"I'm inclined to believe you," he said with some fondness. He didn't want to question his feelings too much, but he rather liked the image she'd conjured up. A slight competitive streak, a protectiveness over him. "You didn't run to my side to be nudged out by Someone at the last moment," he brazenly teased her. He'd never doubted that he was an insatiable flirt, but to be turning on the charm immediately after surgery while lying in a hospital bed was revealing just how true that was.
He gave her an inquisitive look as she toyed with him, and he tried to figure out what she was talking about. He was growing quite weary as the anaesthetic wore off more and more as time went on, and he became more aware of the arm. Despite that, he did think that he heard something a little more than innocent in her voice. Maybe he was being wishful. "Ah, perhaps. But I think you are not one to follow the rules of what women should usually do," he told her softly, meaning it as a compliment and not a criticism.
Her comment about the dog did make him laugh. "I'm sure he would, in great detail," he joked a little with her. "He was a loyal companion of mine before the fire," he explained, after a slight pause as he considered how to explain it best. "It took him a while to figure out what had changed, and I admit that I would get unreasonable angry with him for getting in the way or... just generally being a dog, but his loyalty was not shaken by it. He endeavoured to find a way to be useful, to help me. He taught himself, and I would have felt much more isolated without him," he explained.
He could have talked to Marian all day, but if he was being honest with himself he was starting to feel the toll of the surgery. Having not been used to seeing for so many months, even the effort of that was proving quite tiring. He blinked slowly, closing his eyes over to stop the glare of light and colour and form just for a moment. It was overstimulating, and he was starting to feel the slight pinch of a headache behind the new eye.