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He waited. He actually made himself sit down in the stiff chair and count to a hundred and twenty, and then do it again. It hurt. He wasn't sure how much of this was genuine physical craving--he wasn't sure what sort of things were suspended, in the pods, and which things weren't--but he sure as hell knew that if this was all in his head, that didn't make it any less intense.

He'd done much worse. He could handle four minutes.

He knocked, but he didn't actually wait for any reply before he opened the door. She'd sent the damn text, she could deal with it. Out of uncontrollable male animal habit he spent about one tenth of a second registering what he was seeing because he was a man of specific tastes, but it wasn't enough to distract him right now.

"Have fun?" he managed. To his inner relief it came out shockingly nonchalant, totally unhurried.

He was doing the mental math: cigarettes times packs times days. He didn't seem to be bothered by the lighter--maybe he didn't notice or maybe he just didn't feel it was worthy of comment--and he also didn't even ask her if she minded if he smoked. If she cared, she could kick him out. He wasn't waiting. He also didn't feel like she'd appreciate it if he did what he wanted to do, and left, so he hovered.

"Slept like a pile of bricks," he lied while he packed a box against his palm, shoving the cellophane into his pocket. "I've got your laundry over across the hall." No thank you. Nothing. "That's how you spend your day off? Socks?"

He was silently grateful that he was distracted, and that she was tiny and skinny and outspoken besides, which helped.

"I'd get drunk and attempt to get laid," he said flatly. "And failing that, I'd find a bookstore that was open late, and find out where the best Thai place was, and I'd spend embarrassing amounts of money in both." So long with no cash that that was a fantasy on par with buying the Taj Mahal--it seemed just as ludicrous, just as unattainable.

He'd retrieved the lighter while he spoke, after taking out one cigarette and turning it upside down in the pack with the automatic movement of habit so old it was muscle memory, and then pulling out another to light it.

His hands trembled on the lighter, but maybe that was anticipation, even if he looked as casual as he had when he came in the door.

He closed his eyes as he took the first drag, holding it in his lungs and exhaling impossibly slowly through his nose, his entire body sagging in relief. He leaned back against the wall, an unraveling looseness spreading from his brow to his shoulders, and he swallowed hard before he took a second drag like a man in the desert might have drunk from a sudden oasis. When he tipped his head back with his eyes still closed and exhaled again it was with a nearly pornographic intensity of pleasure, but his voice was level and untouched, and punctuated with smoke. "Never pick up smoking," he said drily. "It's an awful habit. And no, I haven't eaten. Not hungry," he lied.

He'd already scouted it out, but he was willing to humor her and he needed to find something that could be pressed into service as an ashtray, so he gestured at the door in a "lead the way" sort of fashion. He ignored the money question--he wasn't sure how much an embarrassing amount was anyway, and felt a suspicion that what would embarrass him would be paltry by anyone else's standards--and in answer to the other, said: "This isn't the best smoke to do that with. Bring me cigars next time."

But he paused, sucked in a mouthful, and produced a series of wobbly rings, obediently. "Close enough," he said. "Don't ask for more, it's a waste of smoke. Never could do it with a proper inhale." And then for her entertainment he produced another trick: an exhale through the mouth that traveled straight from his mouth back up through his nose in a wavy column, an inverted waterfall of smoke.

Pencil socks and a dinosaur hoodie, but she got touchy when people accused her of being a teenager? Mixed messages, he felt, but he was wise enough not to make the observation. Not yet, anyway. He filed it away in case she pissed him off later.

"Doesn't hurt any more than breathing it out does, so no." The ash was reaching critical mass; he considered disposing of it on the floor while she wasn't looking. "Works better with something better than a light cigarette, though. With--" he paused. Well. Never mind. And then, with audible emotion, voice stretched tight with relief: "I feel so much better. Don't take up smoking," he repeated. "And yeah, I have questions. I'm just not sure the answers I've gotten so far have had time to settle. What kind of food do they do here?" He asked that like he was asking where the firing squad was.

Once wouldn't hurt. He waited until she was looking in the other direction and flicked the ash away against the wall. Not the optimum situation, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He was smoking like a starving man must eat.

"I make a mean grilled cheese," he said, realizing belatedly, as he said it, that the island probably didn't have the sort of ingredients he felt constituted a decent grilled cheese. He had visions of Wonderbread and orange cheese product and prayed they were wrong. "Meanish," he corrected, grimly.

His only reaction to her cooking delegation was a resigned look. That was probably inevitable. Maybe he'd be pleasantly surprised by the island larder (unlikely).

"As soon as I'm human," he said. God, he dreaded it. The few fist fights he could ever remember being in had gone poorly for him, although he was always a little surprised to remember how speedy he was on his feet, how quick he was to react--provided he wasn't strung out at the time. And he wasn't, now. A reminder he also didn't need.

Well, you won't be alone this time, Sir. He jumped--to Peyton it must have looked truly insane, and so he said roughly: "I'm still not--used to... the talking."

You'll get used to that too, Sir, I'm sure.

What the ******** did I say about calling me that?

Blessed silence. He took another agitated hit on his rapidly-diminishing cigarette. "You're going to find me a disappointing opponent."