"It's always been in your way," he argues, shifting to curl up better in his chair now that he knows he doesn't have to move from it. The sleeves of his red sweater are stretched out--all of it is stretched out, loaned to people taller and wider and eventually put back on him in the chilly nights after the quake. "In the way of people knowing I shack up with a handsome explorer who makes tea, instead of some hermit I coaxed out of the woods."

Flipping the ends of his sleeves over his hands, he sinks his chin into them over his knees, sighing like it's been very hard to live with the blow to his image.

"Spiced, please."