"I'm not confusing, it's not the same."

"Confusing or no, what it feels like is the same."

"Not everybody you meet has to make a big deal of caring about how you feel!"

"No, but her teammates should, at the very least," says Dauntless.

Dauntless +1. A thing Sadde has only thought about Lorica so far is being thought about Dauntless as well.

"Nobody here seems to care if I think it's stupid," Boots points out, "even my teammates."

"On any reasonable scale, stupid and hurtful don't really compare."

"I could say it was hurting me like," Boots gestures at Loen and Glam in lieu of coming up with a way to refer to them, "say it is, you've only got say-so to go on."

"Yes, you could. Are you going to?"

"Nobody'd give a shit," snorts Boots, "'cause I'm not some bullshit queer who wants protecting all the time."

"And that has earned you a write-up."

"No, there's no need, I don't really mind if he calls me queer, even if he is appallingly wrong about anyone wanting protecting."

"There is a need, even if you weren't offended he still meant to provoke you and that will not fly."

"Look at me not caring if I provoked or not, I wasn't trying," objects Boots.

"Then you should learn not to act as if you were. We're a team, dammit, we're supposed to work together and support each other, and you are supposed to care if you provoked them, because you shouldn't be doing it!"

Echo very pointedly stops paying attention and returns to her homework.

"I don't know why I even come here when I'm not on call," mutters Boots.

Dauntless has literally just explained why. He composes his write-up and sends it. "He's not always like this, Sadde," Dauntless supplies.

"It's fine. Is it okay if I turn the TV on? I'll keep it on mute and watch with closed captions."

"Go for it," says Windflower before Boots can say anything.

So they do.

A few minutes later Loen gets up and scoots over to Windflower. "Hey Betty?"

"What?"

"So I was thinking of some ways of making your power a bit safer? And more useful? If you wanted to talk about that."

"It's poison. Poison isn't safe," she murmurs.