"Most people are terrible, not being one of them doesn't sound that bad to me."

"I will not flirt because I think I forgot how and we have not established the boundaries of our and your relationships but let it be known that once upon a time I would have taken that as an opening to flirt."

—what.

What???

Okay this man is no less bewildering when he is not possessed by demons.

Awwwww Aleks is so cute, lookit him!!!! She leans over and pats his hand.

"So the impression I'm getting is that you do not want to figure out how just toss your nano demons out forever and be done with them? You seem like you want more space to be yourself and otherwise... kind of miss them???" If she sounds astonished its because she is! Pause. "I'm sorry, I help Aleks with his complicated hard to put to word feelings, too."

"Sounds handy! And yes, right in one. I also don't want them to consume my life force until I am a husk of a person and then die of it, that would be nice if we could avoid that part."

"They what."

"Yeah see the main reason they don't want to let me out as I understand it is that they think I will obviously want to get rid of them since they will definitely be the death of me otherwise, one way or another. They were not designed in the friendliest of ways."

"Uhm. Wow. That. Okay. Yeah, that. That sounds like a problem," says Vetmera, reeling a little.

"And... the reason you don't want to get rid of them...?"

"Super strength and durability, great regeneration, I hate sleeping, and having interesting impactful adventures is the meaning of life."

Those nanites were made for him, other than the thing where they suck him dry.

"Awwww," coos the table's psychic. "You want to teach your nanites how to be people and then keep them forever!!! That's really cute???"

"Ideal world, right there! And then an eternity of heroics, give or take a year."

"Heroics."

"Like the murder mystery! I like helping people!"

"Makes perfect sense to me. Okay, how do we do that, though..." She drums her fingers on the table, then looks at the other table of professionals. "Hey, are you a nanite expert?"

"Nope!" says Ziobe, cheerfully. "I can keep sitting on them and consult, but proper solutions are much harder and more eclectic."

"Hmmm. Okay, so, I hear two voices when they're talking. Do you know why? Are there two different types of nanites, in there?"

"...wait, you can hear nanites?" says Dhama despite themself. "—no, your quest. My apologies."

Tahir laughs, once more—he is in extremely high spirits, it seems, or maybe a bit drunk on not being possessed. "No, sorry. I... found them in a, I guess I will call it a box, in the Valley of Dead Heroes, when I was hiding from rain. And then... they got in."

Vetmera giggles, too. "It's fine. Actually, feel free to come over and help, if you want." Then, to Tahir: "Okay. Well. If there are two sets of nanites the obvious thing to do is to add a third set that's supposed to keep you alive, and having them reach a balance. Since they could demonstrably already make nanite friends instead of having a nanite fight that ends up killing you. It wouldn't be a very elegant solution, admittedly, and you'd probably need to eat a truly insane amount of food to feed them all. But. Maybe? Hm."

"Hey, if you can find a third demon to cohabitate, it's still a party not a crowd."

Why is he like this.

"And nutritional sludge is cheap anyway," he adds.

"This is true. Okay. So, maybe. If they work like I think they work. Which they might not. ... Actually! Would you be comfortable if we brought your nanites back up a bit to chat with them? If we could keep you in the bar? And preferably with you still able to think in there, too? Since you don't actually want to toss them out forever and be done with them, we might actually just be able to negotiate with them."

"I was going to suggest just that! I am sure they and I can reach an agreeable solution, here."