Chapter Text
Good afternoon, Mx. Prosopis. Briony is approximately 40 meters away and to the right of the dirt path. Thank you for coming so quickly to eir aid. The hab AI was polite enough to speak for the affini charging to Briony’s aid as well as for Briony out in the forest.
E could have made that jump. Briony almost made that jump. (Something like almost winning a game, isn’t it.)
A whirl of earthy brown-green vines surged through the cabin’s back door a half-second later as if it had never been there at all. Splinters burst and wooden frames cracked. The affini moved with no shape, only speed. “Briony? BRIONY!” The cry rung across multiple octaves.
“Briony are you okay?!” shouted a much more human voice, clutched inside the amorphous innards of the affini.
“‘m okay!” Briony called back. It wouldn’t take long to be found, the cheerful green-magenta blinking lights coming off of em would be impossible to miss. E was also pretty sure e was emitting radio distress signals. Something like, “Owie, I’m a poor little injured pet bug! An Affini grownup is coming to help me already! Doctor Gourd will be notified that one of her patients needs a booboo fixed!” Something cute, endearing, not too alarming. And emasculating, of course. Not that Briony had much emasc left to ulate, these days.
Oh, e was going to get such a scolding though.
Mx. Prosopis came to a rapid halt over a rounded hollow at the base of a tall pine tree, and peered down at the object of zher concern. “Briony! Don’t move! How are you feeling?”
“I swear I almost made that jump. I’m okay.” (You are not okay.)
Briony was not okay. The little moth-shaped Terran lay in a semi-crumpled heap on the grass, not moving. A brief spatter of blood marked the spot where the floret’s head had struck a rock, but the bleeding had stopped almost instantly. Eir hands and arms were scraped raw from what seemed like an attempt to slow eir descent by grabbing the tree itself; jagged red cuts and gouges, struck through with bright verdant haustoric first-aid clots, broke up eir short creamy-grey fur. Eir back, neck, and thorax seemed undamaged, but were blinking steadily in bright colorful light. Briony guessed that magenta and green meant “Floret Owie Emergency.” (Not quite an emergency. But certainly a veterinarian visit.)
“I’m not going to the vet, am I?” e asked, and tried to get up. Eir body was not responding to commands. It felt awfully funny. E giggled a little.
“You are absolutely going to the vet,” Mx. Prosopis replied, as zhe assembled zhemself into a rough-hewn humanoid form, complete with deep green leaves, yellow flowerbud hair, and a concerned maternal face. “Are you in any pain, petal?”
“Nope! Can’t move though. That’s probably bad. Wheee.”
Mx. Prosopis’ chest cavity opened up, allowing zher passenger free to kneel next to Briony. Miss Keet, somewhat more of a normal-looking Terran than Briony was these days, took a moment to tie her dark hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of the way. “It’s not bad. It probably means your implant is telling you to not hurt yourself any more.”
“I’m sure I’m fine. It was just a little fall!”
Mx. Prosopis placed a thin, abstract hand down upon Briony’s chest. A thin green tendril snaked out from zher vines, and a blue-white flower slipped past and underneath the floret’s collar. Briony never felt the needle, but did recognize the sensation of information being drawn from somewhere inside eir body. Vital signs, nerve signals, circulation, signs of bodily trauma, all transmitting from a central node into Mx. Prosopis’ core.
“Dear little bug,” the affini said, very softly and sweetly. “You know that we love you, and that you are so very precious to us, and that Mesquite and I will always be here to help you and support you in everything. And I love you like I would my own floret.”
Briony frowned. “You sound like you’re about to tell me I’m going to die.”
“No, my dear. I am about to tell you that you are grounded.”
“You’re not my owner.”
“Well.” Mx. Prosopis glowered down at em. “What does your owner think, then?”
(You are grounded.)
Briony pouted. “I could have made that jump.”
—
“Well, now! It looks like our little mothling took a bit of a tumble, hasn’t e?”
The resonant alto voice told Briony everything e needed to know from tone and delivery alone: e was fine; e was quite badly injured; e had been a very rambunctious floret; and e was not going to be given mercy. Briony thought briefly of bracing eirself for the scolding e was due, but a shivery pulse of sensation rolled across the back of eir neck and reminded em not to try to hide. (Be a good little bug.)
