Souvenirs From Dead Worlds

Communicating with Seba when he was upset was even more challenging than communicating with Seba generally was, Kias was finding. The language limitations always made things difficult, but at least Kias usually had Seba’s full and focussed attention. Now, though he did his best to follow Kias’ lead, he was too distracted for anything approaching conversation.

Somehow the baths were hot, as they always seemed to be, though Kias had no idea how they actually worked. Some kind of underground heating thing, he assumed.

Kias' eyes skimmed over Seba's bare skin as the boy stripped and stepped into the bath. There were marks on other parts of Seba's body as Kias had suspected, most notably his arm where Kalem had grabbed him and his back, which Kias was pretty sure had been slammed against a wall a couple of times. They were all new marks, though, Kias was relieved to see. Kalem hadn't made a habit of hurting Seba.

Seba hunched in on himself in the bath, watching Kias with wide eyes. Not scared or self conscious, just in shock. Kias, sitting on the edge outside the bath, gave him a reassuring smile. He wanted to explain to Seba that Sam's anger wasn't Seba's fault, that Sam was only angry at Kalem and most of all himself. Kias had been in Seba's position before. Once he'd believed Sam had owned him and was, for some reason Kias had been unclear on, completely furious with him. When Sam was distressed he wasn’t always the best at empathy.

Eventually Seba relaxed and started washing himself. Once started, Seba seemed to almost go into a trance, completing the motions of cleaning without conscious consideration. At one point he dropped the bar of soap into the bath, and it took a couple of moments of blinking blandly down at where it had sunk beneath the water before some life came back into his eyes and he ducked under the water to retrieve it.

"Are you okay?" Kias asked when it looked like Seba was almost done.

Seba's head jerked up at the sudden sound and for several seconds he just stared at Kias. "Yes," he said eventually, but there was no conviction in it.

"I'm sorry," Kias said, though he didn't know what he was apologising for. They were simply the only words Seba would know that came anywhere close to communicating what Kias really wanted to say.

"Thank you," Seba responded after a long silence, and Kias wasn't sure if he'd chosen those words due to a lack of better ones or because he genuinely meant it.

"You're welcome," Kias said anyway, although he wasn't sure what he had even been thanked for. The more they talked, though, the less spaced out Seba looked, so he was willing to keep it up.

When Seba looked like he'd finished washing, Kias pushed himself up and fetched Seba a towel. "Come on," he told Seba, holding the towel open to wrap around Seba when he got out of the bath.

"Thank you," Seba said as the towel was wrapped around his body. Kias wondered if he was so well mannered all the time, or if it was simply due to the language restriction.

#

Although Sam's position had hardly changed since Kias and Seba had left, somehow Kias was able to detect the change in Sam's mood and went over to him as soon as he entered the room. A touch of Kias' hand to Sam's back had Sam rolling over to face Kias, then lifting one arm to gently pull Kias against him. Seba stood near the door, watching them and pretending not to.

"Is he all right?" Sam murmured in Kias' ear.

Kias leant back to look at Sam. "You could ask him. You know, because I can't."

Sam looked over at Seba, still hovering near the door, and frowned. Really, he wanted as little to do with the kid as possible at this point. After several long moments of silence, Kias let out an annoyed sigh.

"He's fine," Kias told Sam. "A little shaken up. I don't think he was used to Kalem being rough with him, and you're terrifying when you're angry."

"Yeah..." Sam said slowly. "I'm sorry about that. I mean, tonight, but... Well, I did that to you too, when we first met. I never really said sorry for that."

Kias rolled over onto his back so that the two of them were only just touching, Kias' shoulder against the arm Sam was propping himself up with. "You frightened me at first," Kias said, and Sam swallowed thickly. "But I do forgive you for it. You were scared and upset."

Sam reached out a hesitant hand and stroked Kias' hair away from his face. "So were you."

Kias turned his head to the side and gave Sam a small smile. "We all break sometimes."

Sam glanced over at Seba who was still standing near the door, watching their display of affection. "Fuck."

"It's not his fault, remember," Kias said calmly.

Sam pushed himself up to sit on the bed, legs sprawled out in front of him. When Sam looked at Seba, Seba averted his eyes. "Oh, I'm fully aware this is completely my fault. Doesn't really help me fix it, unfortunately."

