"I'm trying to make this work, and the hair isn't the hill I want to die on, but - now that I have some leverage, have you considered being pleasant to be around -"

"Leverage isn't the thing that would convince me to do that. You okay?"

"Yep. All emotionally equipped to be reassuring, presuming you still find resentful silence reassuring."

"Very. Let's go get something to eat, I'm very hungry, and you can be resentfully silent."

And he slips out of the chair and follows him downstairs.

They get a meal. As promised Findekáno eats it in resentful silence. "Upstairs," he says when he's finished, and Findekáno follows. 

"Are you going to do that again?"

"Might be tempted if you try to hurt me."

"I could just let you go."

"You could just stop keeping me around by coercion. Not the same thing, necessarily."

"Everyone here would be happy to kill me."

"I know. I imagine it is unpleasant and I do not prefer you have unpleasant experiences. I think your alt likes you okay.

His Findekáno is still in love with him. Did you ever regret throwing that away?"

"You told me you were going to be resentfully silent."

"Can do," he murmurs, and the transcript doesn't catch anything for a long time.

When they head downstairs his ex is sitting comfortably by the bar, working. 

"Hey. Sent you a couple hundred comments on the multiverse plan, and I'm trying to figure out if there's a way -  short of actually cracking osanwë communication - to record distress messages with only extant blessings, or possibly without any blessings if it can be done natively."

"Really long subjective time, or are you just really upset."

"The latter. They're upstairs. My alt didn't think a bodyguard would help his long-term goals."

"We have them bugged, if you want to listen in. Little ethically dubious but we're trying to help."

He raises an eyebrow. "I'll let you know if I think it would help anything for me to have that."

"Sorry."

"Yeah."

Gosh, how complicated and mildly depressing it is to be involved with that right now. It is much less complicated to be snuggled on a couch in the main Bar area keeping enough attention free to notice if someone comes in the door and otherwise watching excellent movies from several different worlds.

And eventually somebody comes through the door and - 

 - stares at her like she is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen and also definitely a hallucination that will fade if he blinks -

...Um. Dear? An alt of you just walked in the door and is looking at me in a very worrying fashion.

Mmmm? He sits up so he can see the stranger. Huan rises to his feet too.