"I meant by my choice. I can't control what happens to me from external sources." Like cultists or even the Singularity, if it decides to kick him out of this world eventually. As far as Istredd knows, no one has ever been able to see that coming or stop it from happening. So that is always hanging over them as a possibility. He wonders what it would be like to wake up and Lucifer's just gone. Like he never existed in this world.

Fear of loss gets to him too. In a way they're similar, having spent so much time intentionally being alone, only to make connections here they didn't want to lose. Istredd hadn't really been afraid of dying; he thought he would be. He was afraid of losing others. Of failing them. In that they're alike too.

Istredd gets up and sits on the end of Lucifer's bed, the glow just enough to see him in the shadows. Still enough of a distance not to get too close, although skirting on the edge of that. We really messed up, didn't we? He smiles faintly, shaking his head. Neither of us was supposed to care about this place and these people.