Kias rolled closer to Sam and rubbed his back softly. "It's late and we're all tired. We can think about it tomorrow."

Sam smiled down at Kias. He wasn't used to Kias taking the lead like that. He leant down and kissed Kias' forehead. "Okay."

When Sam looked over at Seba again, Seba was staring at his feet, fidgeting. Sam climbed off the bed and approached the boy, but stopped before getting too close, aware that Seba was probably a little scared of him right now. "We only have one bed, so you'll have to sleep on the floor," Sam said calmly, evenly.

Seba quickly nodded. "Of course."

Sam retrieved the spare blanket from the end of the bed and gestured for Kias to hand him a pillow. With them he made a bed for Seba in the corner of the room. "Nights are pretty warm right now, so you should be all right."

Vaguely, Sam was aware that he'd dropped his character. It wasn't Samuel he was showing Seba, it was Sam.

"Okay, thank you," Seba said, and then after a few seconds, with more emphasis, repeated, "Thank you."

Sam tried to smile at Seba, but he was pretty sure it came out as more of a cringe. He turned around and headed back towards where Kias was waiting for him in their own bed. "Goodnight, Seba."

#

Sam didn't sleep at all well, which was saying a lot because he'd had to adapt to sleeping under some pretty rough conditions. Sometimes literally. Once he'd slept on a bed of straw in a barn full of horses for three weeks. Somehow, that had been easier to sleep through than the quiet breathing of the teenage boy he'd soon leave to die coming from the other side of the room.

When he woke up at dawn, no longer able to get back to sleep, Sam pulled out his journal and scrawled 'I am an idiot' large enough to cover an entire page, then tucked it away again. Good record keeping was important.

Kias blinked at him through the dim light, then covered his mouth and yawned. He looked better rested than Sam was.

"C'mere," Kias said as he wrapped one arm around Sam's chest, pulling Sam back down beside him. Kias wrapped his limbs around Sam, immobilising him, and then quickly drifted back to sleep.

Sam didn't resist; one of them may as well get a decent night's sleep. He lay back and stared at the ceiling for several long minutes before slowly letting his eyes drift shut. He was surprised to find that, the next time he blinked them open, bright morning sunlight was streaming through the windows.

Seba was already awake, sitting quietly on his blanket in the corner, his knees pulled up to his chest and one arm looped loosely around them as he stared down at his toes. Beside Sam, Kias breathed steadily, still deep asleep.

Sam pulled his journal out from where he'd tucked it under his pillow and opened it, and couldn't help a snicker at what he found scrawled across the latest page. He'd already forgotten he'd written it. He left it and turned to a fresh page where he started writing down everything that had happened since his last entry, excluding certain intimate events involving Kias.

Nobody else ever actually saw Sam's journal since he used it only for his own reference when writing up reports, so although he wasn't about to start writing the personal details of his sex life into the journal, not everything he put in there he necessarily planned to share. For instance, he'd probably keep the tale of how he purchased an underage boy from a child molester to himself.

Sam could feel Seba's eyes on him, but it was several minutes before the boy spoke up. "What's that?"

It was seriously tempting to just tell Seba it was none of his business and remind him where his place was, but Sam had already dropped his role without much thought the previous night and there was no going back from that. At least, Sam didn't think so. In truth, he just couldn’t muster the energy to fake it anymore. Not this early in the morning. "It's my journal."

Sam didn't look up from writing, but he could hear Seba's hesitant footsteps across the floor towards him.

Sam heard Seba stop just out of his reach and there was a long pause before Seba asked, "Do you write in it in your language?"

Sam shot Seba a look that was supposed to be one of irritation, but he chickened out when he saw the look of innocent curiosity on Seba's face. "Yes," Sam said curtly, then returned to his work.

Seba took a step closer. "May I see?"

Beside Sam, Kias stirred, and Sam felt one of Kias' hands brush against his stomach under the blanket. Sam caught the hand in his own and laced their fingers together. Thoughtlessly, he handed the journal over to Seba. He couldn't read it anyway, and Sam seriously doubted the boy would dare do anything to damage it.

Sam rolled over and buried his face against Kias' neck, nuzzling. "Good morning," he mumbled into Kias' collarbone.

"Mmm," Kias hummed as he weaved one hand into Sam's hair. "You feeling better?"

"Yeah." Sam nipped at Kias' neck. "I'm ready to stop being dramatic."