Mx. Prosopis gingerly carried em into the examination room, Miss Keet riding on zher neck. Briony had been here before: a colorful bungalow with soft rounded corners, plush seating, and a pet bed which smoothly contorted to match the shape in which Mx. Prosopis held Briony, the same shape Briony had been unable to budge from. It smelled like roses and dewy grass, and the entire room felt soft, fluffy, and safe. Part of that was the carefully curated space for florets of many different shapes and sizes. Briony knew from both independent and domesticated experience that a lot of that vibe was also Doctor Gourd Cucurbita, Third Bloom, an enormous affini with a body shaped like a comically curved squash and a powerful looming aura of Inevitable Good Health.
“So!” Doctor Gourd drew down a vine-mounted lens from the lofty ceiling and brought it alongside the medical pet bed. “What kind of trouble did you get up to that got you all scuffed up?” One of her hands enveloped Briony’s head, and the tiniest of tendrils coiled around eir neck.
“I, uh,” Briony pursed eir lips, and sighed. E could feel the warm, gooey feeling of a whole suite of xenodrugs taking the express route through eir bloodstream. It wouldn’t do to even try to defend emself. Even if e could, the implant would snitch. (Or the hab recordings would. Or your doctor’s comprehensive examination would. Or I would. No hiding, now.)
Briony elected to take the scolding on the chin. “I was climbing the trees in my hab. I tried to jump from one branch to another.” Briony closed eir eyes and sighed. “And I forgot the hab has a ceiling.”
“Uh-oh! Did you hop up too high and bump your bonnet?”
“...yeah.” Briony flushed, and a snaking line of luminescent patches on eir thorax and back gently lit up. “I hit my head and missed the landing.”
“Well, that’s not fun!” She tousled Briony’s short silvery-white hair. “Who let you get up to this much trouble all on your lonesome?” E couldn’t see behind em, but felt a series of vines snip the skintight - furtight? - floret leotard off of eir torso and carefully slip the scraps away, leaving em naked to be gawked at. Briony was thankful at least that eir body didn’t have any genitalia to gawk at, but being stripped in front of friends was, well…
More of eir back lit up. There wasn’t any use in stopping it, this was a vet visit. This was going to be embarrassing no matter what. (Isn’t it nice? To be cared for, loved, fawned over so patiently? Imagine how good it will feel to just allow your body to respond.) Briony pinched eir eyes shut. E could feel it seeping into eir spine. E felt the tickle of phantom fangs putting the faintest pressure against eir soul, just in case Briony needed to be reminded of eir status in the conversation. Eir body began to glow brightly.
The affini were talking. Briony let them talk, e didn’t have to listen. Mx. Prosopis would be discussing what Briony’s owner allowed em to go through with polite disdain; zhe was not pleased, but zhe could tolerate the resulting mess. Doctor Gourd would be reassuring zhem that everything was quite well under control, and that this was not outside the realm of experiences that Briony was encouraged to have. And somewhere, outside of any senses, Doctor Gourd and the Spider would be in discussion.
(Sweet little morsel, do not fret. Your doctor and I have already arranged for your care. What remains here is nothing you need worry about.) The Spider ran an invisible claw down Briony’s spine, curled a lazy circle around the base of eir thorax, and traced it up between eir legs. Briony fought back a whimper, and then thought better of it.
“It-it-it’s saying I’ll be okay,” Briony managed to say, eir ravaged fingers curling a little. “It says you’re just having fun with me now.” The room was starting to smell a little like orange and clove.
“That’s right, little bugblossom!” A pinch on eir cheek. Even Mx. Prosopis seemed mostly mollified. “Because do you know what naughty little florets get when they get all roughed up?”
“What do they get?” Briony said. E didn’t fear the worst. It had been a long time since e had feared much of anything. No, it wasn’t fear, precisely, when you already knew what was coming.
Mx. Prosopis leaned down and gave Briony a soft kiss on the forehead. “Naughty little florets get taken care of.”
“Mmmm-hmm!” Doctor Gourd hummed harmonic agreement. “Let’s sit you up nice and slow and get you all taken care of, sweet little berry.” With a brief tremble, Briony regained control of eir body as it was being propped up to a sitting position at the edge of the pet bed. “Give me a nice, close-up look here, look up nice and calm for Doctor Gourd.”
