"I don't need you," he says, volume dropping down completely to a deadly whisper as he stands slightly off-kilter. He doesn't know the words might have impact, and the follow-up is different regardless, "Why should you matter? What's the point of you now? Go play in your house of lies with the broken suicide-addicts and see where that gets you."

His own self-destructive nature has completely trapped himself away from Jack's 'I would like to get to know you here' offer. He's pushing for a breaking point before anything could ever start.

And then, in the unwelcome, unbidden reminder that she is, he remembers Wanda.

He's knocked friendship as being a disease. Strange, for once, to accept its value. He reaches up a hand and pinches at the bridge of his nose, pushing knuckles into his closed eyes until he can see color that matches his disordered mind. It's the steadiest he's appeared since Jack wandered his way.

She'd give him hell for this.

"Yes," he says, answering Jack's question truthfully, instead of the venom he'd been spitting seconds before.