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"Wha? Th.. Sstill?" Sid shook his head, deciding- too late- that was probably a bad road to go down. "Thah ith... En the end... we wuh ju.. unluhgee."

He pressed his hand against his face. Not only did he have nothing incredibly reassuring to say, but he couldn't even say it. Great. A moment later he pulled his hand away and stared at it... still felt weird.

Sid's mouth, if it was possible, gaped a little wider. "Uh..." And then he closed it, much as he could. He had no idea what he could say to that.

A murderer... But then, in his current state, and given the collar, it was hard to be very afraid of Billy.

Don't pull away, don't pull away, don't pull away. The words ran through Sid's head like a mantra several more times before he'd reined in his disgust. He was even less of a prize himself lately, he had to remember that. Still, being touched... He pushed that thought away and forced himself to say something.

"Ith... ess... ess all en the past now," he said, clinging to a gentle tone of voice even as he stumbled over the words.

Sid tried to remember if they'd exchanged names before, but his memory was bad enough by default. The painkillers only made things even hazier. The granddad comment still hit a nerve. "Fi'y-foh ih nah tha fuggin ol'." He raised his hand a little too late to catch some of the spit that flew out with the words.

He grumbled in frustration and took a few moments to calm back down, and to steel himself for trying to say his own name without lisping or hissing through his teeth. "Mah nae... Ssid."

He'd take hissing over lisping any day.

The surreal quality of the whole scene didn't strike Sid until that moment, with that question. He blamed the drugs.

He just had to keep telling himself that the octopus-man-thing used to be just a man... and then he had to accept that he himself was going to have a hell of a time with more people staring, if not running away in terror like that one chick. Freaks of a feather... He managed not to sigh that time.

"Shhuh, wha nah?" he said.

As he watched Billy tear up, Sid found himself trapped in what was simultaneously the most touching and most disturbing experience he'd had on the island... most of the others had simply been disturbing. No amount of acid could have prepared him for having a tender moment with an octopus by a lake. Better get used to it.

Sid gingerly patted Billy on the head, careful of the spines.

"Yeh... w..." He nodded while he kept working on the word. "Re... really."

He smiled, though it had more to do with the fact he'd manage to spit out 'really' properly. Regardless of the reason, it was barely noticable as only the corner of his lips pulled up.

"Ith... It... ss... " Sid slapped his forehead, sighed, and tried again with something simpler. "S'awight."

Once he lowered his hand he lay it on Billy's collar. When he realized he'd misplaced it quickly relocated his hand to his shoulder. He couldn't bring himself to do anything more than that, but it was something. He stared across the lake while Billy sobbed, wondering what it took to break a man like that... besides the obvious octopus thing.

"It'ss awright," he said after a few minutes. Not thinking about it did wonders for pronunciation... but once he realized that it was hard not to.