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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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Vero frowned and wondered aloud, "Is that what this is about?"
Max scowled and spoke over her.  "I’ve been drinking for years, that isn’t going to change."  He wasn’t shaken at all, or if he was he hid it incredibly well; he just sounded pissed off.  
"Is this what your fight was about?" Lucia queried, repeating Veronica’s question.  
Max and I answered at once.  "Yes," I insisted, hoping to give her an answer so she wouldn’t pry any further.  
"No."  Max scowled, but didn’t move from the desk.  Maybe it would be better to make something up, the courier probably wouldn’t believe this had just been provoked by his drinking; I hadn’t tried to shoot Cass.  
Both of us reversed our initial stance before Lucia could ask us about it.  
Cass eyed us suspiciously.  "Uh-huh..."
"Alright," Lucia insisted when neither myself nor Max volunteered any further explanation, "one of you is going to explain why I came back to find you about to shoot him or so help me...!"  
I guess she figured that the open-ended threat would sway us, but we stayed silent.  Personally, I was sure that anything Lucia would conceive of as a punishment would pale in comparison to most of our lives.  I still saw her as naive.  
Realizing her ploy wouldn’t work, Lucia scowled and sighed.  "Veronica," she gestured, "Take Max into my room and close the door.  Try to figure out what the hell happened?"  The courier turned to me as Max and Veronica left the room.  "What happened?"
"Max..."  The man had plenty of obnoxious qualities, I just had to pick one.  Actually, I didn’t even need to do that.  I shook my head.  "He’s just infuriating."
"Infuriating or not," Lucia sighed, "I didn’t think you’d actually try to shoot him."  She folded her arms and somehow managed to look almost commanding, despite the fact that Lucia usually had all the aggression of a butterfly.  "Can you work with him?  Or, if I lock you two in the same room with a gun, is he going to end up dead?"
"Are you planning to start a blood sport?"  I sighed as her serious stare didn’t flinch.  "Joking aside, he... frustrates me, and he knows how to get under my skin.  And I’m not sure he cares about his own safety, he might actually be trying to get himself killed, so it was probably a good thing he hasn’t been left alone with Boone."  
Lucia considered that and nodded.  "Just punch him next time."
She had to be kidding.  "Oh, what an excellent deterrent, that’s clearly the best solution."  
"Don’t shoot him," Lucia insisted as she walked towards her room.  "I’ll have Cass and Vero keep an eye on you so this doesn’t happen again, but I like to think that you’re better than that."  I nodded.  She was playing to my sense of morality, not that I realized at the time how often she did that.  The courier paused with one hand on the doorknob.  "...would you have shot him if we hadn’t interrupted you?"
For a moment, I hesitated.  If I lied, she might not bother to keep us apart, or she might even try to encourage conflict, viewing this as playful teasing, despite the live ammo.  If I told the truth, she could realize there was more to this argument than I’d admitted.  But Lucia was innocent.  I didn’t think she’d read that much into it.  "Yes."
After a long, surprised pause, she nodded.  "Don’t shoot him."  The courier entered her room and shut the door behind her.  I went to sleep uneasy and plagued by the idea that I’d almost murdered a man.
*       *       *
"Did you provoke him?"  The courier addressed me as soon as she shut the door, silencing Veronica and I midway through a very hushed argument.  I’d intentionally avoided being alone with Veronica because I’d expected her criticism.  We were family, literally as well as metaphorically and we bickered constantly for a lot of reasons, some more important than others.  We both shut up to face the courier.  
"Yes... sort of."  
Veronica, who seemed to have trusted that the whole conflict had been a misunderstanding, gaped at me.  "What?  Why?"
"I crossed a line," I admitted, intentionally keeping the explanation vague.  Hopefully Lucia would assume I did something sexual; I didn’t expect her to realize how well I could read people.  
Lucia sighed.  I couldn’t be certain whether she genuinely accepted my explanation or if she planned to punish or "persuade" me later.  I hoped I might avoid her wrath if I remained as composed and cooperative as possible.  She asked a few more questions that clarified nothing for either of us.  I gave nothing away and neither would she.  At length, she gave up and sighed.  "Can you work with him?  If I leave you two together, are you gonna try to kill him?"
"No, I’m not going to try to kill him.  We’ll be fine."
Veronica eyed me incredulously, "He had a gun to your chest, Gabr—!"
