"Yes, that's part of why I don't recommend it." 

"Do you know what you're going to want from him?"

"I'm trying to figure out what he wants to be doing with his life other than making me happy so that I can push him towards it, but it's going slowly because he keeps saying things like 'maybe I could go to college?' even though he obviously does not want to do that." 

"He'd be very happy as a Marine, except that they don't take gay trans mutants."

Marlo almost says 'What do you mean.' 

Then he pauses, looks at Ron's face. Remembers what he feels like around Z.

Says, "Yes, I think I know the type." 

"There are veterans at the bar I work at who drink too much. Some of them just have PTSD. And some of them are okay when they have structure and rules and someone to tell them what to do and high expectations to live up to and a cause to die for, but if they don't have those things they just... drift. And I think Chris is the second kind, except he's never had an authority he recognizes as legitimate. So he takes drugs and has kinky sex and steals things because he doesn't know what else he's supposed to be doing."

"...yeah," and his voice is soft, "definitely familiar with the type. Thank you." 

"Thank you. I imagine you have better things to do than shepherd a random seventeen-year-old, but it does mean a lot to me that you would."