"Perhaps I'm just using a different definition of 'mean' here? He got annoyed when you didn't volunteer relevant information, expected that you'd do that, maybe called you useless once or twice?"

"– I am pretty sure I didn't call him useless."

"I'm not useless! ...and I don't remember him calling me that."

"You're not useless," Tyler agrees. "You're very helpful when we ask the right questions, so thank you for that."

"Anyway, we got sidetracked. What else would you have done differently, when we met?"

"I want to say something to the effect of 'been more thorough and effective' but I probably wouldn't have been, not enough, in that sort of a scenario."

Theo looks like he might be slightly offended. "More effective?"

"More composed and this having occurred after I got more information, is what I mean, but you were somewhat restricted in ability to do that. Plus it happened right after you caught the Fly, so," he shrugs.

"I mean, 'thorough and effective' are adjectives not verbs, they don't really say what you'd have done differently."

"Yeah – but I wouldn't have been them at the time anyway, probably. Like I said, would have if I had the chance tried to speak to Kero more beforehand and know more about the situation and be on better terms with him, then mostly I would have acted the same but hopefully from a better informational standpoint?"

"Eh. And would you have told me stuff as—fast, or much, as Theo did?" Pause. "Would you have played with Change? That was quite endearing."

"Change is fun," he responds. Then he pauses, frowns a little, and amends, "The concept of changing and improvement is fun. Change the card is useful."

"So would you or would you not endearingly play with it?"

"Possibly? I think it would be less endearing than you're imagining."

"I think you underestimate how cute you are, but alright."

"I could probably try being cute if I wanted to but I didn't think I was personally that generally cute."

He gives Theo a look, then looks at Tyler again. "I know you didn't."

"I'm sure I'm just passively cute, at least in your esteem, and it's a little annoying," says Theo. "But I'm not usually called cute."

"But you pout and – fuck I am cute aren't I, ugh."

He giggles. "I don't understand what you two have against being cute, being cute is my whole schtick. Well, and charming, and smart, and hot, and good in bed, and generally awesome."

Eyeroll. "Being cute is not my issue. Being cute and not realising it, that is."

"Yep. Anyway, how about that restaurant place afterwards?"

"… The superspeed incident thing? I have no idea why you guys didn't poke that, like, it could have been really useful even if it was on the fritz and that's still something we should look into."

"Well, it's probably something like regular sorcery being expressed weirdly, but you're right."