Theo wasn't used to seeing someone else so pleased at the simple idea of just seeing him; the thought was alien but it made a tiny curl of happy warmth unfurl in his chest, one that Ernie had triggered in him before. He sipped his coke and tried to commit how the little bloom of happiness felt to memory, another one of very few weapons in his small arsenal against the armada of horror that he felt always circled his mind, a dark moat in his subconscious waiting for him to fall into it. In this scenario, Ernie was a lighthouse.
"I actually haven't had the time." he said, sounding rueful. He'd been drawing lately, or what passed for drawing anyway - he didn't claim to be Monet and these were more scribbles than anything else. "I've been drawing." he said, confessed even, because the act of doing so was private for him, like keeping a diary would be to other people. "What did you think of the book?" he asked, interested, leaning forward and absently circling his finger around the rim of his glass.