So, she was Miss Whitmore, again. Wonderful. 

    She needed a fucking cigarette. 

    She listened to him speak as she strode through the living room and onto the balcony. A pack of harsh full flavors was waiting for her on the table. She picked it up and shook one out. "I got it," she forced out over the cigarette she dangled between her lips. Lighting it, she inhaled deeply as he continued. "I've not read it, yet," she explained on an exhale, sounding positively flippant. 

    She scoffed into the receiver when he tried to apologize to her again, not quite interrupting, but close. She did it again, louder and throatier this time to prove a point. "Stop apologizing to me," she demanded, before inhaling more smoke. Every time he apologized her stomach tightened. Every time he emphasized that he made a mistake and tried to make excuses for it she felt nauseous. "I get it. You fucked up, we all fucked up. It happens, I guess." She leaned on the balcony railing and flicked ash into the breeze. 

    If he wanted to blame it on a lack of blood, fine. She understood what he meant, though minimally. It's not like she hadn't don’t any research before deciding that she was going to have feelings for a vampire. 

    "You want to know how you upset me, Professor?" She repeated, voice low and bitter. She sighed and shook her head, even though he couldn't see it. She looked down from the balcony to the busy street below and smoked in silence for a considerable amount of time. 

    She considered just hanging up on him. 

    "You fucked me," she whispered, harshly, pushing the words from between clenched teeth. There was no one around to hear her, but it was in her favor to be subtle about it. "And then you told me there could be nothing between us." 

    She moved away from the edging, and rubbed the spent cherry out in the ashtray. She tried and failed not to light another. Not usually a chain-smoker, but this was a special occasion.

    "We can't be together," she didn't want to believe it, but he kept saying it and she had no choice. "There's no fucking fixing that." She hated the way her voice cracked, hated the heavy knot that worked it’s way into her throat. She hated that she still wanted to be near him when he was doing this to her. 

    He was glad she couldn't see his face. Glad he couldn't see hers. Easier this way, easier than if they could see each other. "You didn't fuck up," he muttered, rubbing at his temples. He could hear her smoking, the click of the lighter and the way she breathed, even over the phone.

    What had he thought? Had he been thinking at all? Thinking of anything besides how good she looked, how much better she felt, how badly he wanted to fuck her? Just assumed she was from a generation of casual, meaningless sex? Whatever he'd thought, if he'd thought anything, it hadn't remotely resembled this.

    "I thought you knew," he managed finally, and he knew as soon as he'd said it that it was the exact wrong thing to say. "You didn't – you didn't ask me out for coffee, you didn't ask what I like to do on weekends. You just – until you said something, I didn't even know you were attracted to me. I just thought you were attractive. Generally. I don't – I don't even know what together would entail. I can't take you out to dinner, I don't like going to the movies. My salary is shit, I sleep all day, if I don't eat enough I go insane, if I eat too much I go insane, I don't get nicer if you get to know me. I'm not wise, I'm not experienced, I'm barely old enough for discount pancakes and bad political opinions. If the sex was good for you, then – well, I don't really know how that happened, but that was probably a fluke and it's about as good as it gets. I am not worth breaking the rules for. I don't know what you think you're being deprived of, but, you're really, really not. I guarantee you, Veronica, there is at least one person on campus that is your age, that will treat you the way you deserve, and will not try to eat you." He faltered. "In the… in the literal sense."

    Veronica went very still. Cigarette halfway to her lips as she stared, vacant and wide-eyed into the skyline. If there had been anyone there to look at her, they would have instantly known something was up thanks to her tendency to fidget. 

    For the first time, she was willing to realize that this was also her fault. She thought she could get away with placing most of the blame on him. All she'd done was comment on her lipstick. He'd been the one to grab her hips, to turn her around and bend her over the desk. But she had let him. She had skipped all the preliminaries, and gone right to fucking. 

    She should have asked him those things. She should have been able to keep it casual and not let her desire overwhelm her. She should have already known that he didn't like going to the movies, and what he liked to do on the weekends. But she didn't, and now it felt like it was too late. 

    "I just…I-uhm." She stuttered and rubbed her hand across her nose, trying not to burn herself. She substituted smoking and sniffling for talking because she didn't know what to say. She had spent most of the afternoon trying to think of ways to counter the points he would inevitably think up. She'd managed a few. Like how he was free to sleep during the day, because she was busy during that day. Or how he didn't need to take her out because she wasn't that high maintenance. She didn't care that he was older than her, she didn't care that he was a vampire. 