"Max." I corrected her again, but Lucia spoke first.  
"Did you think he was really going to shoot you?"
I considered and shrugged.  If I was honest, Vero would flip out and I’d never hear the end of it.  I just wanted to be left in peace.  That was all I’d ever wanted.  "Not really."
Lucia looked at Veronica and waved towards the door.  "Keep an eye on Arcade?  If you can, get Cass to do the same and take turns.  I want to make sure we don’t have another fight on our hands."  
I figured that was really code for "keep an eye on Arcade and Max" but I didn’t protest, it made sense, at least from her perspective.  It might have made sense to me as well, if I actually cared.  Yesterday, I hadn’t wanted to die, but yesterday had been a better day.  Today I wasn’t so sure.  
Once Veronica left, Lucia shoved me back onto the bed and I expected things to progress the way they had the other night, until she left me there and started sorting through her guns.  Was she going to kill me?  I was more trouble than I was worth now, I supposed, she must have only interrupted because she couldn’t ruin her innocent facade.  If she just let me die, the others might become suspicious, but they’d believe...  They’d believe what?  Veronica would never accept that I’d attacked her and it would look suspicious to Arcade.  Even if I just disappeared, she couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t involved.  So then why was she rummaging in her gun locker like she wanted to find something?
"I got the formula for Lilly’s medicine," Lucia remarked casually.  
She noticed the reason for my uncertainty, looked up and giggled.  "I’m not going to kill you, silly, you’re not as useful dead."  She hefted a relatively large pistol as she spoke, as if the gun didn’t refute that assurance.  "You’re gonna make Lilly’s meds from now on, starting tomorrow night.  But I’ve got something else for you to do first, are you good with robots?"  
I desperately hoped she could not see how much that question alarmed me.  I played dumb.  "Yeah, I can usually figure them out, why?"  Had she noticed my modifications to House’s tech?
Lucia hopped onto the bed, straddling me and still holding her pistol.  "I’m taking you to Cerulean Robotics tomorrow.  You’re going to get me anything you can, repair any "bots they’ve got, and build anything helpful from the spare parts."  She pulled my shorts down to my knees as she spoke.  
"Is this really the best thing to talk about during sex?"  As soon as I spoke, she had her pistol aimed at my face and I heard her chamber a round.  This was entirely more dangerous than anything I’d done at the Gomorra, up to and including the private show with an unloaded service rifle because some NCR soldiers were fucking kinky.  
"You aren’t going to shoot.  You just said you want me alive."
So quickly I couldn’t follow the motion, Lucia flipped that pistol in her hand and smacked it across my face.  I heard her shift her grip on it again and when my eyes stopped streaming, I found her aiming at my shoulder.  "I won’t shoot your face, though that might have earned you more customers."  
I bit back the urge to insist I wasn’t that ugly with a crude joke; I’d rather not deal with a gunshot she’d probably want me to hide.  When I shut up, Lucia’s free hand slid over my hips, just feeling the muscles for a moment, although I fully expected this to get painful soon enough.  
She grabbed my cock and tried to get me hard.  It worked, but she was very rough about it; her knuckles smacked against the bruises on my crotch and half the time her efforts just hurt from how tightly she gripped me.  The wasteland had left her skin rough, which happened to most people, and it wasn’t very pleasant having a calloused hand clenched around something so tender and moving this quickly.  I kept my skin moisturized meticulously and right now I regretted that.  But this still wasn’t the level of torture I’d expected from her.  
Lucia swung herself forward and rode me, slapping a hand across my mouth to keep me silent.  She got herself off twice until I came and I couldn’t bring myself to even try to help her along.  Apparently that was a mistake.  We came simultaneously and that pistol struck my jaw before she’d even caught her breath.  "What was that?" Lucia snapped, still panting as she knelt on my hips, my now-flaccid cock still inside her.  
That pistol came back from the other direction and I knew I’d have some pretty serious bruises under my hair and stubble.  "That." Lucia snapped, "You think you can just lay there and do nothing?  I know you’re better at this!"
I wanted to point out that I’d never been enthusiastic about the whole idea, but couldn’t quite overcome the last of my pitiful sense of self preservation.  "Sorry."  
I raised my hands in surrender and half expected her to take my bracers permanently, but she didn’t.  Her eyes narrowed.  "I was thinking I might go easy on you today, after all, you were nearly shot, but now I don’t think I will."  She raised that pistol and I fully expected her to shoot me. 
