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Two days after his release from the infirmary (his granted freedom, as he thought of it) Taym found himself almost accidentally standing in the hallway in front of the room where America had retreated after being plucked out of the rain and her own insanity. Bashmet, he knew, came here often, and so he had discreetly waited until the Russian was engaged in some other project before just-coincidentally deciding to wander upstairs.

He was not the sort of person you really wanted lurking around in residential hallways. The cast-and-sling combo certainly did nothing to improve his general appearance, unless bolstering his usual aesthetic of "walking wounded" counted. Wrestling with his coat proved painful in his current situation as well, and so there were no plush sleeves and high collars to smooth the knife-sharp edges of his body. Finish it off with the fact that he'd frustratedly decided to forego shaving after a single ill-fated attempt--and Taym was a man whose scruff descended into genuine beard-dom in short order--and he was not exactly the picture of a pleasant unexpected visitor.

He knew it. He hesitated, and then he knocked anyway and almost hoped Otto wasn't home.

He stuck out his hand, Taym being of the school of men who felt that a handshake was the most broadly acceptable social lubricant, and also because he thought that maybe having it out there would prevent Otto from shutting the door in his face.

"Otto Graves, right? Obadiah Thompson. Wondering if you had a minute. Promise I'm not selling vacuum cleaners or encyclopedias or about to ask you if you've accepted Jesus as your personal savior."

He took it, more out of politeness than anything, and without thinking--without even realizing what he was doing, apparently--he turned it to examine the label before he opened it, to eye the little columns of numbers as he sank into a seat with a mute jerk of his chin in thanks.

"Friend of Bashmet's, aren't you?" he asked, letting his eyes wander from the can to Otto's apartment, lingering shrewdly on the kitchen or what there was of it, skimming the rest quickly and restlessly and not exceptionally politely. Small talk first. "And America Jones, I think. Maybe."

He got to the point very suddenly, putting the unopened can back onto the island without thinking or noticing.

"How long were you in Death, Graves?" And then, lowering his voice as though he were afraid of the room being bugged, even here: "And I don't know what ******** rumors have or haven't reached you about the assignments we got at the last meeting but I promise you this is personal business."

"Garnished it with a gunshot," said Taym with a baring of his yellow teeth that wasn't quite amused enough to pass for a grin. "Tore my shield off first, so you can imagine how well that went."

Framing it nonchalantly like that took the fear out of it, for a while. He wasn't sure whether the recurring nightmares full of his own blood were better or worse than the ones full of tooth-mauled body parts and the smell of bile.

"Aside from that, though, he's got us all set on... I guess the word I want is surveillance. He tried to hand me a personal mission along those lines early after I depodded--right after the thing with the wall, if you were there for that--and I found excuses not to do it. I guess he's decided it's division priority. And of course by surveillance what he means," said Taym, with another grim grin, "is rooting out insurrection. And as much as I'm aligned against these ********'... terrorists, or whatever they are, I think you'll sympathize with me when I say that I consider this, given the amount of infighting and hysteria we already deal with on a daily basis, the early stages of a ********' witch hunt."

He was quiet for a second, absently rolling his lip between his fingers, a startlingly young and boyish tic that jarred with the general impression he gave off of being much older than he was.

"Understand," he said finally, "that when I say a witch hunt I don't just mean Death hunters pointing the fingers at anyone who rubs them the wrong way, although god knows I anticipate that fully. This gets out and I'm worried that it'll be my division that's the one being burnt at the stake."

A pause, again. "What made you transfer out? Had to have been a breaking point."

"It's not so much that I'm afraid of it getting torn down as I just have no interest in being part of the crossfire, you know?" His hand was restless, and he'd moved on to absently chewing his thumbnail, staring off over the top of it in a distracted fashion. "But yeah. There's that. He acts like he doesn't know what he wants--rails on us for not treating other hunters' lives with respect and then yanks out my fear shield and puts a bullethole in my shoulder to make a point? Nothing you ever do is good enough." His eyes settled back on Otto's face briefly before meandering off again: like a dog afraid to accidentally make eye contact. "Was it hard? Getting out."

The answering laugh was a dry and bitter bark. "I don't think he takes too kindly to anything, period, but thanks for the advice. Maybe at this point he'll just be glad to get rid of me." That was vaguely wistful: if only, if only.

"People," he said suddenly, "are going to think that this was a coward's effort to flee Caelius. I don't know if I have the energy to put into caring. For what it's worth," he added, "you did the right ******** thing at the right ******** time, as far as I'm concerned."