    "I'm sorry," she managed, voice small and quiet. "I know I should have done things differently, and I know things wouldn't exactly be what some consider normal. I don't want nicer. I just.." she paused, swallowed. She kicked her toe against the sliding glass door before she continued, closing her eyes. "I just want you, and I know it's stupid and I can't explain why, but I just do. And I'm sorry, because that's stupid. And I know I should stop trying to talk you into it, because I know you've made up your mind. I just. Wanted to say that. While I could."

    She sighed, another cigarette gone, but instead of lighting another she pushed her empty fingers through her hair to get it away from her face. "I'm not worth breaking the rules for either." She stared at herself in the glass door, and hoped that she sounded more convincing than she looked. She watched the way her mouth formed ugly lies, because her voice barely registered in her own ears. "We can pretend that nothing ever happened. Everything can be normal. I promise." 

    "You don't have anything to be sorry about," he said, leaving the kitchen to fall back on his couch. Michael rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I'm the one who… made assumptions. About what you wanted, and why. The appropriate response to light flirtation is not sexual assault. Even if I wasn't your teacher."

    At the time, it had felt like something more. An invitation, a request. He'd been very determined to remain utterly disinterested in her, but it had popped like a bubble at the slightest disturbance. The slightest indication that she might want him. Even now, when she said it–

    But it had never even crossed his mind that her desire might be more than purely physical. She'd been so blasé about it. Those were the kinds of things that very young women thought, naïve young women that he would never dare come near. He'd thought she was too smart for that.

    "You're not stupid," he said with a frown. "You're worth… more than I have. Please don't let this make you think otherwise. You're young and beautiful and brilliant and hard-working, and someday you're going to meet someone worthy of you. And you'll be very glad you didn't waste time and energy on me. Okay?" He didn't like it that she sounded like that. Hurt. He wasn't trying to hurt her. He was trying to do the exact opposite of that.

    "You don't have to pretend," he said, even though that was basically what he'd been suggesting. It didn't sound right when she put it that way, though. "You don't owe me anything. I'd like it if you could be discreet, obviously, but don't – it doesn't do either of us any good to pretend nothing happened. Between us." And, also, he probably couldn't. He was actually a terrible liar. "We just need to… be adults about it."

    "Don't," she pleaded, pulling her gaze away from her reflection and opening the door to return to her bedroom. "Please don’t call it that - it wasn't like that." She understood that he was ashamed, but she wouldn't let him skew the moment into something so disgusting. He was talking to her like she was only eighteen, just barely on the brink of giving consent, and not like she was almost twenty-five.

    She still felt stupid despite his attempts to ensure her otherwise. She didn't feel like any of the compliments he was paying her were fitting, because they weren't doing her any good. What did any of those things matter? He kept saying she find someone worthy. She didn't like it. She wanted him, and she couldn't have him. She didn't want anyone else, and that didn't change no matter how many times he suggested it.

    "No, it's not okay. Not really. "

    Back in the confines of her own room, she started floating again. Suspended, lazily, as she listened to him talk, because she guessed this was the last time she would hear his voice and it wouldn't be talking about Baltic paganism. 

    "Good bye, Professor Bell," was what she finally said when he'd finished. He counted on her to be an adult now, but not in regards to their affair. There was strange tone of finality to the farewell. Voice louder, clearer than it had been previously. 

    She hung up the phone without waiting for a response, and let it slip from her hand to float around with her. She wanted to be angry with him, but she couldn't be. Which in turn only made her angry at herself. She began to wonder if she could actually return to class with him; if she could really pretend that nothing happened. She tried to remember the way she acted before. She couldn't. She could only think of the accidentally flirtatious comment, that had set everything in motion. 

    One day, when she could look back on this as a lesson learned, she would give herself brownie points for not crying. 

    "Miss Whitmore–"

    But she'd already hung up on him.

    Goddammit.

    She didn't sound angry anymore, at least. That was… progress.

    He tossed his phone aside and got up, heading to his bedroom to toss on a ratty old t-shirt. He pulled on his shoes and threw his phone and his keys in his pocket before stepping out into the cool night air. He lived far enough away from the college that he didn't worry about running into students. The place in between the city and the suburbs, a moat of shitty apartments and shittier strip malls.