The next morning, breakfast was awkward.  I noticed Max asleep on the couch and Veronica eyed me warily until I left the room.  That made everything so much worse.  Even if Veronica and Max probably weren’t biologically related, she acted like I’d wronged her family and before this she’d probably been the closest thing I had to a friend around here, aside from Lucia.  I did consider the courier a friend, although she probably wasn’t too happy with me either at the moment.  The courier had already left and so had Raul, who’d presumably returned to his shack.  I heard Lilly jabbering to her grandchildren in the rec room but didn’t approach her incase she remembered last night clearly enough to attack me.  I found Boone in the kitchen, having a beer with his bowl of cereal.  I wanted to remark how everyone seemed to be alcoholics, but I wasn’t really in a position to start an argument right now.  And Boone, whatever his history, was the only one who didn’t look mad at me.  At least, no more than usual.  He’d never liked Max so I doubt he would have cared if I really had shot the prostitute.  I think he’d taken Max’s theory that the NCR had been infiltrated as a personal affront or else he just hated the man on principle.  Max never seemed to like the NCR very much and neither did I, but even I had to admit that I was more amicable than the deceitful and often impish addict.  Boone nodded a greeting as I got my own bowl of cereal and a bottle of purified water.  On the other side of the table, Cass frowned at me.  
"What did he do?"
"You know him," I responded, trying to deflect the question, "what do you think he did?"
Cass’s frown became a very amused grin.  
I scowled at her.  "Do you really think I would have tried to shoot him for making a move on me?  A guy probably two-thirds my age who looks like that?"  Her frown returned.  "Yeah, exactly."
Cass uncapped a bottle of whiskey and sipped it as she mused, "...Good point."
"Of course."  Nobody could possibly resist sex when it was offered.  I didn’t bother saying that aloud, it would just start an argument I really didn’t need right now.  I ate my cereal and watched Cass drink her liquid breakfast.  "I’d really appreciate it if you’d at least wait until after breakfast to start drinking."
Cass slammed the bottle on the table, but I don’t think she was angry so much as drunk.  "That’s really what this’s all about?"  She gestured towards the bedroom where Max was probably still asleep, sloshing her whiskey across the table in the process.  Boone lifted his bowl to avoid the liquor and set it back down in the puddle as if nothing had happened.  "Max drinks as much as I do, why haven’t you tried to shoot me?"
I groaned and rested my face in my hands, rubbing my eyes beneath my glasses.  "Cass, do you want me to shoot you?"  Both of them tensed and I sighed.  "I’m not going to shoot you, I just... Max brings it out in me.  And I really would rather you drink a little less, Cass, you have a problem.  Both of you."  Boone’s minimal expression creased into a slightly more threatening frown and I clarified, "Max and Cass.  I can only handle so many addicts at a time."
Cass scowled and left the room.  She grumbled, "It’s not a problem."
They left me pretty much alone for the next few hours.  Boone finished his meal and went into the rec room, possibly to clean his rifle because he was bored.  I heard Lilly yelling, having mistaken him for her grandson.  She did that more and more often lately.  Max had only just started making her medicine, but I had much less confidence in him than in Doc Henry.  Maybe he’d somehow botched the recipe and it didn’t work.  
For three hours I debated the pros and cons of asking him, but Lily herself wasn’t the most reliable source and no one else would know.  I’d heard the elevator twice and it turned out that not only had Boone left, but so had both Lily and Veronica.  I found Max asleep where I’d left him, guarded by Cass, who’d passed out drunk on the couch beside his.  If I still wanted to shoot him, I could.  
But I didn’t.  Even if yesterday wouldn’t advertise my guilt, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what I’d almost done since I’d been stopped.  I’d panicked.  I wasn’t even sure how much he knew, he’d just scared me.  If I killed him, I’d never get over it.  He sold information, supposedly, but at the moment he didn’t leave the Lucky 38 and as far as I could tell, he had no need of money.  He could get anything he needed if he only asked, he had no reason to sell information and I don’t think he had any goals at all, aside from his own relative peace and comfort.  However he’d figured it out, I’d spent half the night wondering why Max had told me what he knew.  If he’d wanted to sell it or use it against me, it didn’t make sense to tell me.  He might have felt just as panicked as I had, or maybe not quite that much.  I had been asking very persistently; if his drug abuse was a serious problem, he could be afraid to admit it.  Or that might be tied to whatever led him to believe that he was dying.  Or maybe he wasn’t dying at all; he’d known I was armed and basically backed me into a corner to confront me.  The more I thought about it, the more I suspected that he’d intended for me to kill him.  That pissed me off as much as anything else about the whole incident, if not more.  I wasn’t about to give him what he wanted if that theory proved true.  