“I-I don’t…” Briony whined as eir eyes pulled up to Doctor Gourd’s gaze, and lost control of eir body again within seconds. E couldn’t even resist before, when e had been an independent Terran and so convinced that it was possible to just hold on to independence with diligence and force of will. As a floret, filled with drugs and an implant making decisions for em, remade to be biologically incapable of resisting control? It wasn’t even worth thinking about.
After a few moments gazing blissfully into the eyes of Doctor Gourd, nothing in particular was worth thinking about at all.
“It feels so good to relax, doesn’t it? So nice to relax. What a good little pet.”
Briony couldn’t hear the last words over the sensation of the Spider looming behind em. Briony could only see the Doctor’s eyes, and could only feel the Spider’s grip caressing their loosening nerves into submissive calm. E couldn’t hear the word “pet” anymore. The Spider spoke louder. (Good little bug,) it whispered, and Briony’s body shivered in helpless sensation.
E fought to speak, to at least know what they had in store. “What… what did I hurt?”
Doctor Gourd leaned in and kissed Briony’s forehead in the same place Mx. Prosopis had. “Shhh. Let the people worry about that.” E heard a relaxed giggle from another Terran somewhere on Mx. Prosopis. It wasn’t important. E didn’t need to worry about anything.
Briony felt a touch, either from eir doctor or the Spider. E held eir arms out, facing up, and outside of eir vision, e could feel a soft oily cream applied to eir ragged wounds. Then, a slow sticky sound of stretchy cloth being wrapped around eir arms, starting at eir hands, winding up eir wrists and up towards the elbow. As she continued, Doctor Gourd’s scintillating eyes seemed to blur together and change color, into a singular yellow eye. In eir peripheral vision, her soft vines seemed more and more like the legs of an enormous arachnid, a monster out of fairy tales. A thing that was very old and very slow, that Briony had discovered long ago when it was already far too late to escape.
It was always too late to escape. The Spider clutched Briony’s arms in a soft, pliable, irresistible grip, and enveloped em in silken bonds. Briony blushed and lit up straight to eir neck. E heard a quiet laugh behind em, and glowed brighter. Next, the Spider pressed into Briony from behind, and a soft sticky bundle wrapped around eir neck in thick fluffy layers. Eir neck wouldn’t move. E couldn’t see why. There wasn’t any point in seeing why, once e was already caught in the web.
Briony could hear talking, but couldn’t make any of it out. E couldn’t look away from the Spider’s captivating eye. E belonged to it, and there could be no escape. A little more laughter now, a little more lighthearted. If anyone had ever been concerned for Briony, they weren’t now. Briony was no longer a patient to be treated, but a pet to be appreciated.
(That’s right, little bug. Remember: this is the worst that shall ever happen to you, now and forever. And no matter how hard you struggle to escape me,) it spoke into eir spine, (and no matter how much you fight to resist,) it breathed into eir brain, (you are caught.)
Briony’s mouth finally opened, and e whimpered loud enough to pull emself back to awareness.
Miss Keet giggled behind em. “Oh come on, you two. E’s fully cooked just from being bandaged, don’t tease em more.”
Briony tried to look behind em, but eir neck wouldn’t move. It was immobilized in some kind of brace that tickled eir chin and upper chest, like it was made of the down of some enormous beast. E reached up to feel at whatever was stopping them from looking around, but found eir arms bound from fingertip to bicep in thick, fluffy mitts. They had pink prints of some kind on the palm, with a little smiling face in the center of each. Did moths have paws? (Some do.) From the shadows cast on the walls, e was evidently glowing bright enough to light a whole hab. E could barely smell the rose-and-grass perfume of the exam room over eir own spiced orange scent.
Doctor Gourd pulled the phytotech monitor down to Briony’s eye level, and tapped a tendril on her side, switching the view to a mirror mode. “Here’s what rowdy little florets look like!”
Briony did not look like a rowdy little floret. E looked like a pudgy, waifish little wingless moth in creamy-grey fur, a bit taller than a meter - almost a meter and a half, e had insisted many times - with big, pathetic-looking dark eyes. Eir neck was collared in a thick fluffy white loop that looked soft but was clearly enough to keep eir head immobilized, and eir arms were wrapped in seamless mitts. Other than that, e was nude, but there was not much to show for that, since eir breasts were just little rounded peaks on eir chest, and e had nothing at all between the legs to speak of. Eir thorax curled a little behind em, and shone bright. It was a surgically added augment whose only apparent purpose was to make em cute.
