Cain still wasn't what one could call steady. He stared even longer, trying to take Gene in rather than the copper taste in the back of his throat, the phantom feel of air against sensitive insides and blood spilling out over his legs and torso where it hadn't been cut open. He didn't want to try and hold them inside, just in case a rib might break off or he somehow made it worse. It wasn't real, but the sensation was there and his thoughts were circling in disturbing ways.

Gene's voice, the movement of his lips, was thankfully something he could grasp onto. It shuffled him closer to the now instead of the then. His hand flexed once, twice before he reached to take the hand and held it firmly, willed his legs to move and ignored the part of his brain that said he could feel organs shuffling around inside at the motion. "Tea?" he asked, mouth running on automatic into some realm between frightened, desperate and mocking at the same time. It didn't sound that great.