Of course he can have a hug.

Much of the dungeon is traversible by wheel so he can bring in a cart for the boss. He takes photos at this stage too of living and dead monsters and all the rooms he passes through.

More monsters continue to occasionally stumble upon him. Is he taking any of the various decorations and bits of machinery? The spinny saw blades, the wall-grease, the light fixtures, the giant tesla coil-ish objects, the wall spikes and chains, the pipes and gantries, the weird orbs on pedestals, the... You get the picture. This dungeon is pretty high on the decoration spectrum.

Yeah, he's taking all the shit. He'll be at it for a while, this one's valuable and it's not too expensive for him to get past a few monsters here and there and even if it does grab another person Teddy can notice before they've had too bad a time.

After a while:

[I feel more and more useless just standing here. I'm even talking to you knowing it's a bad idea backlash-wise, ugh, sorry, shutting up now-]

[I can come take a break?] ...he can't actually tell if that got through, it's Teddy's power, not his. He brings his cart to the entrance half full to find Teddy to hug.

They take another break, outside the dungeon.

"Sorry. I interrupted the looting. I just - backlash - and the pre-decided policy of not going deeper into the dungeon, and being scared for you-"

"I'll be fine, they can't see me." Hug hug. "I can't tell when I answer if you got my response or not, which is separately alarming for backlashed me, apparently."

"Oh no! Uh, radio protocol? 'Acknowledged' and 'over'?"

"Yeah that'll help." Snuggle snuggle. "Though it did cause me to come take a guiding break smart quick, so if that was what you had in mind..."

"I don't endorse the interruption. It just turns out 'hang out and wait to sense stuff and monitor things' and not having an - active task to do - is a little harsh on mediumish backlash, I've been noticing."

"You could... get a jump on writing the after-action report?"

"-Oh. Good idea."

"I have those sometimes. You probably wanna edit debacklashed but you could at least get some bullet points down."

"Yeah. And then we can go relax in a silo and enjoy having saved... Twenty three people. Plus whatever all the loot is worth."

"Yup!"

...

...Okay, so, logically, backlash is bullshit, right...

...

...

...Teddy kisses him. On the cheek.

"Ee!"

"Logic defeats backlash! I'm - incredibly nervous right now, however!!! I just. Wanted to. So. Did."

"Do I get to kiss you too or is this unidirectional for now?"

"You can kiss me too if you really want to? God, the doublethink is weird. I'm just wrong though, you're not making fun of me by playing along, you're--" He shakes his head a bit. "Okay, 'I'm an idiot who doesn't understand other people's feelings but can be pleasantly surprised by them', let's see how long I can stay in this backlash zone!"

Kisses. Friendly little cheek kisses so as not to overstep but kind of a bunch of them.

He sort of - scrunches in on himself - but he's smiling!

"You're cute."

"Mmm... I suppose that might be subjectively true if you have weird standards?"