    It wasn't worth wasting gas, and he wanted to clear his head anyway, so he walked the mile or so to the nearest 7-11. It might have been nicer if the air was cleaner. And if the city sprinklers weren't going off.

    He had no idea what he wanted, so he settled for a six-pack of beers that he remembered as being unobjectionable. He hovered indecisively at the magazine rack before grabbing something with a woman who had more tattoos than clothes. The clerk asked for his ID when he asked for cigarettes, which was always fun.

    Michael hadn't smoked in a decade. He used to know a guy who said that no one ever really quit; just took longer breaks between cigarettes than usual. Once a smoker, always a smoker. He was dead, now. A car accident killed him before cancer could. At least he didn't have to worry about that.

    There weren't many of his kind of vampire around. Not just in Las Ballenas, but generally. Different breeds, different rules. He'd asked the woman who turned him, once, if it ever got any easier. She'd said no. Maybe it was like smoking, that way.

    Drinking was a short-term solution to a long-term problem. A blood thinner, made it last a little longer even if it meant the crash was harder. He used his phone to write an email, painstakingly slow, informing the students of three different classes that there'd be no lecture until Thursday. He assigned an impromptu essay, instead, for class credit. In the case of his Monday morning class, the prompt was based on the lecture they'd missed.

    Maybe he could be a little spiteful, sometimes.

    He read a book about the Crusades that he bought on his ereader. He tried watching TV, and discovered that most TV was godawful and he probably should have paid extra for cable. Looking through the magazine he'd bought the opposite of helped.

    Tuesday night he left the house again. This time he drove to a shitty little strip mall record shop that stayed open until midnight. He didn't go often, because it was almost always full of loitering hipsters talking about bands he'd never heard of, and only half of them worked there. He might have been the only person who actually listened to records instead of just putting them on his walls to impress people. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and new vinyl still cheered him up as much as it had when he was a teenager. Buying music on iTunes just wasn't the same as holding a fuck-huge cardboard sleeve in his hands.

    He couldn't actually remember if California X was any good, but he liked the cover art.

    Melanie didn't even let her mope for an entire day. 

    "Get up," her tiny roommate demanded, sometime Tuesday afternoon. Veronica groaned in response, moving only to punch the pillow into a more tolerable shape, and roll over. 

    "You're taking up the entire couch. Get up," she repeated. Veronica spared her a withering glare before turning her attention back to the television. There was some horrible reality show on about people trapped in a house. In so far they were making way worse decisions than she could even dream of and it made her feel a little bit better. 

    "Get up, or you have to tell me what's wrong."

    Veronica was off the couch in a heartbeat, pushing hair out of her face and huffing more than was actually necessary. She didn't have to look a Melanie to feel her sassy expression, so she walked off back to her room, tiny roommate cursing in Spanish to her retreating back. 

    Veronica was not used to stress. Typically calm under pressure, and level-headed. Therefore, she was not well-versed on ways to deal with stress. She watched a bad movie. She took a shower. She checked her phone and nearly threw it across the room at the bullshit assignment that she'd gotten from Professor Bell. She took a nap. When she got up, it was dark, so she took another shower, because why the fuck not. Maybe, eventually, she'd wash away the feeling of his hands on her. 

    "I'm going out," she announced to Melanie, who had taken up residence on the couch she had been forced to give up. Melanie looked her over, said something that was probably vulgar in Spanish, before letting out a low whistle. 

    "Look at you," she teased over spoonful of cereal. "Hot date?" She grinned and waggled her brows. Veronica hated when she did that. 

    "Why does everyone always assume I'm dressed up for something?" She looked down at her black leather miniskirt and red Mary Jane pumps that matched her low-cut top. She was wearing a bomber jacket, for fuck's sake. She looked like she belonged in a revival of Grease. The HBO version. "This is how I look. It's how I always look." 

    Melanie shrugged. "Yeah, I guess," she conceded. "But you didn't do your hair like a fifties housewife. So someone is going to notice that something is up." 

    Veronica pushed the loose green waves in question over her shoulder and grabbed her bag. "Well, I'm not going to see anyone," she replied. Her high-pitched tone was petulant and mocking. 

