"Good. You make me happy too. If we ever end up like Marcello and me sister, let's kill ourselves." He leaned back to look at her, his wrists crossed loosely behind her neck. "And there is a reason I been ignorin' you for the last couple of times you've called yourself dumb: you know better, so please just stop. You're not."

Elaine bumped her forehead up against his. "I can be dumb about some things without being dumb overall," she told him. "We won't be like them," she promised. "They're not best friends. We are. And we'll stay that way no matter what."

"I hope so. That's what I've started to worry about. That we just really started to be friends down in Serenidad, and then we got split up, and then we finally get back together and everything sort of went all pear-shaped again."

Elaine frowned. "Oh." She said quietly. "I wasn't-- I guess maybe I spent so much time missing you, it was like being friends with you from afar," she explained uncomfortably. "I don't-- is that how you see it? Going pear-shaped?"

"Well, getting a lot more complicated than I thought it would almost instantly on setting foot through the gates," he said. "You already know that part. I figured I'd fucked everything up before I even got here and that it was gonner be hell on earth bein' stuck on a ship with you again. This is an improvement." He laughed and twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. "More'n an improvement."

Elaine leaned in and nipped at his nose. "So even with all this nonsense I've put you through, this is better?" she teased. "I'll remember that next time you start complaining, that I could be giving you your due for fooling around with my sister." She put her hand on her hips. "Hmph."

"You wouldn't dare." He dropped his hands to her hips and tugged at her. "The moment has passed. Want me to grovel? Because I will. Abject abasement. But you only get it once," he warned. "Not some drawn-out grovel that goes on for weeks. One good humbling and that's it."

She stepped in close to hip, putting her own hands to his hips. "I'll save it for when I really want a good groveling," she told him. "Keep it for a rainy day, you know? Or for when I do something horribly humiliating that you oughtn't forgive me for, and then they can cancel each other out."