And if it didn’t...  What he’d said haunted me.  If he’d just been trying to kill himself or even if he hadn’t, he’d been right.  So much of what he’d said about me had been completely true, he’d basically laid out my life in a few seconds of conversation.  But he hadn’t blatantly stated that I’d been born into the Enclave, so either he didn’t know or he’d intentionally used pathos to appeal to me.  He was so accurate, could he really have read that much detail just from the way I acted?  Or was he in the same situation?  It wasn’t like Enclave personnel and their families had some sort of code word to identify each other.  He had medical knowledge, beyond what I’d expect from a man cooking chems, and he wasn’t a Follower.  He’d also implied that he’d hacked the elevator to gain access to the rest of the building.  Knowledge of technology and chemistry, to that degree, wouldn’t be unusual for someone raised by, say, Enclave scientists?  Thinking about it, he’d fled to Lucia, not the NCR, not Freeside, not anywhere else.  Maybe the NCR were after him.  Maybe he’d reasoned that this was the safest place as the courier didn’t know his past any more than she knew mine.  But how could I find out?
He wasn’t just going to tell me, even if he got drunk, he hadn’t slipped up so far.  I’d have to earn his trust, and that would be a long time coming if he hadn’t really been trying to kill himself last night.  And I couldn’t let him know my history until I was sure, which complicated things even further.  
I sat on a chair beside Max’s couch, careful not to wake Cass.  She was snoring loudly, sprawled across the sofa with her whiskey on the ground beside her.  I was glad the courier had taken Rex with her today; I didn’t need to find out how cyber dogs tolerated alcohol.  
Max lay perfectly still under his blanket, his face a little more pale and his eyes a little more sunken than they’d looked yesterday.  The skin of his jaw appeared almost purple beneath the stubble, a barely visible but severe bruise.  It didn’t quite reach his scar.  I wondered what had happened to him.  
Deciding that Cass wasn’t about to wake up, I reached out and spoke softly, "Max?"
I shook his shoulder.  He had the blanket pulled up to his neck; when I shook him one hand tumbled off the couch and slipped free of the faded golden wool, resting awkwardly on the rug.  His pale skin formed a dramatic contrast with the blue tinge of his fingertips.  Leaving my hand on his shoulder, I studied his hands and ran through my medical knowledge.  What exactly did he have?  Was he sick, or was this just a symptom of his drug use?  Was he even really using drugs, or just treating whatever he had?  This could be a symptom of anything from carpal tunnel to MS.  Or it could just be due to his anorexia, if he really was anorexic.  Or maybe he was just cold.  I glanced around for a warmer alternative to the couch, finding only the beds, before I realized that my hand had barely moved.  
I grabbed his wrist without fully processing who I was dealing with.  He had to be hypothermic, his hand felt as cold as the water bottles in the fridge.  I’d been drilled for years on how to handle unconscious patients and I reached for his neck as I realized that his bracers stopped me from checking his pulse on his wrist.  His collar proved even more problematic and the way he was lying made it difficult to reach the buckle.  I grabbed his hand and had his bracer untied in less than a second.  I forced it up to his elbow as soon as it would move and only let myself see the lattice of lines along his skin once I found the subtle motion of the artery.  Max was alive.  
At first I thought he must have overdosed and pulled the blanket down to his waist to listen for any sign of fluid in his lungs and check his heart.  His lungs were fine and I got the gist of what had happened while I leaned over him with the stethoscope.  The already dirty white couch had turned a deep crimson beneath him.  My first thought was rape, but between myself, Boone, and Raul, I quickly dismissed that.  The bruise on his jaw must have been caused by a bleeding disorder, probably related to whatever disease he expected to die from.  He needed a stimpak fast, and he might need a blood transfusion even after that.  
