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It was probably satisfying to Leslie to see that even a little shove was enough to put someone as slight as Thompson off his balance, footing shifting in a half-stumble. Probably it was also satisfying to see the flicker of genuine rage in response--flitting across his face where before only impatient irritation had been--which was quickly extinguished with a visible effort of will.

There weren't any lockers to slam him up against here, but there was the pod he'd just fallen out of, and Taym pushed him into it viciously, pinning him there. He moved with more speed than strength; with more efficiency than power, although his skinny fingers were a vise grip when they closed around his jaw and directed his face at the cigarette butt. He didn't need to draw his weapon for it to give him an advantage. Intoxicated by the realization that he'd probably win in a fight against this little s**t, by the feeling of Fionnghal's strength in his own fragile hands, Taym bared his teeth right back.

"If you don't give a s**t about decency," he suggested with manic, tooth-gritted patience, "then give a s**t about power. I wasn't going to pull the ******** 'I outrank you' card, but I am now. I outrank you. That doesn't mean I get the right to push you around, just that I'm strong enough to and I will if you get shitty with me, and so will everyone else. You don't want to think of this place as an army? Fine. It's a prison. You shot off at the mouth to the wrong ******** guy in the yard. The next one will make you his b***h. I haven't got the time, so I'll just ******** break your jaw so you can try to smoke through it when it's wired shut. Pick--up--the--cigarette."

He let him go. He didn't hurt him, didn't push him. He just let him go.

"You get in the ******** habit of keeping the butts in your pockets until you're somewhere you can get rid of them. Island's not full of public ashtrays and you're not to make it into one on your own," he said, hackles smoothing, anger draining away even as he longed to break the kid's nose (again, Fiona suggested tranquilly, she having apparently noted the crooked lines of it where Taym hadn't). Dominance had been established. Maybe it would need re-establishing later when they were on more equal footing, but if it did, he'd take care of it then. For now there was nothing to prove. He'd already proven it. "Hurry up," he added, jerking his elbow at the arrow on the floor.

"Does it matter?" he asked flatly. And did it? The distance was irrelevant. Leslie was bound go there now, better or worse, whether it was fifteen steps or twenty miles away. And then, immediately and vaguely troubled-sounding: "How old are you, Leslie?"

Taym suppressed an urge to roll his eyes, made more difficult by the fact that Leslie's answer had stirred up something approaching a laugh from Fiona. He just leveled an unimpressed look at him instead. He didn't press him for a more concrete answer, letting it go. It had, in a way, been answer enough on its own. He kept up the silence until they'd nearly closed in on the cove, and then he hesitated over whether to tell him more than anyone had told him.

He felt like he was watching someone line up for the slaughterhouse. He felt like he was signing someone's enlistment form. He felt like he was saying "close your eyes, this won't hurt" with the gun already in his hand.

"You'll know what to do, soldier," he lied.

He felt his fingers closing on the imaginary trigger, and he stuck out a hand as though he and Leslie were parting ways after a long and difficult partnership. "See you on the other side," he added, without a trace of awkwardness.

"You're not going to die down there," he answered, trying not to sound tired. "Man the ******** up, you can't already be scared when all you're looking at is a set of stairs.* After that little stunt you pulled back in the pod room I'd be grinning from ear to ******** ear if I thought you were walking into a dragon's mouth. Go do your s**t and be brisk about it."