"Oh, you're calling me bruv now. Okay. Right, okay, Tommy, you have to be on your best behavior, you have to agree to everything Clay says, you have to be nice, you have to be sorry, and hopefully he'll agree that--the probation and supervision is enough, and he walks out of there, no further consequences, we can be incredibly happy."

"I'm always incredibly happy!"

"You just have to--you have to work with me here, okay, because we do not have the resources to fight anyone."

"We'll be fine."

"I'm just saying--listen, realistically there are a lot of bad things that could happen if this goes poorly."

"Another realistic option is being eaten by a mal, prick. Mm, yeah, considered that? I've been fucking researching. I had a class on mals in poetry today so now I know all about them. Thank me later."

"...Of course. Are you taking in any of this--"

"I just said, I've been researching! Learned about fucking--glinder, I know about glinder now."

"...Yeah. Tommy, maybe--maybe try to say, like, minimal amounts when we go in, okay? For your sake."

"You're being--you're being an arse, man, listen--"

"Me? I'm not the one who stole from an enclave!"

"Yeah, but, like-- if the roles were reversed, I wouldn't even be listening to Clay! He threatened you, man! If you were the one getting up to stupid shit, let's think about this for a second, I wouldn't punish you! I'd bail you out, I wouldn't even bat an eye about it!"

...Sigh. "Let's just keep walking."

"I do know about mals now, though. They're all going around eating people and they've got weird names like grogler. I think if something is named grogler it should have some fuckin' shame about eating people, like, that's just a bad name."

"Okay. Clay's already there, don't say much bad crap, okay? Be positive. Minimal words."

"Toby, please, for the love of God, you know me, I'm not going to be quiet. You know I'm not going to be fucking minimal words. Listen, Toby, we-- and I hate to, uh, I hate to break the immersion here, you know I'm not gonna stay quiet."

"Okay, well, if you do want to speak, be positive and apologetic for me."

"That's not how I--I'm just addressing the elephant in the room, which is me, although I'm not the size of an elephant. In height I am. Not in weight, I'm not wide. If I was wide, though, if I was stretchy--oh, this world would be real different right now. I have been awake for so many hours."

"Please don't fuck this up, Tommy, I swear to God."

"I'm telling you, I'm likely going to! I don't understand--I have a habit of talking all the time! Can't control me gob, I'm like a fucking, I'm like one of them chatterboxes! And it's--this is already fucked up, man, you put me on fucking probation, you're talking about punishing me--I would never--"

"Yeah, maybe you wouldn't! But I wouldn't put you in this situation! I wouldn't have stolen from an enclaver, I wouldn't have been rude to an enclaver, if you asked me to stop I would have!" Sigh. They're almost there; he straightens up, puts on a pleasantly neutral expression. Last chance for trying to get Tommy to listen before Clay's in earshot. "Look, just--try to be quiet, okay? For your own safety."

"I'm not going to be fucking quiet!" Oh shit, Clay's, like, right there. "...Hi."

"Hello."

"You said you had something you wanted to address."

"Yeah. I already told you, I want Tommy punished. I told you, you had three days and you can come back to me, we can have this meeting...?"