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He waited for her, surveying her purchases grimly and starting to protest when she mentioned actual food--they were on a mission, here, dammit--but nothing actually emerged. He just glowered at her instead and went to stand outside.

By the time she got out there he'd managed to extract a cigarette and wrestle with his hands--which had gone from merely trembling to shaking violently at the combination of cold and anticipation--long enough to get the lighter working. He was taking the first drag when the door opened, and he held up the hand with the cigarette in a "don't say anything, this is sacred" gesture. He silently exhaled smoke and cold-frosted breath with an expression of relief and pleasure that was quite nearly lewd, and then turned to put an arm up against the freezing bricks and rest his forehead on it, apparently feeling like the "hurry up" he'd snapped at her didn't apply when he had the ritual of a cigarette at hand. Tension visibly drained out of his shoulders. <******** nicotine patches," he managed after another inhale, his voice so strained with relief it sounded like he might cry. "If you can't fit all that s**t you got into your bag let me know, we can't go traipsing around with plastic bags and s**t."

He'd looked up to distractedly watch her tuck away her findings, suppressing an inward sigh and hoping she wasn't compromising her mobility, when he spotted the evidence of her other acquisitions and his eyes narrowed down into laser-like focus. The mood shifted, but maybe that was just the initial joy of the cigarette dissipating.

"Most I ever did was two packs a day," he said mechanically, reaching over to take her by the arm and steering her back the way they'd come. "But that was when I had money, which wasn't often, so there's not really an answer to that question."

To any onlooker (and what onlookers were there, in the empty streets that night?) they were a couple sauntering down the sidewalk, at their ease and enjoying the cold and the occasional Christmas decoration strung up on a light pole, one smoking and then leaning in to whisper something affectionately into his girlfriend's ear.

What he said was an angry hiss, although his face remained as placid, even flirtatious as moments before: "You stupid ******** b***h."

After a quick glance back up and down the street, he steered her back into the empty alley they'd come from, and unceremoniously, as soon as they were alone, shoved her hard into a wall and put space between them.

The face dropped away and all there was left was raw anger, words that came out in the same hiss, barely audible at all. "You stupid--" he repeated, trying to steady his nerves and his hands with another agitated drag. "I'm trying to be ******** discreet here and you decide to go loot the ******** convenience store? You're even dumber than I gave you credit for. Good work. Flirt with the cashier and fill up your pockets so he'll have a reason to remember you. What if you'd gotten caught?"

Oh, OK. Apparently his qualms weren't with shoplifting itself, just with the idea of being found out at it.

"You live on a ******** deserted Island and you haven't been able to leave in months, months where you've been getting paid, and you for some reason need to avail yourself of freebies? What are you, thirteen?" The hiss became a very quiet sneer. "You need to stop at Hot Topic and buy some ******** black eyeliner first next time? Get your s**t together. Literally and figuratively," he added in a snap. "We're about to have to climb some fences and I don't need you making a huge racket and dropping s**t everywhere when we do."

He'd smoked the cigarette like a starving man ate, and extinguished it against the brick wall of whatever warehouse they were next to before sending the butt sailing into a pile of wet litter.

A long, taut silence.

"You risk your own neck you risk mine," he said, his hands closed into steady fists at his sides because he knew that putting them around her throat like he wanted to would only worsen this decidedly-odd situation. "And you can do whatever suicidal bullshit you want to when you're not on a mission with me. There's no keeping me out of s**t, because there will be no s**t. Do you ******** understand? And there won't be screaming. It'll be me dead, and honey," he said, leaning in again: "I know better. I was the one who came to you when Shiloh died, and I know what you'll do if I'm the next one who bites it, no matter how much you think you hate me."

He yanked her hands off his scarf, shoving her away from him and turning back down the alley, suddenly all business again and not looking at her. "I looked over the maps and it's two left turns down. There's a blind spot in the cameras where the light's bad. Once we get inside--" inside where? "--I have to track something down and I need you, as quietly as you ******** can, to see if you can find a fire alarm or something. Don't pull it. Just ******** find it, and keep an eye on me while you're doing it."

He lingered outside the fence when they got there for some minutes, just silently standing with his hands in his pockets watching the deserted lot between them and the building while time bled by. More out of habit than anything--and the fact that it was a habit was uncomfortable for him to realize--he pulled the hood of his jacket over his head before he scaled up a pile of cinder blocks and helped himself, very suddenly, up the chain-links and over the top. He moved like that, too, was habit. Like he'd climbed any number of fences in his life.