Kias chuckled. "Good." Kias used his grip on Sam's hair to pull Sam's head in closer, and Sam took it as a sign that he should keep doing what he was doing.

Suddenly from across the room, Seba's voice piped up. "Where did you get this?"

Sam rolled over to glare at Seba, then realised what the issue was. "Oh."

"I've never seen a book made like this before," Seba said. He had sat himself down on his blanket in the corner and was flipping through the pages of the book.

"From somewhere a long, long way away, kid," Sam said as he pushed himself out of bed. He walked over to Seba and yanked the journal out of his hands.

"You always say that," Seba said. "You said you travelled here from far away, but you never say where from."

Sam gave Seba a hard stare until Seba dropped his eyes. "If I wanted you to know, I probably would have told you."

Seba made a small noise in response, but he didn't sound satisfied. It didn't really matter if he was or not, though, as long as he didn't get pushy.

"What are we doing today?" Kias asked cheerily in a clear attempt to lighten the mood.

"Fuck knows," Sam grumbled, then gave Kias an apologetic smile when Kias frowned at him. "Sorry. I'll ask our tour guide for ideas."

"Well," Seba said after Sam asked him, "we could go to the markets, perhaps. Today is the biggest market day of the week. If you're interested in plays at all, there will also be one showing tonight. Kalem wanted to go, but it was too expensive." Seba averted his eyes for the last sentence, mumbling out the words.

Sam gave him a reassuring smile. "Sounds good to me."

#

After breakfast they agreed that Seba would go and purchase their tickets to the play while Sam and Kias went ahead to the marketplace. After getting the tickets Seba would have time to do whatever he liked until they met up later for lunch.

"Sam," Kias said, holding up a necklace with a ridiculously oversized pendant made of amber. He glanced at the stall owner to make sure the woman was still too distracted with another customer to notice him making fun of her jewellery.

Sam smothered a laugh. "Aw. You want me to buy it for you, baby? Just say the word and it's yours."

Kias dropped the pendant back onto the table and smacked Sam's arm, causing Sam to let out a bark of laughter.

Mostly Kias found his role on these shopping trips to be to provide company and entertainment for Sam. Sam seemed to know exactly the kinds of things he was looking for, and as Sam favoured variety Kias couldn't even suggest things Sam might like based on other items he'd chosen. Hopefully seeing what Sam was buying on this world would help Kias be more helpful in selecting items on the next.

"A lot of things are very similar between worlds," Sam explained as he sorted through items on one of the stalls. "The kinds of resources and technology people have are very similar. I've never seen anything particularly unique in those regards. The things that vary most are art, language, and cultural practises. We don't have any official guidelines on where to focus our attention, but that's what I tend to prioritise."

Kias made a sound of acknowledgement as he tried on some rabbit skin gloves. They were much too big of him, but Kias liked the feeling of the soft fur.

"You don't have to, though, of course," Sam said.

Kias glanced at Sam. "Don't have to what?"

"Focus on those things," Sam said. "This time you're mostly just following along with me for now, but once you get the hang of things you'll be able to make your own choices about which parts of a society are worth preserving."

Kias considered that for a long moment. "The people, I think. I would record their images and write their stories down so that they could be remembered."

Sam seemed pleased with that response. "You'll need a linguistics implant to do that. And your own ring, of course. Hopefully you'll be granted those things before too long."

"And I'd need to learn to write," Kias said, pouting down at the table.

"Well, that would be good," Sam agreed. "But the rings can make audio recordings. You could just record their voices discreetly or record your own later detailing what you remember. Or tell me, and I'll write it all down for you."

"What about this?" Kias asked, holding up a small carved wooden horse figure. The wood it was carved from was heavy and finely grained and whoever had done the woodworking had gone to a lot of trouble to get the detail right. It had even stood up on its own on the table.

Sam took the horse from Kias and turned it around in his hands, looking at it from all angles. After examining it, Sam looked back to Kias and smiled. "Good find."

Kias bit his lip as he reflexively returned the smile. Though he'd always been fiercely independent and had never relied on praise, Kias couldn't help but feel good whenever Sam told him he'd done well.

Once they had bought the horse and moved on, Kias started to consider asking Sam if they could go back to the shuttle for a while, just to be alone. Now that they were sharing a room with Seba they were unlikely to get any privacy any time soon, and Kias knew Sam wouldn't do anything with Seba in the room. When Kias checked the position of the sun, though, he realised it was getting too late. They'd have to meet Seba for lunch soon.