The Affini Compact took no small pride in the fact that its medical technology was the most advanced in the entire universe. And as far as the Affini Compact was concerned, any sufficiently advanced wound care was indistinguishable from pet clothes. Briony looked much less like a recovering patient than e looked like a cuddly toy. As usual, the Affini standard of care was miraculously advanced and witheringly humiliating.
“So, Briony’s implant has already taken care of the traumatic injuries for the most part, and minimized the harm done by the fall. Eir skull’s a bit cracked but that’s no particular trouble, the haustorium’s already taking care of that.” Doctor Gourd was speaking to Mx. Prosopis directly for care instructions. “No running, no roughhousing, light exercise and lots of love will accelerate recovery. Bring em back to me in five days or so and we can take those off and make sure we didn’t miss any bones sticking out of em.” Doctor Gourd didn’t have much of a face to speak of, but Briony could feel the playful smile.
“Phew, okay. I can stay at home and get some rest, then?” Briony asked, hoping against reason.
“And let you get into more trouble on your own, dear?” Mx. Prosopis gripped em from behind in a soft tangle of vines. “I don’t think so. You will be staying with us for the week. I’ll have a bed and washroom facilities set up for you. Would you like to sleep with us, or in a separate room?”
“Sleepover, yesss!” Miss Keet cheered above em.
Briony bit eir lip and sighed. “Are you sure? I promise I’ll behave myself and stay resting and not push m-”
“Of course if you wish to accelerate the healing process and ensure adequate rest, Mx. Prosopis,” Doctor Gourd interrupted, “we might do just as well putting Briony on three days of bedrest, if you consider that a good alternative.”
Briony blanched. “Bedrest?”
The Spider tickled at eir shoulders. (Bedrest, is it?)
Mx. Prosopis considered. “Well, that depends on you, Briony. Would you prefer bedrest?”
“No that’s okay Mx. Prosopis I will stay with you for a few days,” Briony quickly said, before the threat of bedrest could be followed through upon and before e lit up any harder. The Spider retreated; Briony could feel the seductive pull of sticky silk on eir mind.
“That’s right. I imagine your last period of bedrest was more than enough for you, wasn’t it?” Mx. Prosopis tilted Briony’s head up to look at zhem. Miss Keet peeked down too. She looked quite cheerfully sadistic.
“Yes, Mx. Prosopis.”
“Well, I won’t keep you any longer, Velvet,” Doctor Gourd said, giving Mx. Prosopis a friendly vine grip. “You run along with your little ones and take good care of them.”
“Oh, I most certainly will. Thank you so much for responding so swiftly to this whole mess.”
“No trouble at all! And it’s just lovely to see our little bug again!” the doctor cooed, giving Briony a little scritch behind the ears. “You know you don’t have to crack your skull open to see me, you can come by any time. You’ve grown into such a darling little floret!”
Briony was reaching attention overload. E nodded, and tried not to make any more eye contact. “Thank you,” e managed to say.
Mx. Prosopis, thankfully, could read em just as well as e could read eirself. Zhe scooped Briony into zher arms, and gave the Doctor a friendly smile. “We’ll see you again in five days.”
—
Mx. Prosopis hardly needed more than five minutes to stride smoothly from Doctor Gourd’s little veterinarian’s bungalow to the Cenote, the café/panadería that Miss Keet had created almost immediately after she and Briony had moved onto the residential ship Phaseolus. Back then, Mesquite Prosopis had needed less than a month of independence outside of a Terran clerical workpod to decide that what she really wanted was a coffee stop, an owner, and a life spent meeting people. Mx. Velvet Prosopis, Fourth Bloom, had been overjoyed to oblige. At the time, Briony couldn’t understand why she would have passed wardship and earned independence, and then just decided to toss it. Briony had struggled a bit with the idea, in fact. (Perhaps you understand a bit better now, pet.)
Briony sighed, and admitted that yes, e did understand the appeal a bit better, now. E was at least glad that the walk let em clear eir head and cool off eir feverish glow, and let eir body calm down from the ordeal of medical care. E would need to stay as cool-headed as possible over the next five days. That was going to be difficult without the use of hands. Not having hands meant Briony was going to spend five days treated like a helpless pet in need of care and coddling.
