Dan's glad that Aster phrases the question that way, because it allows Dan to both deny and answer honestly: "no, it don't."

He pulls the towel and bathrobe tighter around himself, feeling such a sense of despair and shame. He feels like an airplane with some defect that tilts the nose down into a spiral once it gets too high. Like sugar that bursts into flames when its just a degree past turning to caramel. Freezing on a vent in this town felt like an inevitable fate he was slouching towards, but somehow a roof over his head and food in his belly and companionship feels more liable to kill him.

"I won't take a bath when I'm already a bottle in, going forward." Dan knows that that's a pitiful offering, but he doesn't have the ability to offer sobriety or cutting back, so he hopes that that isn't what Aster's expecting from him.