By the time lunch time came, Kias was starving and his feet hurt. It frustrated him that he was so out of shape while Sam seemed to be able to walk all day and stay unaffected. Even Seba didn't seem to tire as easily as Kias did. Still, it was to be expected. Kias had only just managed to reach a healthy weight, and even on Sam's world he hadn't gotten a lot of exercise. Sam's world was very strange, and Kias had preferred to stay in their room.

They were meeting Seba at a particular market stall for lunch rather than back at the inn. The stall sold wraps with meat and vegetables in them as well apple pastries, and Kias felt hungry enough to have one of each.

Luckily, Sam's bad mood didn't return with Seba as Kias had feared. It looked like Sam had simply needed some time away from Seba to relax before he could face his new responsibility again.

They sat down near the stall they bought their food from on some stairs while they ate. Sam and Seba sat on the same step, though far enough away that two more people could have comfortably sat between them. Kias sat on the step below between Sam's knees and leant back against Sam’s thigh.

As usual Kias didn't understand much of what Sam was saying to Seba, but Sam’s posture was relaxed and there was a broad smile across his face, so Kias was pretty sure things were just fine. From what Kias could deduce, Sam was currently teaching Seba languages, both Sam's and Kias'. Kias had no knack for languages, so he only really understood what was said in his own.

#

Sam ran his fingers idly through Kias' hair, sending him a quick smile when he leant into Sam's hand affectionately. When Sam looked back up to continue his conversation with Seba, he noticed Seba's eyes lingering on the gesture.

"Anyway," Sam said, drawing Seba's attention back to his face. "The word orders are completely different so it can get a bit confusing. Grammar's usually the hardest part to get down right."

Seba made a sound of agreement. "It's not dissimilar to one of the languages I'm already familiar with, grammatically speaking, which makes things easier. The language Kias speaks is actually more unique to me in that sense."

Sam nodded at Seba as he massaged his fingers into Kias' scalp. "You're very bright," Sam said, "and I wish we could bring you with us and you could finish learning both of our languages. But I can't, that hasn't changed. Do you understand that?"

It surprised Sam just how much he meant it. He really did wish they could bring Seba with them, and not just for emotional reasons. It seemed like such a waste to let Seba die. It didn't really matter, though. If they brought Seba with them, Sam would lose his job and so would Kias by necessity, and then what? They'd all just go live together somewhere and get regular jobs? Kias would be miserable.

A moment before Seba had been smiling and open, but at Sam's words he shut himself off, withdrawing and muting his visible emotions. "Why did you buy me if you don't even want me?"

Sam let out a frustrated huff. "It's not a matter of not wanting you. As I told you, my father wouldn't allow it."

Seba was hunched forward, resting his elbows on his knees and fiddling his fingers together. He shot Sam a venomous look. "If your father were a merchant as you claim, he would never have raised a son to be as wasteful with money as you are."

Sam just stared at Seba, blinking in surprise, then quickly released the tight grip he had on Kias' hair when Kias swatted at him. That was a hole in Sam's story, and one he'd been vaguely aware of, but nobody had truly called it into question before so Sam had never bothered to ensure his spending habits were more reasonable. To be fair, though, when playing this role on previous worlds Sam had never before purchased something as wastefully expensive as a human being he didn't intend to keep.

"You think I'm lying?" Sam asked.

Seba mulled that over carefully, staring down at his hands as he twisted them together anxiously. "It isn't my place to say," Seba said eventually, carefully. "Nor is it my place to demand truths."

Though that was debatable Sam decided it wasn't in their best interests for him to disagree, so he changed the topic. "I was thinking of getting you a job in the library or something. Or, if you feel you could survive on your own, I can simply give you what money you'll need to take care of yourself."

Seba dragged his knees up and hugged them against his chest. "The library sounds good," he said hesitantly. "I'm not sure they would give me a job, though. If they had money with which to hire someone, I assume they would have done so by now."

Sam shrugged broadly, returning his hand to pet Kias' hair. He'd just intended to pay the library to pay Seba to do whatever work there was to do. "We'll think of something."

