"Yes. Yes, I can."

"So clearly I would have some kind of technical job that I wouldn't have to actually do and I could play video games and draw all the time."

"Does not follow."

"Yeah, no, I'm pretty sure she'd overwork you because she loves you."

"That doesn't follow either. I'd just expect of him approximately what he can do."

"Accurate expectations! My one weakness!"

"That's a strange weakness, says the kettle to the pot."

"Are you saying you share this weakness or just that you're weird, pet?"

"Just that I'm weird. I mean, we've already discussed what my weakness is."

"Beware, we don't want to chase Alex away."

He giggles. "Although I suppose we could also say 'distressed people' is a weakness."

"It kind of is."

"Yeah. Anyway," to Alex, "what do you like to do besides drawing and trying to con Isabella into letting you mooch off her?"

"Video games are good. Sometimes I go dancing, not like clubbing but contra or whatever. Mom gets into random hobbies and sometimes those are fun. I can kinda cook."

"I've never really played any video games, or danced. That sounds fun. What kind of random hobbies?"

"Uh, most recently she was doing a lot of origami and orienteering - I don't think she just went alphabetically - before that it was neopaganism and a flareup in her occasional switch rights activism?"

"Neopaganism is a hobby?"

"It is the way she does it."

"Um."

"What?"

"It's interesting that there's a way to do a religion that could be called a hobby."

Shrug. "She picks one up, she's very respectful and curious and reads all the books and makes lots of friends and does rituals and eventually she's bored of it and it's not super clear if at any point in there she believes any of the things."

"Alright."

"Between hobbies she's like sort of kind of Christian, or, like, as Christian as you can be after living with Bella for a decade."

He looks at Isabella and giggles.