Johnny's the cobra in the room, so to speak. The shadow of a man Paul is doing his best to talk around, because when he tells people it's not his place to interfere, it's exactly what Robby says last. It's what you do next. It's making yourself better, and for Paul, that means that he should stop plunging his hands up to the elbows into other people's problems they don't need him to solve.

All the problem he can try to solve here is a simple, if not straightforward, one: building a rapport, piecing together a pidgin tongue between them they can communicate through. This is progress. Paul nods, maybe a little too readily - but he'd already resolved to put his cards on the table, hadn't he?

"That's the only way it makes sense to me," he agrees, barely blinking at the transition from one Robby to the next (it's only natural, in a memory blurred with a dream), "You don't get to choose the world you're in, or the circumstances you're given, or what the people around you do. Only your own actions are yours, and how you choose to live with them."

No wanting in the world will make someone change from the outside if they choose not to. Sometimes Paul is embarrassed by how hard it was for him to learn that, and how easily he stumbles back into the false-logic of fervent desire.

"Good guys might not always be able to make rent." He smiles slightly, like they're in on something together. "But I still think it's worth it."