[ Asra pushed the second shot forward to Julian; but his smile was tempered soft, and he drew his hand back, taking the small tapped melody back, fingers spread like a pianist, the noises small and half-muffled by the curl of his palm. ]

Despite all your faults, you're... not cruel. Somehow, despite everything, you aren't. You'll want to suggest that your proclivities mean you couldn't be, too busy wanting other people to be cruel to you instead, but it'd be a lie, and I'll stop you.

I'm cruel. And more than a little petty. Beasts of a kind, they can sense it in each other, I think, that awful and... and blighted sort of kinship. And I'll stop you a second time, before you try to insist that I'm not: we both know it. You don't need to protect me from it or assuage my feelings about my own... self.

I need to see it. I can't... be better, if I don't see it.

[ He smiled a little lopsidedly and gave a toss of his curls, ] I'm going to stop having the conversation for both of us now, and ask for the story about getting stranded! How long were you there, what did you do while drunk, how on earth did your poor pale self survive?