Atsinni holds still rather than shifting uncomfortably - why is she pretending this is about what he wants, like he realized over breakfast that he's always truly desired to leave his host to go tour another brain not knowing if he can ever go back home again - but doesn't contest the phrasing out loud. "I can meet people."

"You can also just go home if you'd rather. I don't think anyone's going to insist."

It's not like that's going to be safe if supernatural beings are going to be fucking with everything. "I said I can meet people."

"I can call people for you to chat first but I don't know if you want to bother or just want me to call whoever is closest right now."

"I don't think it matters what order I meet them in."

She sends a text.

"Fucking Andalites, this could've been cool," she mutters.

Mood.

Her guy doesn't take long to show up. Just long enough for a little awkward silence, and then there's the sound of a motorcycle approaching.

He adopts a mild neutral expression.

He gets off his motorcycle and goes to lean against a tree near them. He folds his arms, smiles almost invitingly. "You must be the cool mind control alien."

"Is that what they're calling me? My name's Atsinni."

"It's what I'm calling you. So I take it you're being offered a good enough bribe to grudgingly give up your slave but not a good enough bribe to do it happily, yeah?"

"I am being wedged into a situation where I am incentivized to temporarily leave my host, into another host so that I will still be able to see and talk and run away if anyone tries to murder me and so on."

"Ah, well, then. This might be overkill but what I told Jess is I won't commit to more than a decade and if you use me to try to get New Jerusalem taken over by your slave empire or Demon U or wherever then I consent to being imprisoned or dismembered or whatever it takes to stop you."

"I don't want to conquer anything! I just want eyes and hands and I like these ones and they won't believe me when I report what he's thinking!"

"That sounds like a problem I'm more than qualified to solve whenever you're ready but I'm - concerned I've missed something about it, because the way you're putting emotions on his face doesn't look right for a problem that's about to go away."

"If someone wanted to take away your eyes and hands and you were not particularly confident you would get them back later and they gave you some spare ones to use but they came with an expiration date would this fill you with joy?"

He raises his eyebrows at Jess.

"We totally offered to take them back," she says.

"Ah," he says, nodding. "No, that wouldn't fill me with joy at all."

"It's not remotely safe to be back where I came from if weird shit is happening and I knew about any of it first and didn't tell people. So. Yeah. Not filled with joy."

"Well, now, that sucks. Should I be doing something to facilitate this or what?"

"I'll come over and clonk ears with you and then you just hold still," shrugs Atsinni, and he walks over.

He holds still.

Well. There was always going to be an opening eventually. And in not already knowing what to do with it, he's failed everyone in the world.

He wants to beg for them to make Atsinni do something good, only he doesn't know what is good. He wants to see if he can insist that Atsinni has to stop making him eat, but all his desires were shaped by demons to make him as bad as possible, so what he wants shouldn't be an input into anything at all.

He wants to rip his eyes out, and not only shouldn't anything he wants be an input into anything, it's like Atsinni was just saying. Those are Atsinni's eyes. How could he want to take them away from Atsinni? That's - if Jess told him to do it to another human he'd decide she seemed probably evil. Maybe not! But probably.

He has no idea how to do right by almost everyone in the world but he's pretty clear on how to do right by Atsinni, and - that's not good enough, but if he's completely at a loss about everything else then maybe it's best to do what's best for Atsinni.

And even if every single day he has to experience -

- he shouldn't think about it, he should say something about how he totally doesn't mind belonging to Atsinni, but instead he turns away from everyone and vomits. Like an asshole who has gotten to take one action in the last week and the thing he chooses is to make a mess.

Jess shouts for someone else to bring water, then takes a couple steps toward Atsinni's former host.

"I know you probably figure I'm only fucking with you. But."

He'd forgotten to figure that, actually. If Atsinni had offered him a choice like this it'd be real, and that... felt salient, or something.

"I'm sorry. I don't - I don't - " I don't want to hurt Atsinni won't come out. I don't care isn't true. Atsinni's been kinder to me than anyone ever is a little too honest. "I'm sorry for the mess."