“No, but you’re getting there,” Nero says with an amused roll of his eyes, fond despite himself. He’s tired, he really is, and he needs a nap after this shit and dealing with Jenomis and everything else, but at the same time he’s run for longer on less sleep, and there’s things he still needs to take care of. Not least of which Cid.
He’ll leave if Cid wants him to, he thinks. Stepping back, he thinks…maybe he needs to. If it’s not helping…if he needs to learn that they’re not the same people, and that pushing only made it worse, then stepping back might give them both a chance to relearn how to work with each other again, learn who they both are these days. He hates that thought, he won’t lie, but he’d rather have Cid back at some point then keep pushing too hard and lose him entirely.
He pauses, though, and lights up again when Cid speaks, though he’s trying not to– “Well, if you want me to stay,” he says with a grin, shifting slightly so that he’s sitting comfortably again. “I won’t say no. Far be it from me to enable your boredom. You’re almost worse than I am being trapped in bed.” He always had been, just like he’d been sick more often than anyone else.
He shifts a little again, reaching for Cid’s hand and catching himself a bit, but he at least doesn’t leave. “I…” He begins, and then trails off, crossing his legs and somehow managing to fold properly into the chair. “So…” So…now that he’s not trying, he finds he has no idea what to say. Damn it.
“Hardly,” he counters, shaking his head. “Your reckless adventurer friends are on the whole far more successful than I’ve ever been.” It’s a pathetic fact, probably, but true nonetheless - with a few exceptions, the people the Ironworks associates with seem to get the job done and save the people they mean to save while they’re at it. Not that he’s resentful of that fact - not much, anyway. Someone needs to do what’s right, and do it well, else the world fall to ruin. And so long as he’s failing at managing to do anything suitably good for the world (at least without getting himself damaged in the process), he’s at least not succeeding at causing further harm.That’s good enough, all things considered.
There’s something sad in Nero’s gaze, in the way he almost reaches out, and Cid closes his eyes so that he can pretend he didn’t see it. It isn’t as though he doesn’t miss the friendship they once had, too, but - they aren’t connecting like they did back then. Maybe they can’t, even if Cid does try to let him in. He knows, after all, that the person he’s become is... not the man Nero misses, nor is he the sort of person anyone would want to befriend without nostalgia blinding them. But Nero is trying, and he’d be a fool to turn that away.
“...So,” he agrees, as lost for words as the other man. But one of them has to find them, and it may as well be him, while he’s still lucid enough to do so. “We have a lot of work ahead of us, don’t we?” It... it isn’t what he wanted to say, not really - but it will do, and it’s a start. He doesn’t think this is going to fix itself overnight, and tearing down the walls he’s put in place hurts in a way he can’t define, but at this point he has quite literally nothing left to lose.