Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sympathy was a difficult emotion for Taym to sustain: not out of a lack of empathy but from an overabundance of it that made prolonged exposure to emotional stress, and especially grief, awkward and uncomfortable. He never knew quite where to put his voice, never knew exactly what to say--and Lawrence's grief was of an especially painful variety.

"It's not ridiculous, it's just impractical. I'll find out," he suggested, flicking the ash off his cigarette with more agitation than was strictly necessary, "what people typically do, if you haven't heard anything else. Just seems more reliable to have an actual plan than hope you'll notice something off with someone you barely know who's under a lot of ******** stress anyway. What's the difference between possession and heat exhaustion in someone whose habits you know ******** about? Month on base all snug in our ********' walls isn't long enough. Probably some kind of--some kind of ********' call-and-response type scenario when you're feeling uneasy. I'll ask," he repeated.

He left the going alone comment untouched. For himself, Taym would almost--almost--have preferred to go alone. And if he could have chosen a partner, he damn sure wouldn't have chosen Lawrence.

"They say it'll make us safer," he said skeptically, thinking of skinny, strange Graham Peasly with his sliced-up strawberries and tiny bites and his ten trips to the Sahara. "Anyway, I'm taking it ******** seriously even if they aren't. Not sure what the provisions situation is--" ha, talking about food, wasn't that funny "--or how the pendant and phone situation works out. I was told you could get spotty cell reception out there so I'm going to go ahead and assume that whatever it is that lets us pop out in North Africa and Sidney and Paris also frees us from the constraints of cell towers. So there's that. Still no cigarettes, though," he added with grim disgust.

He gestured vaguely, meaninglessly, leaving a trail of smoke. "I'm sure you'll be wanting to talk to people too, but if you think of anything you want me to ask, I'm happy to save you a trip."

"That s**t Stephen said, though. Maybe that's the point," he suggested. "No fun in a target that's already been gotten to? More satisfying to prey on the..." he hesitated, the barest, smallest possible pause, "... the healthy. Skirt around under their radar. Plenty of people here have family off-Island," he pointed out, and despite his belligerent tone it was obvious that he was trying to convince himself. Doubt had been planted, and Taym's psyche was the perfect soil for it.

The abrupt turn back to business and to tangible requests was a relief, and Taym reached to start sorting through the stacks.

"They recommended me a few specifically, and so I tried to go through and take the notes out of those first. I'll go ahead and pass those over--and this one, there's some notes in it from someone a couple years back that I think might be useful--and I'd appreciate yours, when you have a chance to run them over."

"A few" was a pretty sizable stack of wildly eclectic books and notes and photocopied mission reports. "I don't think," he added, tentatively feeling out the wisdom of giving unsolicited advise, "that it's the best idea to look at this as some kind of punishment or experiment. We're just doing our jobs--as Hunters and as Death division. We just happen to fit the profile they need for this particular assignment. Not going to either of us a goddamned bit of good if we treat this like anything but work."