"The circus was... " Steve trails off. It was awful, but maybe he'd brought some of it on himself. Which just makes what Lark did for him even worse, quite honestly, but it's easier to talk about the Christmas party, because, "No," he says, and there's this weird twitch of his mouth, almost like he wants to smile, which is dumb. "No, you could - you could just stay until the night was over if you didn't want to do the dance card thing. So that's what I did."

He'd danced with other people so they could leave, if he was on their cards. But he hadn't been in a place to be willing to ask someone else to help him with his. He shrugs one shoulder. "It wasn't bad, it was - just a party, I guess."

But he's still not great at parties, and he'd been much, much worse at them before. "It was more just that the whole Barge was in the same place at the same time, all in fancy clothes. Some tempers were high. Yara didn't do well with it."