I strapped a super stimpak to his thigh before even trying to determine if he was still bleeding.  Whether he’d clotted or not, it didn’t matter; if he had, he’d still need the medicine and if he hadn’t he probably wouldn’t survive without it long enough for me to stop the bleed.  I only made sure the blood on his clothes was dry.  On his skin, he had bruises but no obvious bleeds, leaving options I didn’t want to investigate for both our sakes.  As long as there was no fresh blood, he had clotted and trying to find the source might just make him bleed more.  His shorts were absolutely ruined.  
I sat on the floor beside Max.  He’d barely even admitted that he was sick.  This sort of evidence wouldn’t be easy to hide and I doubt he wanted everyone to know he might be dying.  The bruises and the lack of shorts could be explained; we’d gotten in a fight or he’d gotten drunk and hurt himself and he’d been cold or decided to do laundry.  With the blanket draped over him, the blood on the couch was hidden, but someone would notice as soon as he got up.  He’d only soaked one cushion so I could probably clean that up, and as soon as the stimpak did its job, I needed to move him anyway.  His body temperature would have dropped significantly and it would take a while to warm him back up; I should move him to the bed.  I could get the couch looking relatively normal before he woke.  
I pondered what he’d said for another half hour until the stimpak was empty and I felt safe carrying Max to one of the beds.  He hadn’t stirred and I didn’t expect him to.  If he was really as smart as he seemed to be, he’d realize that I’d helped him, but I wouldn’t have let him die even if he would never have figured that out, especially not after last night.  He wasn’t going to wake up for at least a few hours and he didn’t even move.  His arm flopped across the space between the beds as I set him down, partly blocking my path back to the couch.  The bracer I’d loosened hung by a nearly un-woven lace.  A worn strip of leather rested over a pale scar, one of the dozens that etched his forearm in both directions.  I laced the bracer and tied it the way he usually did, preserving at least that much of the sad man’s dignity.  It made sense how he might have ended up like this, even if I didn’t believe that he was right.  
*       *       *
I woke sore and cold, with a pounding headache and an intense hatred of every sound I could hear in the relatively quiet suite.  My stomach gnawed at itself like an un-oiled engine and something in my abdomen spasmed and stung, but those were old pains.  I felt an ache like a bruise inside, and that’s probably what it was, it almost trumped the constant feeling like I’d been stabbed in the gut.  Muscles moved only grudgingly and my thoughts were hazy and sluggish, but I hadn’t really expected to wake at all.  
My left thigh felt more bruised than my right.  That was a familiar sensation as well, just not one I’d felt recently.  I’d been injected with something, a lot of something.  A super stimpak, I guessed, running my fingers along the skin and finding the faint trace of a strap’s imprint on my thigh.  Veronica?
I eased my eyelids open just a little, scrunching up my face at the blinding light.  I was in one of the beds.  Someone had moved me.  I was alone, or at least I couldn’t see anyone around me and the minimized agony of my ears suggested the rest of this room was also empty.  Veronica would have never left me alone if she’d seen, and whoever attached a stimpak to my upper thigh must have seen.  ...Arcade?
Granted, it wasn’t rocket science to use a super stimpak, but I hardly expected that Cass or Lily would have done it so expertly.  And Boone and Raul had little to no interest in keeping me healthy.  Lucia might have, but I didn’t expect that she would have bothered to move me off the couch, or would have dared inject me out in the open unless she’d been trying to frame someone for what she’d done to me.  And I suspect she’d have made it more visible if that had been her intention.  
I rolled onto my side and used my arms to force myself into a sitting position.  Any movement of my abdomen agonized me even more than usual, but I needed to get into something that wasn’t caked in blood.  
*       *       *
I felt it would be best to keep some distance between myself and Max just so Cass and Veronica didn’t start thinking I was waiting for a chance to kill him.  I watched Max just long enough to be sure that he wasn’t going to start bleeding again and then I cleaned up the couch and left.  Conveniently, Cass rolled off the other couch in her sleep, spilling her whiskey and giving me a chance to swap cushions.  Nobody would be surprised if they though Cass had made a mess and spilt her whiskey on the couch, or even been sick.  I didn’t dare try to move her back because in her drunken stupor she’d probably lash out and almost certainly roll right back to the floor, but she provided a convenient explanation for the couch cushion I left soaking in the bath tub in a mix of water and detergent.  
