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Taym shot Bix a look of mingled disappointment and relief over his cigarette.

"So it's all subjective. Well," he said, gesturing with the smoke expansively, "the good news is you're not likely to destroy the fabric of reality by mistake. The bad news is we can't round all you guys up and use you to answer Really Big Questions by process of elimination."

He was taking this surprisingly well. Maybe he was coming around to the whole "Deus is crazy, stop getting stressed" philosophy. He coughed into his shoulder. "You uh... you're an old hand at this. How long does this s**t normally last? I wonder," he added distractedly, suddenly once again intrigued, "whether this would make you better or worse at poker."

"What the hell is D and--wait. Like--Dungeons and Dragons?" Another long, cool stare. Between the cigarette and the slouch it was a toss-up whether Taym more resembled the slightly weird lone-wolf who attended sessions religiously or the rebellious cool kid who broke your cleric's nose after PE. Really, could have gone either way.

"Really?"

"This is why," said Taym, with the air of an old man lecturing a boy, "you don't s**t where you eat. You get your rocks off on shore leave. When there's shore leave to be had," he added grimly, with a sharp, irritated drag.

He wasn't entirely unhelpful, though. "Send her a text. Tell her you lost your voice."

"How ********' romantic," he deadpanned, irritably field-stripping his cigarette butt and shoving the remains into his pocket. "And lucky you. Every girl I've met here has been off her ********' rocker or acts like she's still in high school. Good thing I'm not interested and," he added with a bitter laugh, "neither are they."

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he eyed Bix consideringly. "So, in the interests of me being prepared next time something crazy happens, at what point do you start to panic and have to go poke your nose in at the infirmary?" A beat, and then: "What the ******** would they do, anyway?"

"I'm still in control of my words," he said, apparently self-diagnosing again and looking relieved when everything came out as intended. The note about the infirmary's attitude toward suffering caused a spasm of frustrated anger to flit across Taym's face, so he backed up to the more friendly topic proposed moments before.

"Molly is a ******** angel," he said, with unusual sincerity and enthusiasm. "Too good for this hellhole. Too good for you," he added, with the sort of jocular teasing one expected of--well, of a bro. Laid on thick enough that maybe Bix wouldn't be insulted, and would take it in the vein in which it was intended. "I don't know how she does it."

"I've heard stories," he answered, having resumed wandering aimlessly, perpetually restless, unable to sit still. He hesitated, and flashed a long-toothed grin. "Not about H. Pervy how? Like Mark pervy?" That was a thought.

"I'm sure she's not awful," he said, after a long, awkward lull. Taym, once again, was demonstrating that he had no idea how to respond to kindness; that he was out of practice returning politeness and adrift in a sea of forgotten etiquette when it came to social interactions. "I'm sure she's great."

"I uh--yeah. When there's supplies," he said, sounding as wary as if he were maybe accepting a veiled invitation to put his foot into a bear trap. He ran his hands over his head in lieu of raking his fingers nervously through the hair that was no longer there, and abruptly confessed with unwonted sincerity and bluntness: "I sound as rude as ********, sorry. I don't mean to. I just... didn't have much of a social life. Before I came here." Not in the past couple of years, anyway, when most of Taym's social life, if it could be called that, involved lying on the floors of other people's houses, zoned out and non-verbal and unmoving save for shambling trips to go throw up into an assortment of rusty sinks.

And why was Taym suddenly feeling like confiding? Hard to say. The threat of Rep yanking his secrets out in public was a constant overwrought worry, and something about Bix's predicament was making him feel more self-conscious than usual. Maybe the at-hand reminder of how hard it was for some people to lie.

"Anyway," he said, changing the subject as fast as he could, "I uh... you going to make it through the day like this?"