[ It was all Gold could do not to drop his own fork, really, or the bowl he was holding, and just set them down. Like it was a question he expected to be asked eventually, with tension, and was all the while uncertain how he would answer.

He remembers the conversation on the network, and that he had been careful in how he worded his answer to his proposition -- the direct one. Not the offer that came before. He didn't technically require this in exchange for a meal.

However, when Carver said he would provide if needed and asked for, he had said he could do the same, and there was every possibility that the man was looking at the same deadline he was.

And that mattered.

Maybe the slightest bit of color touched his face. ]

I do not want you to feel obligated.

[ Leave alone that if the man came out just then and said that Gold, himself, was obligated, he would probably set him on fire.

He rewords. ]

...I don't -- [ He shuts his eyes. ] -- make a habit of taking that sort of thing from people that don't want it. [ Or me. ]