It's a little more subtle this time, if only because he isn't caught so unaware, but there's a sharp inhale that betrays him immediately: this is a profoundly touch-starved devil. Which apparently can happen.
He's already struggling to choose what he should do - jerk his hand away because that's definitely safer for both of them, or keep it right where it godsdamn is thank you - while he tries to focus more on Steve's words than the gentle squeeze of his hand. That means there's no shuttering his expression, hearing that heartbreak; there's no hiding just how viscerally he empathises with it.
Every decision allowed to him in the Calamity was, if not false outright, calculated. He knows that they were meant to haunt him, and that doesn't mean anything.
And while he's still grappling with all that this Captain goes and puts the image of him naked on the palace floor in his head.
"...You - that - th - "
His head hurts less, suddenly, which would be more of a relief if he couldn't hear Asmodeus cackling madly in the depths of it.
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He's already struggling to choose what he should do - jerk his hand away because that's definitely safer for both of them, or keep it right where it godsdamn is thank you - while he tries to focus more on Steve's words than the gentle squeeze of his hand. That means there's no shuttering his expression, hearing that heartbreak; there's no hiding just how viscerally he empathises with it.
Every decision allowed to him in the Calamity was, if not false outright, calculated. He knows that they were meant to haunt him, and that doesn't mean anything.
And while he's still grappling with all that this Captain goes and puts the image of him naked on the palace floor in his head.
"...You - that - th - "
His head hurts less, suddenly, which would be more of a relief if he couldn't hear Asmodeus cackling madly in the depths of it.