Daniel doesn't laugh so much as he just exhales sharply, a bitter huff of air full of concentrated resentment and irony and frustration and not the slightest ounce of humor.

"Hah, yeah," he mutters, now giving his coffee an intense look of concentration that its inaction hasn't fully warranted. "Lots of degrees and lots of debt and absolutely no fallback because you don't even have parents to -"

He breaks the sentence off, biting his lip. He is - not going to think about that. He really does not need to think about that. That is the last thing he needs right now. Daniel lets his head drop to his chest, giving into the weight of gravity and his numbing mental exhaustion and the sum of his failures, academic and otherwise, and breathes a weary, defeated sigh and hopes that they can just leave it at that.