    "Don't forget your cigarettes."

    "I have to buy more."

    "Have fun. Don't stay out too late."

    "Whatever, mom." 

    She hadn't meant to slam the door behind her. 

    Veronica drove, mostly in circles for a while. She liked the cool, dry air, and the night time city lights. She was getting much better at not thinking about Michael and what had happened. She smiled, pretty proud of herself for the smallest bit of progress, as she pulled into the record store parking lot. 

    She usually went to this particular store during the day, after class. She was able to spend more time browsing and less time getting hit on that way. She tossed her cigarette to the asphalt and stepped out of the car. It didn't take long for the catcalls and jeers from those who recognized her to fill the usual cacophony. She appeased them with derisive laughter, and red-lipped grimaces as she made her way inside.  It's not like it got better inside the store, but at least in there she could pretend to be really, really focused on whatever bin of records she was thumbing through. Which worked out, for a while. But, because the universe hated her, or because she'd accidentally pissed off a voodoo witch, it didn't take her long to notice that Michael was in there with her. It didn't help that two girls were, literally, gossiping and gushing over him right next to her. 

    "Are you fucking kidding me," she breathed, followed by a whine. She hoped that even his vampire hearing couldn't make out her voice over the din. She stomped her foot, and flailed her arms in a quick, brief show of childish displeasure. She moved to a different part of the store, where she hoped he wouldn't accidentally recognize her. Besides, if she was really lucky he wouldn't want to talk to her anyway.

    He didn't notice her until he heard her voice, cutting through all the sounds he was ignoring and straight into his brain. Michael looked up immediately from the record he'd been considering, straight at Veronica across the store.

    She looked miserable. And gorgeous. While he was wearing an old bootleg Prismatics shirt and a patched-up pair of jeans. Should he say… something? He couldn't tell if ignoring her would be better or worse. He set the record down, and attempted to button up the slightly more respectable shirt he'd worn over his t-shirt. This was what he got for leaving the house. Or for skipping class. He was being punished for something, anyway.

    God. Why hadn't he worn something decent?

    He tried to just keep picking out records. He really did try. He just couldn't seem to stop looking up at her, pinpointing her heartbeat through the crowd until it was the only thing he was listening to. When someone got between them he'd move down to a different bin until he could see her again. He watched a guy half his age sidle up beside her, and he felt his eyes turn dark, his fangs press against his tongue.

    No. No no no. Not remotely his business. This was unhealthy, whatever he was doing, and he needed to stop. He gathered up his stack of albums and stalked single-mindedly toward the cashier to pay for them. He refused to even look in her direction.

    He couldn't seem to stop listening to her heart.

    He was not nearly as sneaky as he thought he was. She caught glimpses of him watching her from behind shelves, or the fall of her hair when she was pretending to be particularly engrossed in something. She tried not smile, biting her lip to stifle the expression. He was just watching her - not exactly what she could classify as a victory. 

    "Oh, no thank you," she said to the bulky hipster that slid up beside her. She didn't even look up from the record she was inspecting, because she already knew what he wanted. He didn't even have to say it. That did not stop him from uttering a disturbingly horrible pick-up line, that caused her to laugh right in his face. 

    She cut her giggles short to look past him, but Michael was no longer in her sights. She frowned at the man in her path, which was when she noticed her was frowning at her in return. Also, that he was high on something. He was probably mad because she had laughed at him, but certainly he was used to that with how lame he was. 

    "What's your problem?" she asked, brows climbing her forehead.

    "That was really fucking rude," he said by way of explanation. She shrugged her shoulders and made a disgusted noise in response. He moved closer to her, and she pressed her back against the wall to avoid colliding with him. 

    "Oh? Did I, like, hurt your feelings? Grow up." A tough act was easy to fake, but her pulse pounded in her ears. Her heart was racing in her throat. She knew better than to pick fights, but she had been feeling particularly pugnacious. 

    He grabbed her, and his grip on her wrist was enough to let her know that he was strong. Awesome. She'd managed to piss off those bad-tempered, extra-strong Superman types, with more metaphysical biceps than brains. 

    "Oh, no thank you!" she repeated, pushing her free hand forward in an arc. The motion caused a gravitational down force that was pretty difficult to ignore, and sent the asshole flat to the ground.  Without wasting any time, she jumped over the body blocking her path, and considered leaving him stuck to the ground like that.

