Despite her glasses, Gretchen liked to believe that she had a keen eye for small details. Whether it came to information or visually, it saved her more than once, and was only rivalled by TJ's own eye for detail.

Or at least, that what she assumed. It was hard to tell as they haven't spent any meaningful time together since he split off from the rest of them.

The two of them woke up the earliest, up hours before the others. This morning, she found him in the observatory, the one room on the highest floor, curled up on a couch scrolling on his phone.

In the rare moments she was able to sneak a glance at his arms, seeing no remnants of his. . .'activities', left her confused. A mixture of intellectual and morbid curiosity had her wanting a closer look.

Much to her surprise, when she asked to see his arm, TJ silently obliged.

He stayed focused on his phone while she got a closer look. Despite her concentration, it was difficult to find any evidence of his indulgences. Whenever her eye found the slightest sign of a previous cut, she easily lost sight of it after the smallest adjustment or blink.

"How are you able to make your scars this faint?" She asked.

"Cut with a sharp enough knife, don't flinch or get scared halfway through," he shrugged. "It's easy."

"Spinelli and Vince say you sharpen knives."

TJ halfheartedly nodded.

"You said you considered yourself to be a masochist? Without the 'sexual bits'?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"How did you discover this?"

"That's private," said TJ. "Can I have my arm back?"

She let go, and he tucked his arm under his chest.

"What's the pill for?"

As much as he wanted to stay in his shared room, TJ had to come down at some point, annoyingly enough. He had pills to take if he didn't want every breath to knock the next one out of him. When he made his way downstairs, he found the others either lounging around the living room, watching TV, or grabbing something to snack on from the kitchen. Where he ran into Spinelli.

"The pain," TJ said, grabbing a water bottle from the fridge. "I have fractured ribs, remember?"

"But don't you like pain, or whatever?" Spinelli asked. She was more focused on the large bag of chips in her hand. "You should be having the time of your life with it."

"It's a different type of pain."

"How is it different? Pain is pain."

TJ sighed. "Do you like pizza?"

"What kind of question is that? Everyone does."

"Your favorite is still BBQ chicken pizza, right?"

She paused. Honestly, with how adamant he was about not spending time with them, they were surprised that he remembered that detail about her.

"Yeah?"

"If I gave you a slice of anchovy pizza, would you eat it?"

"Ugh, no. Anchovies are gross."

"But why? It's pizza, isn't it? Pizza is pizza." He paused to take his medicine. "But it's not the same, is it? There's enough of a difference to prefer one over the others. I don't like my pain to come from breathing."

"Maybe you shouldn't get jumped by random gangs, then," she mumbled. He didn't bother answering. Instead, he turned and headed to the stairs. Slowly, he climbed each step, too stubborn to wait until the pain passed in the living room with them.