Welcome to Gaia! ::

After tucking the cash into his pocket, Taym reached into his coat pocket and slid a pack across the table. A half-smoked pack. But before any protest could come, he added: "Come by 252 later and pick up the other one, I didn't bring a spare."

"Same here but I've got paperwork," he said, not least because the idea of a leisurely jaunt with Zeke of all people back to his room made his skin crawl. He procured his phone again, glanced at the screen with a tightening of his jaw, the question apparently decided. "Whenever later this evening," he said. "I'll be there all night. You should work on getting leave privileges ASAP," he added. "That s**t gets expensive."

"No problem," he said settling back distractedly with his phone, Zeke's presence apparently having been dismissed already. "Good ********' luck getting him to get his a** out of the infirmary."

The voice of experience, and, depressingly, the voice of skepticism.

But when Zeke showed up later Taym had a spare pack of cigarettes, as promised, and although he wasn't exactly made welcome--Taym would make him wait at the door, not even inviting him into a surprisingly-pristine room glimpsed through the open doorway--he wasn't given any further bullshit, either. To Zeke, maybe, it didn't seem like anything worth writing home about, no particularly friendly gesture, nothing worth celebrating.

And maybe it wasn't. But maybe, in some small sense, it was progress.