He cracks. "A little bit. But no, nothing like that."

"Then what?"

"I wanted to find out more about you."

"—about me? Why?"

"Call it idle curiosity. But I have a nose for the interesting and this smelled interesting."

"I'm not some circus attraction."

"Join the club."

"...okay that's fair.

"What do you want?"

"What do you want?"

"I asked first."

"My answer depends on yours."

"That's stupid."

"No it's not."

"Oh, thank you, Xander, you're lovely."

"Don't mention it, Z," says Xander, having brought them their food. "Anything to drink? On the house."

"I'll have some water and I think John here will have a whisky?"

"...no. I'm staying sober right now. Water, please."

    "...you? Staying sober?" To Zash: "What miracles are you working?"

"I do what I always do: I show people that the world is made of love and peace."

"Whatever you say. I'll grab your water."

    "Love and peace, is it," says Frank once Xander's gone, sounding somewhere between sceptical and despairing.

"Love and peace!"

"There isn't love and peace," he snaps, starting to get irritated. "You know my story already, don't you?"

"You wanted to make the world more equal. Give power to those who don't have it so they might be able to stand up for themselves, so that all may be the same."

"Fucking stupid philosophy. Well now I'm being equal: helping no one, not even myself. Nothing more equal than that. Zero is the most equal number."

"So is that it? You want to just not help anyone, drink your sorrows away, suffer?"

"I miss them, man," he says, and actually maybe he should've gotten that whisky but he'll just stuff his face with food instead. He looks away when Xander shows back up with the water but when he's gone and John looks at Zash again there's water in his eyes, too. "And they're dead because of me. The world isn't okay and it's my fucking fault—" He sobs, and then puts more food in his mouth because that's better than starting to bawl in front of effectively a stranger.

This. This is why he's always drunk. If he's left alone with his thoughts then he remembers what he did and he can't actually deal with it.