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Maebe snorted, putting her hand to her open mouth and smacking it until a popping noise sounded.

"I never seem to pop." Maebe admitted thoughtfully, opening up with unfamiliar ease. "Whenever it feels like I should, I just crumble instead. Is crumbling the same as popping? And furthermore, what book are you getting this s**t from? Because it seems like everything's a little unhealthy. Letting it all out, or keeping it in until you - " Her hand smacked against her lips, popping them again.

She took her metaphors very seriously.

Maebe liked the idea of not telling all of her secrets. She thought that her past had been littered with too much holding back, but maybe, just maybe, she'd found a reasonable compromise in her life now. After all, she'd been pretty talkative so far.

"I remember Otto telling me once that he was thinking about talking to you, like, about psychy stuff. I guess this is why, huh. You and all those books." She leaned her arm back, accidentally interrupting the massage that had lulled her into a state of comfort in order to knock her fist on his temple. "But if you've got so much of that psychy stuff in there, how come you don't have everything all worked out for yourself? How come you're not happy, Lexi? When's it your turn to pop?"

Unlike the reception he'd gotten on Twitter, Maebe did not seem put off - or even reactive - to the idea of feeding humans the Fear that would probably make them sick. She assumed that level of care was for people who had high morals, and probably also vegans. Taym, she thought, would have ripped him a new one for it.

Like most things on Deus and on this earth, Maebe found herself hard-pressed to care.

"You got to take college classes online? Were they hard? I mean, can't you just cheat on all of the tests? I guess it evens out with not being able to sleep with your teacher in order to get an A."

He was right. She didn't care about Life Division - or any division - or life, in general. In fact, the longer the alcohol mingled in her blood, the less she cared about anything at all.

"Well, try again. I mean, okay, you had an idea and it didn't work out. ******** it. Think up something else. Tada, I've solved all your problems in the span of five minutes. I'll bill you."

"What the hell." She whispered out under her breath. "Can't cheat, can't ******** your way through, what the hell are you supposed to do, study?" She shuddered at the mere idea of it.

Lex was pulling out the sass, which meant he was loosening up. This was Maebe's comfort zone, and she settled happily into her own sassy smirk. "Your math is wrong. You gave me those because you got me to be honest about my feelings. You owe me. I take payment in full. No exchanges, no refunds."

That was a dangerous question. Had it been another time, another place, and another Maebe, perhaps - she knew exactly what kind of answer that question wanted. She narrowed her eyes into a knowing look, a mix of something between careful, you and don't test me. She reached out and patted his cheek, because she knew he wouldn't like it.

"Maybe I'll tell you one day when you're older, little Lexi." She muttered out sarcastically.

Her cautious smile dropped like a stone.

"You know damn well why." She reminded him with a sharp, heated sigh. "Don't toy with me like that. You don't know how hard it's been." He hadn't even gotten upset at her for patting his cheek. She had done it specifically to make him angry, and he robbed her of that. Furthermore, he'd gone and reminded her of how much rejection she'd been dealing with, all at once. She hated him a little, for that.

"Remember, Lex." She breathed out shakily. "You're a good little boy. Good little boys don't say things like that."

Maebe kept her face even, because laughing would have really insulted him. But at least he'd managed to realize it himself, so when she took the flask, she put it to her lips and used it to keep from snickering. She tilted her head back and drank it in long, her throat bobbing with swallows, and then handed it back empty. That was her payment.

"It really did." She admitted, biting her lip to keep from smirking. "When you talk about who you really are, sometimes it confuses me. Are you saying that like it's a bad thing? Do you hate who you used to be?"

"Confused isn't necessarily bad. It means you're at least trying to figure your s**t out. It's the first step. If you were a know it all, you'd be insufferable and I wouldn't want to hang out with you so much." She could tell by the look in his eyes that he was angry that she'd finished his drink. That, at least, brought a mischievous, painfully tender grin to her face.

"No." She corrected. "Maebe before Deus would have been all over you. Dawson can't be credited with all my confusion. I did try an actual relationship once, you know. Didn't work out. But no one can say I didn't try." Her face pinched at the self-pity, and her lower lip jutted out in a thick pout. "You think you're not good enough for me to be all over you? What the ******** are you, crazy? I mean, it's just sex. Christ."

When had sex become equivalent to some kind of holy bond between two people, to the inhabitants of this island? For the first time ever, that realization actually began to piss her off. "You know you're good at it. You told me so yourself. If you're getting sex confused with being in a relationship, then - then I just - "

She could hear Cami's words in her head. She could hear how much they struggled to see the world through her own eyes. Maebe kept her entire world in separate compartments, all of which remained open for as long as she dared, before they closed and lived in their own little sandbox. Sex had never even lived near love, before Deus. Now, they kept opening and closing as people struggled to get to know her better, and each one attempted to try and shove them both in the same box.

She did not want their hands inside of her. She did not want their change.