hold and sucks it all back again.

"You don't have to," he manages. "It isn't fair, you just--you just got here."