It turned out Seba had only bought two tickets, one for Sam and one for Kias, because he assumed he wasn’t invited to the play. Sam wouldn't have minded having Seba along, but now he knew Seba wouldn't be coming he was starting to like the idea of it just being him and Kias. It could be like a date.

They had dinner at a different tavern away from the inn and although Sam didn't say it, he was pretty sure they all knew it was an effort to avoid Kalem. Sam had just started to feel like he could hold everything together again and he didn’t need Kalem messing that up for him.

Once they arrived back at the inn and went back up to their room, Sam and Kias changed into nicer clothes. Sam managed to resist the urge to ask Seba to leave the room while they got changed, but Seba seemed to have noticed Sam was weird about nudity and kept his eyes downcast until they were both fully dressed again.

"Stay in the room while we're gone," Sam told Seba as Seba wove Kias's hair into a tight braid behind his head. "I don't mind if you lay on the bed to read, but if you fall asleep there you'll have to move when we get back."

Seba inclined his head slightly and briefly met Sam's eyes. "Of course," he said before focussing back on Kias' hair and securing it with the silver beaded silk ribbon.

"We should be back fairly soon after the play ends," Sam assured Seba as Kias stood and fetched his jacket.

Seba nodded, appearing unconcerned. "I hope you enjoy yourselves," he told Sam as Sam opened the door and let Kias go out ahead of him.

"Thank you," Sam said awkwardly. "Enjoy your reading."

"I feel bad leaving him," Kias said as they made their way towards the stairs, but his voice was light and he looked happy.

Sam decided not to point out that they were doing a whole lot better by him than they used to by not leaving him with a child molester, but instead said, "He'll be fine. He'll probably enjoy a bit of peace so he can read."

It wasn't far to walk to the theatre the play was being performed in as it was in the same part of the city the inn was in: the good part. The theatre was open air and had stone seats in tiers above the stage which was lit up in the darkness by several large lanterns. A servant walked up and down the aisles between rows of seats, offering guests nuts and pieces of dried, sugared fruit. When Kias was offered he accepted both, even though they'd finished their dinner less than half an hour ago. He snacked on them quietly while they watched the stage being set up.

Sam wrapped an arm around Kias and Kias leant into Sam's side, resting the side of his face against Sam's shoulder. Sam smiled down at him, enjoying the warm weight of Kias in his arms. Although Sam had been with several people sexually and even a few romantically, he could count the number of times he’d been on things that could be described as dates on one hand. Dating, in Sam's opinion, was something a person did within or as a prelude to a relationship. Sam had always been too busy studying or working to even consider having one of those.

There was a sudden stinging pain in Sam’s middle finger and he quickly yanked his arm away, almost sending Kias toppling as his support was removed. Conditioned fear was coursing through Sam before he even began to process what the pain meant. It wasn’t the pain that meant it was time for them to leave, Sam realised. It was a different pain that was zapping him through his ring, a different intensity and rhythm. He was less accustomed to this one, but he knew what it meant.

Sam took hold of Kias' arm and pulled him up as he stood, ignoring the look of concern Kias was giving him. "Come on, we have to go," Sam told Kias as he lead him down the aisle.

"Sam?" Kias asked as they exited the theatre, confusion and fear thick in his voice.

"It's okay," Sam reassured Kias, and then corrected himself. "Well, all right, 'okay' might be a bit of an exaggeration. Maybe. I don't know."

"Sam," Kias repeated more firmly.

"Sorry," Sam said, leading them down the street. "My ring. It's zapping at my finger in a way that means some of my co-workers are in trouble. Our co-workers."

"Does that mean we're going to go help them?" Kias asked as he hurried to keep pace with Sam.

Sam's lips quirked up at the corner. "It's generally considered the polite thing to do."

Kias was starting to get out of breath, so Sam slowed down a little. Travel time in the shuttle would take a while, so if their help was needed terribly urgently Sam's coworkers would be fucked anyway.

Tristan's team were the only others currently on this world and Tristan was the only one of his team members who had a ring like Sam's, so there was no question as to who had activated the distress signal. Sam and Tristan usually only saw each other when they were coming back from doing jobs on the same worlds and only then if they happened to be using the same portal, but they'd known each other quite a while.

Tristan was a few years older than Sam, but they'd gone through training together and even worked together a couple of times when they were first starting out, before Tristan got his team and Sam went solo. He was good friends with their anthropologist, Diego, too, and though he wasn’t exactly close with the remaining members of the team, Hannah and Nolan, he knew them well enough to care about them.

