Wide-eyed and owlish, Olivia could probably all but see the gears turning in his eyes as he feebly struggled to come up with a less emasculating excuse.

“Uhhhhhh.”

It was taking a bit.

“Nnnn uhhh errrr, heh, uh...” his sister’s words finally melted some of his shock to make way for something far worse: realization. “Oh. Oh!”

He jerked away from the fabric touching his cheek, eyes unblinking and watering just a bit for it.

“Oh my goodness.”

Then, she lit the … wardrobe? No. The strange pagan altar in her closet, which made things smell not an iota more pleasant.

“Oh my goodness, Olivia.”

In any, any other situation, Roderick would have been the weird one. Minus Darius and his new dead animal fascination. Or Pearl’s New Woman escapade. Or, well. Alright. He was fairly average at home.

“You know,” he cleared his throat, holding onto his tenuous grasp of what passed as a ‘high ground’ here, “there is no shame in discreetly visiting a psychologist. Discreetly. Discreetly.”