Whatever it was they normally kept here it must not have been too much worth protecting. If there was security, it was minimal; the lot was ill-lit, pitch black in places, and the top of the fence was plain and wire-free. He paused to reach down and offer her a hand up, just as mutely, and he was carefully not looking her in the eye.

His hand was shaking again.

He was waiting with an expression of impatience on the ground, and he put a hand on her arm and made a rather pointless, all things considered, shushing motion of his finger against his lips. He pointed wordlessly at the car parked in the far corner of the lot marked with a security company logo. As far as he knew--he fervently hoped--this was all they'd have to deal with. One rent-a-cop. He hoped.

So maybe Maebe had been put into the wrong division, but despite what he sometimes thought (or hoped), it was obvious within a few seconds that Taym hadn't. The catlike analogy extended to the silence of his steps, even if Maebe wasn't exactly capable of matching it, and to the way he kept close to the warehouse wall as he slunk along it, occasionally lifting himself onto his toes to peer into the windows.

"There's a few rooms I can't see into," he murmured finally. "We'll have to do some poking around. Anyway, there's more than one way in, but I'd like to avoid any door alarms, if I can, so give me a second and I'll just knock." He said this with a certain sarcastic delight.

They were in the darkest area of the lot when he made a "stay here" motion of his hand and almost nonchalantly--certainly with no theatrical creeping about or ninja-like moves--stepped towards a wall with a door on it, procured a glass bottle from his bag--how much was he carrying around exactly?--and with a suddenness that broke the silence thoroughly, hurled it around the corner and into the cement before jogging back, just as unhurried.

There was the sound of a car door opening, and of approaching steps, and Taym's face was totally expressionless and unpanicked at the sound of someone murmuring irritably a few feet away, probably angry at having their pornography time interrupted by a raccoon. Within a few seconds came the sound of keys jingling, and then a door opening.

Taym grinned, not even at Maebe, just to the world in general, at the kind of red tape that demanded that every unknown noise be subjected to rote, superficial investigation. He lifted himself to peer into a window, watching the flashlight beam around the only room he could see into, and he beckoned her to follow him and, bold as brass, passed right into the open door. The flashlight was sweeping against the far wall and he tugged her behind a row of shelves, and kept her there until security left, still muttering in irritation, and the door closed behind him.

"Let us right in," he informed her, still quietly but above a whisper. "How ********' polite, am I right?"

They were in a dark, silent room of empty shelves, the actual warehouse beyond a series of doors. He pulled a device out of his bag--Runic scanner, Caelius had referred to it as when he'd been given the mission--and fired it up.

Moving with confidence, he set off for the doors, to try them.

Maebe's chanting had changed from I hate you to the theme from Mission Impossible. She didn't dare hum it out loud, despite how ******** badly she wanted to, but in her head she could totally hear it swelling dramatically with every move Taym was making. She tried to mimic some of them - but not all. The heels of her feet always stayed firmly on the ground.

She appreciated how simple he made it seem to get inside. But getting inside things wasn't always the issue - it was getting out. Still, she followed him through the open door, and Taym was exhuding some serious pride for it. She forced down a roll of her eyes, and started to slink around herself, looking for the only job he'd given her. To find a fire alarm. In a warehouse. Which she was failing at gloriously.

She found a fire extinguisher, though... did that count? She thought that might count.

A sharp breath of air was sucked in and held when she heard the sound of people headed inside. She gave Taym a frantic look, but at least she knew she was far enough to get caught without giving him away.. and close enough to throw a shield up if it even came to that.

So she stayed right where she was, tightly wound behind the boxes, and hoped to God she wasn't about to get into her first real fight.

"Okay updated news, we don't have to take everything, we just need to and move the sensitive material a more secure location. There should be five crates downstairs." The two leading security guards, if that was even what they actually were, were almost too close to Maebe and Taym, others scattered now around the warehouse. It was obvious at this range the nature of the weapons they were holding, glowing a faint blue. Runic weapons.

There was a loud click, and thunk as someone moved a few crates to the side, revealing a concealed basement doorway. It was pulled open, as everyone stepped inside, save one lone guard standing at the exit.

At this point something strange happened, as someone else wearing oversized sunglasses arrived, weaponless.

"Hey, this area is off limits-" the security guard at the only warehouse exit began, "That means-"

"Relax," said hooded guy, "I'm on your side." They pulled out an ID. "I'm with special security. Your CEO wants to make sure everything leaves this place in one peace so I'm your man." He didn't wait for a further signal as he sauntered inside, whistling a low tune. At some point he paused-

- And then looked at the boxes where Maebe and Taym were situated and smiled a long smile.