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If he'd been less leery of Ever generally and feeling more friendly, Taym would have picked up the thread of hitchhiking and pursued it. There were always good stories to be swapped on that particular topic--Taym had never met an experienced hitchhiker who didn't have at least a few good anecdotes--and it was safe, neutral ground even if the reasons for the hitching generally weren't.

But Taym being Taym, he considered the temptation and then let it drop with a noncommittal noise. "I'm not sure how much civilian interaction it would involve," he said. "So might not do you any good anyway, if you decide to look into it. I haven't. Did I cover all the essential bases?" This as he turned to indicate the folder, only to find that Ever'd stowed it away, which got him a flat look. "In the paperwork, I mean. Is it something you'd have found useful when you depodded?"

They were heading in the direction of the old school building, and he talked around his cigarette as he pulled his own pair of gloves out of his pocket, pulling them over his bony hands, fresh tattoo swallowed up.

"I've got a classroom cleared out and pretty much clean, but there's a dearth of chairs and I don't want to risk incurring someone's wrath by taking them out of one of the good rooms. ******** paying for a load of chairs and dragging them from the portal all the way down, and I don't want to deal with Marcus's smug vampire face long enough to get the keys to the van, which frankly I don't trust anyway, especially not on what passes for roads here. So we're going salvaging."

What he did not mention was that there were any number of other solutions to the problem that involved less work. Taym, after his last disastrous leave, was more hungry for mindless menial labor than he'd been in months--hungry enough that it outweighed the (also suddenly intense) need to spend all of his money as soon as he could. He was happy enough to inflict it on Ever, as well. Company, too, even company he hated, was a distraction. "Most of the intact furniture got that way by being in rooms where there's s**t blocking the door. I've been waiting for a volunteer to turn up. Hope you weren't expecting spreadsheets or something," he added, baring his teeth. "And if you were, maybe you should have brought glasses."

He stopped short to wheel and face him. It would have been more effective if Ever hadn't been so much taller.

"This is your job," he reminded him, quiet, flat. "You shouldn't need to be bribed to do it."

He turned back, adding sarcastically: "Do a good job and maybe I'll give you like two hundred dollars. Or maybe you should pop by the infirmary and tell them you can't see for s**t. Not a good thing in a Life hunter."

"You're the one who showed up to let me know how much I suck at my job," he said, but it was without irritation or reproach: shockingly mild, almost docile, as if Ever losing his temper was all he'd been after in the first place. In the same unruffled tone he continued: "I expect people to treat me badly, though, because I'm an a*****e. Sarcastic, you know. Like to get under people's skin, like to push buttons. There's always consequences for being an insufferable d**k."

"And you can't listen, apparently," he answered drily.

"Passive aggression," he observed, drawl creeping in on the outlines of the words. "Now who's defensive?"

"So they can hatch some a*****e who doesn't have a work ethic," he answered, still mildly. It was very, very close to a compliment.

"Plenty of that to be done too," he observed, although in truth the main hallway now was fairly clear: deserted, ramshackle, but intact and easy to pass through. He paused to check a door that apparently led downstairs to a basement, testing the lock without explaining why and moving on.

"Cleared several classrooms," he informed him, indicating with his arm the doorways they passed, open into empty rooms dimly lit by what made it through the windows. "Some of the wings are too far gone to deal with alone. We'll need a small army to clear the basement, and we need to clear the basement to get the power back on. All that's fine, though. The gym's been clear for--years, maybe, I'm not sure, and now we've got a wing of rooms."

It was surprisingly normal aside from the general decay: lockers, desks. A couple of the rooms had been converted into storage for old filing cabinets and stacks of crates and boxes, all neatly arranged; the rest were scrubbed as clean as they could get. The one that they arrived at was, ringed with perversely cheery sunlight through the new windows, the most normal-seeming of all. It was the flip of a switch away from new, and smelled of disinfectant. Where other rooms had linoleum tile peeling away from the subfloor this one had been neatly refloored. A scrubbed-clean podium and a long table occupied a wall under a chalkboard--the long, spiderwebbed crack through it the only jarring note. There were two folding chairs. He pointed. "We need about two dozen more of those, but if you want to sit down and read, please do because I," he deadpanned, "despite any assumptions you might make on account of me being an a*****e, value your ********' opinion. I'll give you a red pen, if you want it."