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Very specific about time. Ominous. Maybe not. But particular, very.

Agree on two counts.

Kostya raised an eyebrow minutely, but Taym knew his face enough to know an almost-baffled look when he saw it.

Bathroom for body function. Kitchen for something to eat. Outside to smoke.

Unsure. cannot calculate most ideal due to unfamiliar with group

Then it was decided.

"I recall, yes. Memory almost like photograph. If cooperate, anyvay."

He pushed himself off the bed, then opened the door of America and Boris' room, where so many joyful stories had happened. (Kostya had heard and read significantly less, but it was obvious in the way she spoke of him.)

And towards outside he went, keeping pace with Obadiah, lazy but measured, and not at all in a hurry.

(Predators can smell fear, he'd always heard. Was it true?)

Taym's reaction to the notice was abrupt, and as short-lived as Bernice's moment of rage: it was grief, pain, a spasm not of fear or anger but of anticipated loss, quickly and tightly controlled back to nothing.

He stuck the cigarette in his mouth, lit it right there in the hallway, and after he'd exhaled, said quietly: "Let's make ourselves at home, then. Shame they didn't show us around first."

"Well if they aren't going to police me I'm not gonna go out of my way not to smoke the place up. Smoking outside ******** sucks. Let's go find the kitchen," he said. "I got a Fat American Boyfriend reputation to live up to."

Kostya inspected the exterior of everything, noticing how old it all was. "Like house, but older than 'cute for vintage', I am thinking." Kostya rapped his knuckles against the counter comfortably, as if it were his own home.

That is, until he opened the fridge. Nothing but a widening of his eyes and shutting the door again with some finality.

"Forgot to eat the leftovers," he said, smiling, but it didn't meet his eyes. He looked at Taym, and was concerned.

He remembered how she'd devoured the first contents of his care package, all of it gone even on the first night. Even if he'd sent extras for the team. And the second one had been well received, too, and--

The ever-present tingling at the nape of his neck changed, turning heavier. Harrowing. Even if it had been Lawrence who had taught him the word, it was apt for so many facets of their lives.

This one included.

(No knives. Not even one.)

"Sound like good plan. Do not vant to vait seven hour in vun room vith you. Do not even have Russian book to discuss."

That was, in fact, a lie. Kostya would gladly pass the time with Obadiah in that manner, and some of their afternoons on the cliff had stretched out into nearly that almost without effort. But that was with food, with literature, with the freedom of a day off, with a breeze.

There was no breeze in this base. It was suffocating.

"Need to use vashroom first, though. Seem ve may need to backtrack, think vas at end of hall."

The bathroom was unremarkable save for the nearly overpowering smell of bleach. It'd been cleaned very recently, likely within the past hour. On the side of one of the stalls, was a number of poorly drawn Sharpie doodles, their style and quality familiar.

He closed his eyes, hard; he swallowed. His hands were shaking.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" He didn't mouth it, he murmured it, growing reckless.