"You mean we're not all in this together," he says, sardonically, echoing somebody else's words from earlier. It's not really the kind of optimism he can tolerate, let alone sustain. "Equally fucked."

He doesn't really feel like he has it better. Maybe he escaped grief, but that just means he's established himself as an outsider. And he still has to feel it, heavy in the ceremonial air even if most people were doing their best to stop it spilling through the nestlink. It's that selfish feeling of being hard-done-by that has him trying to help someone else out, make him feel like less of a jerk.

"So does that mean you know how to hold off on the overshare?" Because he's probably blaring all of that bullshit at top volume.