Welcome to Gaia! ::

After the first drowsy interruption, waking up (very pleasantly) at the touch of her mouth just in time to catch the affection and the ensuing question, Taym had trouble returning to sleep. He sat up thumbing the corner of a page back and forth, idly counting America's breaths, and then he had one of the only real conversations he'd ever had with Fiona, her patient and pragmatic voice helping him to capture the thoughts he'd been contorting into circles, helping him bend them as near to straight as they ever got.

He'd managed to drift off again just minutes before the second, considerably less pleasant waking.

Put into the appropriate circumstances Taym was capable of surprising patience and empathy. He allowed himself a silent sigh but it was one of suppressed grief and not of irritation, and he sat up but didn't yet leave the bed. His voice, just loud enough to carry through the walls and open windows to her, was calm and only just worried.

"You're safe and I'm safe but I promise I won't open the door unless you want me to," he said. "Try not to throw up but if you need to there's some empty glasses in the cabinet under the sink and listerene in the right hand drawer." A pause. "You got a few good hours at least. Could be worse. You want me to stay here or go there?"

All she would hear would be the pause: there was nothing in his voice to indicate the sudden inrush of fear, of terror, because while he could understand survivor's guilt and nightmares and irrational panic and insomnia and pain he had not, since Deus, had moments in which reality became indistinguishable from the rest. Not ones that weren't shared, part of some ripple in reality that radiated out for all hunters.

He knew what was real.

"No, sweetheart," he said gently. "You didn't do that." He hesitated. "Tell me what happened."

Another long pause, and this time he got out of bed to fold himself up next to the bathroom door but true to his word he didn't open it.

This was a time when he envied Bashmet his detachment: Taym's heart race, pulse pounding and trembling, at what she told him and everything it implied. He was afraid, of her (her strength, her difficult decisions) and for her (her grief, her recovery).

"If you asked me to put my head in your lap right now," he said gently, "even after telling me that, I would. I know you. I know America Jones and the worst she would do to me or anyone in that situation is imply that he's losing his hair." He paused. "Dream doesn't mean anything sweetheart, except that you're hurting."

"It's never going to be over, sweetheart. There's a lot of things in the world that hate us, not just FEAR things but other things, and that's our job. Every time we acclimate to or conquer some sort of misery they're going to find another. Right now they're trying to convince us that we ought to turn against each other. They tried it with me out in the desert and I refused and they tried to terrify and hurt me until I agreed. They tried to make you hurt people and they couldn't do it without cheating because as soon as you were yourself you showed them how hard a decision you could make to ******** their plans over. They had to cheat again with all those hunters. We're better than and it infuriates them."

He leaned his head against the wall. "Earlier you said you didn't realize how I was hurting because I got better. Part of it was lying. But part of it was spite. They want me to give up. They want us to spend so much time worrying about the next move that we give in to their demands because it's simpler. They want us to think that it would make everything stop even though it wouldn't. And when that fails they want us to be so afraid we forget to be human. They want us to hurt each other and they want us to break and it was SO ******** hard and it still is but I decided ******** that. I would put my head in your lap. I trust you. I love you. You make me happy; you're a good person and both of us can save lives in this job if we want to. I am not going to turn away from all that just because of a stupid ******** but maybe. They can't take you from me and if they try to take me from you they'll have to come up with something better than this. So no. It's not over. But it's over right now."

"Good," he whispered, wrapping an arm around her. "Just keep lining up those right-nows end to end as long as you can."

For the second time that night he reached to push her hair from her forehead and kiss her temple, and this time, feeling faintly guilty for intruding on her grief but unable to avoid giving in to his relief, to his adoration, he kissed her on the mouth as well, callused hand cupping her jaw.

"Do you want to try to sleep again? Or we can watch a movie. I can read to you." A pause, another tentative kiss. "I can take you home, if you want to go." Although possibly a midnight trek through the jungle would be ill-advised at this time of night, he offered it anyway, choking down his resentment. "Whatever you want."