"No, I suppose not." He shrugs, dismissing Peter. "He had a few moderately worthwhile traits. Strength wasn't one of them." Reflectively, "Nor, after all those years as a rodent, was basic hygiene. I imagine that amused people with no understanding of the brewery."
"Then you," he hesitates, "consider yourself out of the woods now?"
"I said I don't want that image," he says plaintively, taking a respectable drink once he's ascertained that it's safe.
He grunts assent, passing the Enormous Gloom off as discomfort with praise, and drains his glass. "He certainly was," he says sourly. "Little idiot ran away because of breakfast cereal." And because his godfather wouldn't sleep with him. But that whole painful memory is too nauseating to share. "Sheer bloody luck he ran into someone stupid enough to believe him too transparent to mole." He sighs. "I suppose he had to believe he had an impossible goal so as not to obsess over the merely difficult one. Made him a right handful that year, though, that on top of everything else. I could have managed the bereavement and probably even the hormone explosion without the self-importance." Drily, "Like a house on fire."
Yes, Sev is regretting having given him so many in this thread already. ;)