It was still soaking when Veronica returned a few hours later.  She checked the suite, no doubt making sure I hadn’t shot Max while Cass had been asleep, and I expected her to just stay there to guard him, but she came into the kitchen where I was reading.  I kept a few medical texts in the suite, mostly because it got incredibly boring just waiting around for the courier with the same few magazines I’d already read dozens of times; I was browsing an encyclopedia of vascular disease right now, mostly speculating about what Max might have.  Veronica sat down across from me.  I glanced up long enough to see her frown and didn’t go back to reading, expecting some kind of talk about yesterday.  
"What happened between you two?"
And there it was.  I put a playing card in the book to mark the page and closed it as I figured out how much to admit.  "We had an argument."
"About what?" Veronica persisted, "You don’t point a gun at people over a normal argument.  Especially you!"
I sighed.  "Veronica, I’d rather not talk about it."
"I can’t just..."  She gestured in exasperation, "Are you going to try to shoot him again?"
"No."  I answered so quickly and certainly that I guess it surprised her.  She fell silent for that moment and neither of us continued the conversation because a shuffling I’d taken to be Cass proved to be Max as he stumbled into the kitchen.  
For the first time, Max wore decently normal clothing.  He’d put on the shirt and pants that I’d gotten him along with a jacket he must have somehow retrieved for himself.  He hadn’t shaved, but he’d cleaned himself up and combed his hair, leaving it dark and silky, combed forward and up and gleaming like polished gold even in the low light of the suite.  His suit had been perfectly folded and left him looking like some sort of pre-war gentleman, even though I realized he hadn’t removed his collar or bracers.  He had cuff-links that might have been real gold and a tie more pristine than anything I’d seen in Vegas.  The effect proved stunning, even if it worried me.  
Veronica voiced my thoughts, though she sounded more amused than concerned, "Special occasion?"
"No."  Max had lost even the faintest trace of his usual forced cheer.  His countenance hung in an expression so despondent that "frown" didn’t do it justice; the near-lifeless scowl drew his brow even lower and left his blocky, square jaw jutting slightly forward and locked against gritted teeth.  He had his mouth closed, but I could see the tension and knew he had to be in agony.  I wanted to ask if he planned to take something for that, but didn’t want to bring it up around Veronica.  As far as I knew, Max had kept my secret, even though he probably shared it; I didn’t want to announce his illness to everyone.  
Max stumbled into the room and groggily opened the cabinet where he kept his vodka.  Finding it empty, the no-doubt-hung-over prostitute scowled at me and grumbled something in a language even I didn’t recognize.  Veronica frowned, "Was that Russian?"
Max nodded.  "Seemed appropriate."
"What did you say?"  
Max balanced on the counter to reach the higher cabinets, "I said `Where vodka?’"
"You’re going to hurt yourself trying to get it like that," I insisted and stood to help him before Veronica could voice similar concerns.  
Max shot me a more lethal glare than I’d though him capable of, but he stumbled as I reached him and let me help him down off the counter.  Feigning congeniality with none of his usual skill, Max suggested, "Well, as I am currently unable to search, would you kindly retrieve my vodka from wherever you’ve hidden it?"
"Why do you think Arcade—?" Veronica began and I corrected her.  
"I did."  I frowned, hoping Max wouldn’t be so disoriented by his pain as to let slip what he knew in front of Veronica.  "Max, I hardly think you need any anticoagulants right now."
"It’s only a mild one," he countered immediately and he sounded coherent enough that I couldn’t tell if he was thinking clearly or if this was just an addict arguing for another fix.  "Or would you prefer I synthesize dipyridamole?"
"Yes, alcohol is more mild than aspirin— which, by the way, you don’t need to call dipyridamole— but you could just take Med-X, which has the benefit of not being an anticoagulant at all."
He narrowed his eyes slightly, showing a trace of more genuine anger than I’d ever seen from him before.  "I can’t."
"So you’re self-medicating with vodka?"  I was surprised more than outraged.  If he had some reason he couldn’t take Med-X, if he was allergic to it or something, aspirin, and possibly alcohol really might be the next best thing, though that certainly wasn’t a method I’d recommend... 
Veronica chimed in.  Apparently, she’d been paying attention even if she didn’t understand that entire conversation; in retrospect, I suspected that Max had used the more obscure term for aspirin so she wouldn’t know what he was talking about.  "You self-medicate with vodka?  Max, is that why—?"