E felt the spots of warmth creep up eir back again, and willed emself to think of something else.
From the height of Mx. Prosopis’ arms, the Cenote looked gorgeous. From the back, it seemed to just be a part of the geography of the hab ring sector, a stone mesa jutting up from the middle of a sparse forest of red and green trees. As they came around, the café itself came into view, a two-tiered outdoor gathering place with enormous booths and tables, trickling fountains, and a whole kitchen and serving area carved into the side of the rock face. This high up, Briony could more clearly see the innards of the rock dwelling, and the eerie blue glow of the underground water pools past the kitchen.
“So have you both moved all the way in?” Briony asked.
“Just about!” Miss Keet called down from Mx. Prosopis’ neck. “We want to get the pools open for evening events, but we’ll need to reorganize the baking area to get it out of the way. We’re figuring out where to put it where it’ll look and work best.”
Mx. Prosopis passed quickly over the side of the Cenote’s boundary bushes, and slipped down to a non-bipedal shape to slip through a shadowed passage into the hab itself. Over the past month, the affini and zher floret had transformed the inside of the mesa into a brightly-glowing cave of wonder, with burbling pools of warm water, multiple levels of curtained cavern floor instead of individual rooms, and home comforts that seemed carved or melded from the cave walls themselves. A bright spot of sunlight from the top illuminated the whole cave in cheerful light. Briony had been invited for its completion, and e had deemed it a perfect little secret getaway that e might have loved almost as much as eir own private forest retreat, if e was a grotesque cave insect instead of a perfectly good moth.
“Now, Briony my beloved little troublemaker,” zhe said, gently placing em down on eir feet. “Let’s see what you will need for your stay here with us. We can move your bed and your toiletries over from your hab to ours, and we can collect anything you might like to have.”
“You know, this isn’t really necessary,” Briony said. “I’m just like ten minutes’ walk away from my hab. I could sleep over there.”
“Ah ah ah,” Mx. Prosopis said. “You see little Brionybug, I have vet’s orders to take care of you. So that is what I will do!” Zhe tapped Briony’s nose with a leafy tendril. “And in doing so, we will make sure you are safely out of trouble.”
E wanted to argue. But it wouldn’t do any good, e knew. “Yes, Mx. Prosopis. If you can get my hammock with my bedding in it, that would be good. And, uh… I’ll need a special toilet, because my, uh, that all works different now.”
“Nonsense, we can bring your existing facilities over just as easily. It’s quite easy to install new fixtures, it’s all modular just like any hab.”
“Oh. Well, uh, thank you so much.”
Briony got a kiss on the forehead, a pinch on the cheek, and a gentle caress on eir green mossy head scar. “Such a good little bug you’ll be for us, won’t you?”
E looked away, glowing softly. “Yes Mx. Prosopis.”
The surge of Mx. Prosopis’ biorhythm was all too familiar to Briony. It told em: You are so adorable right now that I want to do the most awful, terrible, wonderful things to you. E glowed a little brighter.
“I will be right back,” Mx. Prosopis said, commuting Briony’s cuddling sentence. “You just get settled in, and enjoy some quiet time.”
And like that, zhe was gone in a flash.
Miss Keet gave em a moment before she said, “Hey, you’ve been through a lot. Want some space? Want to lay down real quick?”
“You know what, that sounds really nice,” Briony said. E gladly accepted Miss Keet’s guidance over to the enormous circular bed near one of the bubbling pools, overflowing with pillows and plush blankets. She gestured for em to take a seat, and put herself down on the ground next to the bed.
“Just me?”
“You could probably use a little space,” she said.
Briony thought about it, and decided she was probably right. E lay down on eir back, letting eir legs rest on eir thorax, and gingerly putting a pillow underneath eir head.
They spent a few minutes in the quiet, listening to the slow trickle of water in the nearby pool. It wasn’t the cool wind blowing from outside, and it wasn’t the babble of the forest brook, but Briony had to admit, it was very nice.
“Hey,” Miss Keet said.
“Hey,” Briony replied.
“You gonna be okay? This is going to be the first time you’re out of your hab for longer than just overnight.” Miss Keet put a hand on Briony’s shoulder. “It’s a lot.”
