Ben wishes he had something softer, but the cuff of his hoodie will just have to do. He pulls it over his thumb and reaches over, carefully wiping away as much of the blood as he can from under Cole's nose. Sometimes it is a good thing, that he wears all black. He can't quite get it all, and there's a bit of a smudge still against Cole's pale skin where the blood had been, but it's at least better.

(He isn't sure, left to his own devices, Cole would have gotten around to cleaning his face any time soon.)

He drops his hand, heart sinking when Cole answers him. It makes sense. The terror he had been able to hear in Cole's voice when he first recognized the place. The way he had said no like that.

"Where you were born. And... where he died."

Ben isn't sure there really is any such thing as a good place to die, but this is about as far from it as he can imagine. And hadn't he told Ben that Cole had died here because he was forgotten? Left alone, to waste away, to starve? A shudder runs through Ben. It's not just a story, either. Not something this Cole had merely witnessed. He had absorbed Cole's memories. Doesn't that mean, in a way, he had died here, too? Or at least, that he carries the dying with him?

Still wary of detection, but compelled by the breaking of his heart, Ben uncurls and is up on his knees, silently moving across the distance between them so he can pull Cole into a rough hug. His throat is choked up and no words will come, apart from a cracked:

"I'm sorry."