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Taym was, predictably, sitting upright with his legs crossed even though that could not feel great, even still. It was entirely likely, especially given Sunny's general disgust with him, that he had a reputation, and that reputation was for being difficult and contrarian and generally pretending like he had any kind of hold on dignity that needed to be maintained despite clear evidence to the contrary.

He knew Leslie worked in the infirmary, of course--he'd even interacted in passing with him while he ushered jello or morphine into and out of America's room, or whatever it was he did during the day--but somehow or another it had not occurred to him until the moment that he saw him standing there with a clipboard that Leslie worked in the infirmary, and he went tense and wary, a few dozen possibilities of what he had and hadn't seen springing to mind and a sudden gratitude that Leslie didn't like to read more than he had to.

(He'd been making himself all kinds of promises about stupid secrets that ought not to be secrets, but even promises to himself didn't hold up.)

"Thank ******** god. What does this entail?" he drawled, turning his attention back to the well-worn book in his hands.

This was incredibly charming. Seeing Leslie playing doctor (the unflattering term which Taym would have used to describe it) and the promise of soon, freedom combined to produce a feeling of fraternal goodwill towards all men, or at least towards this one.

Obligingly, Taym thrust out his left arm, transferring the book to his right hand without looking up. Even though the abscess scars and the marks inside his elbows had long since faded to near-invisibility, Taym nonetheless was grateful that it was the left hand that was preferred for this--the less-obvious arm, the one that didn't even have a shitty tattoo to embarrass him any more.

"Are you actually qualified to do that?" he asked skeptically as he thumbed over a page.

Which netted him Taym jerking away from the cold touch with a strangled yelp, dropping his book and losing his place although judging from the look of it he'd read it enough times that it wouldn't matter.

"For ******** sake," he said accusingly. And then, as he warily relaxed back, sounding smug: "Do they really fight over who has to deal with me?"

Another glare, reproachful, at the intrusion of the thermometer. It didn't last long. He was too busy being obviously pleased by the idea that having to deal with him was a chore.

It wasn't exactly surprising--aside from the usual disagreeable Taym, Taym in the infirmary was far worse, donning his contrarian streak like highly ineffectual armor, and at times simply succumbing to fear. In the days after the Sahara he'd fought physically and brutally against a feeding tube, thrashing like a trapped cat until they had to hold him down. It was no wonder that Sunny had warnings about his elbows. But he didn't think of that, of course--thinking of those things would be difficult--and so he chose instead to credit his general surliness.

"Sunny's pretty cute," he observed, although he did it only after a sideways glance at America's bed to make sure everything was safe. "Aside from the, like... everything else. Probably a wildcat. Don't be in such a hurry to volunteer next time. I think I'm making headway."

(He wasn't. And he didn't think he was. But his relentless awful tooth-bared faux-flirtation with Sunny was one of the few pleasures he managed to derive from any infirmary stay.)

"I can't very well do both," he pointed out calmly.

"Radio silence from America while she was on mission, so we went to check on her. Probably a good thing we did. Crazy b***h who may or may not have been in her right mind shot out my kneecaps," he answered, eyeing the tongue depressor as if to say why do you keep asking me to do impossible things, "and then something using Konstantin Bashmet's body shot me in the face. There was also," he added as an afterthought, "a rockslide."

It was surely a coincidence or an issue of bad placement on Leslie's part. It was surely not at all intentionally that the resultant jerk of Taym's knee sent his foot for tender regions.