    She released him, because she was just so fucking generous. 

    "That was really fucking rude," she snarled, before fixing her jacket and darting towards the exit, because that was certainly enough fun for one night. Snarky comebacks only hid that fact that she was borderline terrified from everyone but herself. 

    Michael could hear it when her heartrate picked up. The cashier had to take the money from his hand, because he was too distracted to hand it over. He'd started listening in on the conversation, insofar as it could be called that. At first he'd thought the guy had made Veronica laugh because he was trying, because he was funny or charming or he knew her. Best not to dwell on why that had irritated him almost as much.

    "Are you okay?" the kid at the register asked as he handed over the bag of vinyl and his change.

    He looked like he was going to rip someone's throat out. Maybe he would. How often did this happen? Cornered in a record store, or in a classroom–

    "Fine," he said, just in time for the sound of a body hitting the ground. He took his bag, and turned around as unmistakable green hair swept past him and out the door. Her heart was still racing. He looked back to where the asshole who'd been bothering her was still having trouble getting up.

    … could she have done that to him the whole time?

    He didn't mean to follow after her. If he'd thought about it at all, he'd think he was probably the last person she wanted to see, under the circumstances. An unwelcome meeting of her personal and her professional life, a reminder of yet another asshole who didn't treat her the way she deserved.

    He could have grabbed her by the arm or the shoulder to slow her down, but he didn't. He didn't know if she wanted to be touched. Least of all by him. "Are you okay?" he asked instead, knowing full well that she might just ignore him and keep going. He had to ask, anyway. Even if he wouldn't make her feel any better, he couldn't just leave her… alone. She could handle herself just fine, but that didn't mean she should have had to.

    Veronica did not like confrontation. She could argue and debate with the best of them, but she often bowed out quickly if things threatened to turn physical. Which was unbelievably often when you were dealing non-humans. Which was, also, unbelievably often when you lived in Las Ballenas. 

    She could manipulate a gravitational force that was strong enough to crush a person with a casual gesture. She could leave them rooted to the floor or dangling in the air, without much of a thought. Once upon a time, she had even done it on command. She didn't need the adrenaline rush of a stupid fight, bringing back bad memories. 

    She tried not to think about them as she threw her belongings into the open window of her car. Her parents. Super villains, the both of them. Not that it had done them any good in the end. One was dead, and the other was in prison for the rest of her days. 

    Michael's question pulled her out of her thoughts, and she whipped around to face him. She was visibly surprised. Surprised that he had come to check on her, or that he'd bothered to speak to her at all. She bit her lip instead of responding, eyes shifting from one side to the other. 

    He hadn't touched her, but that didn't stop her from closing the distance between them. She wrapped her arms around his waist, fingers clinging to the fabric of his shirt as she crushed her face against his chest. She didn't care how he would react, but she hoped that he would give her this. "No one knows you here," she reassured, voice trembling, in an effort to keep him from pulling away. In an effort to keep him from lapsing into a lecture of everything that was wrong with them. 

    "I'll be fine in a minute." Her fingers curled tighter, as she breathed in the smell of him. As she memorized the feel of him. He smelled really nice, and it wasn't exactly the same as holding someone who was alive, but it's not like he felt... dead, either. 

    "I like your shirt," she mumbled into his shoulder, trying and failing to be casual about the ordeal. 

    He stiffened in surprise at her sudden embrace, arms out to either side of him to make room for her. Slowly Michael set his bag down on the pavement by his feet, freeing his hands so that he could wrap his arms around her. "It's okay," he said softly, relaxing as he held her. "I'm here as long as you need me." Until she'd said something, he hadn't even spared a thought to what might happen if they were seen together. Didn't think of anything except for her, and how she was feeling. His own heartbeat was lethargic at best, barely a beat at all. It wasn't hard to stay warm in the desert, but Veronica was still warmer than he was. His thumb rubbed along her back near the base of her spine where his hand rested.

    Hiding a black shirt under a thin white button-down was never going to work. He sighed. "Thank you," he said, despite a vague desire to protest. "I like your…" He hesitated, trying to think of a compliment that wasn't loaded. Technically speaking, he liked just about everything. "Jacket," he settled on. Which he did. He still had a patched up jacket hidden in the back of his closet, behind his suits.