“Honestly I’m not too worried about that?” Briony shrugged. “It’s not as if I feel in danger or anything. I mean, I know I used to, with Mx. Prosopis.”
“Yeah. Zhe couldn’t help it, you were too cute. Zhe wanted to pick you up, all the time.”
“Well, zhe still does, in case you haven’t noticed.” Briony couldn’t help but smile. “But I’m not worried about losing independence anymore. So now I can just… I don’t know.” E leaned back in the bed and out of Miss Keet’s sight. “Be myself. Not worry about staying safe anymore. I know I’m safe.”
Miss Keet nodded. “It feels good, doesn’t it.”
They spent an amicable few minutes in each other’s company, Miss Keet lying down on the floor and kicking her feet, Briony in the bed rocking eir knees back and forth.
“So you’re safe now, huh,” Miss Keet finally spoke up.
“Yeah.”
“That why you decided to take a thirty-meter dive off a treetop?”
Briony wanted to pull eirself up to glare at her, but settled for slowly pushing up to a sitting position in bed. “The top of my hab is like twenty-five meters, at most. And I was uphill a little.”
Miss Keet gave him a doubting look. “However long a fall it took to fracture your skull and neck. I’m still surprised your owner let you do that, wherever the heck it is.” She tapped the back of her head. “Did it feel different about any of that, concerned or upset or anything?”
Briony closed eir eyes and tried to recall the last moments before e had made the jump. The judging of distance, the tension of muscle, the leap … the dull surprise of hitting eir head on a sky e’d forgot wasn’t real. The backwards somersault spent mostly in shock. The animal panic of grabbing for the tree, sliding down, the quick grating pain of failing to secure eir grasp, followed by eir body falling outside of eir control.
So what did the Spider think of all that? It hadn’t felt very concerned about Briony at any point in the whole mess. At most, Briony could recall a sense of control , but only in the final moments. The Spider had flowed through Briony’s limbs and back in the second it took to go from falling body to fallen body, and ensured that the impact would have… well. A certain amount of injury. No pain, and no threat of death. Just enough to require medical care.
“Oh fuck,” Briony said, grimacing. “It wasn’t upset, it let it happen. It was in control the whole time. You motherfucker, did you let me forget my hab had a ceiling?”
(No, little bug,) the Spider said, idly twirling a strand of its web in a phantom claw. (That was your doing, not mine. I simply improvised the results.) Briony sighed. “No, it didn’t make me fall. It just made it end up with me hurt enough to be put in… these.” E held up eir hands, wrapped up into useless (adorable) mitts.
Miss Keet couldn’t help but giggle. “Your owner let you crack your skull to put you in a cute outfit.”
(Not entirely,) e could feel it purr, (but that certainly is an expected benefit.) Briony pursed eir lips while e felt the Spider speak into eir brain, at the speed of thought. Briony did eir best to translate it into speech. “It wanted me to know firsthand the worst that I might get hurt doing things, so I wouldn’t worry about it as much. …and so Mx. Prosopis wouldn’t worry about it as much.”
Miss Keet’s eyebrows raised. “That is, uh. Huh.” After a moment’s thought, she smiled. “Okay, yeah, Mx. Prosopis does worry about you pushing yourself too much with the running around and the climbing and jumping you like to do. I’ve heard zhem plenty, with friends and with me.”
“Yeah. The Spider wants zhem to know, like, really up front, that I’ll be okay even if I get hurt doing what I’m doing.”
“Bit extreme, I’ll admit,” Miss Keet thought aloud. “But pretty cool. Way more than I ever experimented with being reckless.”
Briony chuckled a little. “It was going to happen eventually. I really like being small and fast. Running and jumping around is fun.”
“Yeah, you’ve been getting really into that stuff lately, which is cool.” Miss Keet poked the bed bottom with her foot. “So what got you into all the amateur parkour?”
“I, uh,” Briony paused, considering how honest to be about that.
(Come on, now.)
E sighed. “It keeps my body focused on other things.”
“Other things than…?”
Briony sighed louder. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Briony, I ain’t people, and you ain’t people. Nothing to be embarrassed about with each other anymore.” Miss Keet rolled up to a standing position and leaned against the bedside. "Nothing left to worry about."
Briony gave her a nervous look, and let the tension out of eir chest. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay. Well…”