Eric squints at him again.

"Self-aware. Aware of your own awareness. Are you, like, norma—that's not a helpful question. Are you aware of the fact that there is a weird timeskip thing that happens whenever you travel places."

"Weird question, my dude."

"No idea what that means."

"Hey Zach do you like butterflies."

"Never gave 'em much thought."

"How old are you?"

"I'm a young adult! It's my birthday!"

"Are you going to college?"

"Well, if I'm accepted."

"Do you like butterflies?"

"You know, I've never given them much thought."

"May I use the bathroom?" He's feeling kind of sick.

"Yeah, it's over there."

"Are you feeling okay, Peter?"

"Fine. Just need a break, is all. I'll be back later."

He is now going to the bathroom, thank you.

You'd actually need to be trying pretty hard to see into this bathroom given its height and location but it sure does feel kind of exposed for there to be such huge windows right there giving him a view of the Valley.

No, sorry, he doesn't actually need to use the bathroom, he just needs to hyperventilate a little bit.

Stupid, Tarleton. Stupid stupid stupid. Stupid to think it'd be this simple. Stupid to have this much hope. Really, really stupid.

But does it even matter? Why's he getting so worked up anyway? Sure, maybe they're automata just like everyone else, with very little subject permanence, but—very little isn't none. Peter is so focused on the little things. It's fine. The conversation they were having was fine. It was actually all going just fine until he decided to cause himself to no longer be fine. Like, this was 100% self-inflicted! He didn't have any reason to, to make it such a big deal in his head. Like, it doesn't really matter, right? He can have almost normal conversations with people, and they can be cool and hot and flirt with him, and they can notice he's thirsting after their granddad (???) and tell him their granddad likes guys (¿¿¿¿¿¿), and it's fine. It's not a big deal. It really isn't. He shouldn't make it one. It's fine. It's really fine.

He will figure out how to uplift other people. He will. And when he does he will uplift Doyoon, and Cara, and Nanda, and Manu, and Eric, and Zach, and Lucas, and everyone else, and it will be good. And he will also become the new Grim Reaper and then close shop for good, no one else has to die, ever again, if they don't want to. And he will get a fucking pony, a winged firebreathing dragon pony which he can ride into the fucking sunset until of course the sunset stops being a sunset and instead becomes the horror between worlds but who cares he'll be on a dragon pony and the dragon pony can take them.

Self-inflicted. 100% self-inflicted.

Okay. Let's try to get psyched up again.

Party. Cool party. Cool people in it. Cool, hot people in it. Lucas Yahontov is stark naked, Lucas Yahontov's grandkids are ridiculously hot and also, like, had a kind of personality that made Peter hornier than how hot they were, and Peter wants to get to know them, and also they're powerful witches so maybe they can teach him spells? Also it's a party, people are dancing, there's music, there's good food, the cupcaked were baked by Lucas, is Lucas a good cook, Peter should maybe find out, also Peter should go meet up with the other frat guys, he hasn't even seen Doyoon yet.

He can probably get naked, too. He bets Lucas wouldn't mind. Neither would the hot twins. Maybe he can get them naked.

Yeah. Hype. Cool. Let's go.

What's the mood when he's out of the bathroom?