"I did indeed." His smile is as rakish as always, though notably subdued - he's tired. Understandably so, yes, but it's unusual all the same. He steps inside and touches Jack's elbow with his free arm, a minute gesture of returned affection.

"I was mauled," he tells him, and sounds so damned chipper about it he might as well be telling a joke. It gets better: "By a sort of enormous eel-like creature with steering fins and needle teeth and rings of eyes. And lots of tiny arms. I believe I heard one of my compatriots refer to them as 'demented flesh-eating sea millipedes'- What are you doing with that?" The spatula, he means, is this getting kinky already?