Though Sam tried to repress it and to hide it from Kias, he was pretty concerned about what had happened to Tristan's team. They were generally pretty capable, and Tristan's ego would have kept him from asking for help unless he really needed it.

By the time they reached the gate, Kias was breathing heavily and having trouble keeping up, so Sam slowed down to a walk for him. It was best not to be seen leaving through the gates at a run this late at night anyway. It would look kind of suspicious to the guards. Even more suspicious than two nicely dressed men simply walking out of there and onto a long road that only the poorest of people would actually attempt to travel on foot at any hour. Sam smiled at the guards as they walked out, and thankfully they didn't stop them for questioning.

After they'd passed beyond the glow of the lights on the gate, Sam sped up again. He stopped to pull Kias to his feet when he tripped in the dark, then continued on again without pause. Once Sam was certain they were well out of view, he summoned the shuttle. Within fifteen seconds it de-cloaked in front of them. It hadn't been far away.

Kias entered the shuttle behind Sam and immediately lay down on the floor, breathing heavily. He wasn't in the greatest of shape, and Sam decided they'd work on that before they went on any assignments after this one. Kias had spent a long time in a mostly sedentary lifestyle and it showed. That could be dangerous if they were ever faced with a life or death situation and had to run.

Sam sat down at the console and got to work picking up and tracking the signal. He hadn't bothered to read up on Tristan's team's assigned city before they’d left and didn't even know where it was located until he looked at the map.

It wasn't too far away. Not close, either, but it could have been worse. It was on a different landmass and it would take, according to the computer, a bit over an hour to reach, but it could have been on the opposite side of the world, so Sam wasn't complaining.

"Should I sit in the chair?" Kias asked, and Sam turned to see that he had pushed himself up into a reclining position on the floor

Sam turned back to the computer and activated the autopilot, then turned back to Kias. "Nah. We can't just transport directly because the shuttle doesn't know if the area is clear or not. It would be very bad to transport into the middle of a tree. We'll have to go the slow way."

Kias made a sound of acknowledgement and sprawled back down on the floor.

#

Just sitting around and waiting for the shuttle to make its way to the other team’s location had both of them on edge, but especially Sam. Kias watched Sam pace back and forth across the shuttle until he couldn't stand it anymore and made Sam sit down. After fidgeting around in his seat for a while Sam finally calmed down and decided to show Kias some things the shuttle could do.

"It's meant to be to keep us entertained while we wait for meet up," Sam said as he pressed some buttons on the console. The front screen went black, covering up the view of the endless sea that could be seen through it a moment before. A moment later some text, presumably in Sam's language, appeared in the middle of the screen in big white letters. "It can be a pretty stressful time, so it's good to have a distraction."

"Oh, good, more moving pictures. I love those," Kias said sarcastically as the screen was flooded with colourful shapes, then more text, and then a still shot of a man and a dog next to some boxes with text in them. Sam had pulled a thing the fit neatly into the grooves of his hands out of somewhere when Kias hadn't been looking, and he appeared to be using it to control the screen. When he pressed one of the buttons it changed which box was highlighted, making a 'plink!' noise with each selection change.

"It's a game," Sam explained as he pressed a button and the screen changed again. After a moment a view of a man's back appeared on the screen, and Kias saw that when Sam pressed buttons on the controller the man moved. "You play this guy and you kill things take whatever you find on their bodies," Sam said as he directed the guy around the screen.

"That's really creepy, Sam," Kias pointed out. The guy in the game wasn't actually a real guy, Kias was pretty sure. He didn't look quite alive, and Sam's people were pretty good at faking things.

Sam laughed. "Okay, there's a bit more to it than that. You can also go on missions and level up and get cool new stuff. You can get a car, too, but I haven't gotten that far yet."

"You own a car," Kias pointed out. "A real one."

Sam just grinned at him and held out the thing he was using to control the game. "You want to play?"

Kias shook his head and pushed Sam's hand away. "No thanks. I'll watch you play, though."
Kias still found the whole thing pretty creepy, but it was doing a good job of distracting Sam and, if Kias was honest with himself, it was distracting him pretty well too. He just wasn't sure what it said about a society when a form of entertainment that aimed to distract and calm someone involved so much killing.