    That was probably a metaphor for something.

    "There's a taco place near here," he said, apropos of nothing as he brushed green hair out of the way of her face. "I was planning to stop there. After this." He nearly said more, but the words died before they'd escaped him. He let the words hand there instead, not quite an invitation.

    There was something comforting in the slow, dull sound of his heart. Veronica stayed pressed against him longer than she really needed, because she was taking advantage of his concern. When she felt him relax, and he put his arms around her, it only made her stay that much longer. "I'm not some ticking time-bomb that goes around beating up people." Words were muffled by his shirt, not that she needed to explain herself. Sensitive about the issue thanks to a past that he didn't even know about. 

    She'd been young, they'd defended. They'd called her brainwashed. A bit of rehabilitation and a witness protection program and she was released into the custody of the government. 

    "I just don't like when people touch me without my permission." 

    She wasn't sure if she had overreacted, it all had happened kind of suddenly. She lifted her head to look at him, but didn't pull away completely. She stopped clutching his shirt, and laced her fingers together at the small of his back. "Thanks," she shifted her weight to the other foot. "I got it at a garage sale, but it's probably still some kind of reproduction." 

    One of her hands left his back to trap his against her face when he moved her hair. Continually taking advantage of the way he was being nice to her. She wasn't interested in pretending right now, didn't feel a need, or a want. "I like tacos," she said, deciding for him that it was an invitation. She kissed his hand before releasing it to allow him to reclaim it. "Can we walk from here, or…?"

    "I know," he reassured her. "You're in the middle of your second semester in my class." Michael realized too late that this may not have been self-explanatory. He opted not to clarify. 'You haven't beaten the shit out of me yet' was maybe less reassuring than it could have been. But it was true, anyway. If she was the sort of person who went pummeling people indiscriminately, he should have been high on the list.

    "That guy deserved it," he added, which was maybe not professorial of him. Then again, they had professors who killed people. And at least one professor that he suspected did not exist. When it came to professorial, he was mostly just guessing. He was gratified by the slowing speed of her heart, the smoother sound of her breathing.

    The tilt of his mouth was faint as she turned her face towards his. More aware, now, of what dangerous territory he was in. Holding her in the moonlight and listening to all the little sounds of life she made. "Authenticity is overrated," he shrugged. He'd cared more about it when he was alive, but even then, he'd been pretty fake. Now people on the internet paid top dollar for his authentic bootleg t-shirts, and it was much more obviously a bullshit concept than it was previously.

    He didn't know what to do when she caught his hand. He hadn't meant it like that. Or maybe he had. He wasn't sure. This was a bad idea. He swallowed hard when she kissed his hand, taking it back slowly. "We can walk," he said, because the night was cool and probably wouldn't be hostile to someone who still cared about temperature. "Just give me a minute to put this in my car." He bent to pick up his bag, and started moving toward his car, digging his keys out of his pocket.

    This was a really bad idea.

    "Don't worry. Someday you're going to get that punch in the mouth you're just begging for." Maybe not from her, because she liked his face too much. Not that one of her punches would actually do anything, but he had an uncanny ability to test the patience of others. Tempers often flared over discussions and assignments and it was really only a matter of time in her opinion. 

    Veronica's smile was very noticeable compared to his, and for a moment she wondered what he would look like if he smiled more. "That's true. Either way, I only paid two dollars for it, so that's pretty cool." She probably wouldn't like him as much. All that brooding, and scowling was certainly part of his charm. Aside from that, it made that near imperceptible change feel like something she had earned.

    So, far she had only proven that she couldn't act completely normal around him. There was a boundary between that had been broken, that morning, and it hadn't quite been built back up, yet. Veronica was still fighting it.  

    She watched his face, and for a moment she seemed to have made him uncomfortable. Excessive physical contact or affection seemed to be off the table for now. That was … disappointing, but she chose not to dwell on it. "Sure, I'll be here," she lilts, nodding as he turned to leave. She pushed fingers through her hair, before she shoved her fists into her pockets. She pulled her cigarettes and lighter out of the confines, lighting one as she waited for him. 

    She was ignoring that part of her brain, that was advising she not be so pushy. Suggesting that she find someplace to sulk, that did not include the main reason she was sulking. That part of her that wanted to be around him, however, was talking much louder, as it usually did.