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There was something to be said, Taym privately felt, for enjoying a social function without attending it.

There was a dearth of serious smokers on the Island, a loss he sometimes felt--smoking had always been a convenient lubricant to the wheels of social functioning, before Deus--and sometimes, as now, was grateful for. It was his third cigarette of the evening, and thus his third (if he was being honest) escape out of the noise and chaos.

He moved comfortably in crowds; he chatted and tossed snark and grinned and drank, drank too much, several glasses of wine in already and feeling comfortably buzzed. But even when he was young and throwing illicit parties in his parents' house while they were out on business trips, he had found reasons to hide himself in empty rooms and quiet corners behind the poolhouse for snatched moments of calm.

Leaning back against the railing of the balcony, Taym watched the goings-on through the french windows: dancing bodies, the ebb and flow of groups merging and splitting again, the occasional socially inept stranger fumbling out of the corner only to flee back to it as soon as a drink or food was in hand. And he occupied himself also with dispatching a few texts, since the one he'd launched at Em had been received with a frosty silence that he couldn't entirely blame her for. Too soon. He sent one to Clerise almost as an afterthought, not actually expecting anything to come of it: I am devastated and I am on my third cigarette. This is all your fault.

Julieting the ******** out of the balcony by the back hallway. Where the ******** my Romeo?

And then, with his characteristic lightning speed--Taym texted like a Japanese schoolgirl and with impeccable punctuation, painstakingly deploying quotation marks and semicolons--another: Not "wherefore" though. That means "why." Today you learned something. I see you. You can't escape.

The slouch intensified. If Clerise had mastered the art of the all-you-can-eat buffet, Taym was her black belt equal in the art of the slouch. He could practically lie down standing up, given an adequate surface to lean on. And he lifted the hand not occupied by a cigarette in a lazy wave, his eyebrows already climbing at her impressive food haul.

"I am not moping," he claimed defensively. "I am having a smoke break." And also moping. "If I wanted to spend the evening miserable I'd be banging Creedy somewhere."

He eyed the plates. "Expecting company? Twelve apostles, maybe?"

He gave her a sour look from over his cigarette and opted to change the subject. This decision he almost immediately regretted, because the selected topic was one he had chosen specifically to needle her back: "I thought I'd finally see you in a dress. You disappoint me once again. Mimsy looks nice."

And then instantly, with resignation: "I didn't say a word. Not a single word."

If he hadn't been moping before, he was now. Moping and offended, which is how he'd looked last time this had come up, which was maybe a little understandable given that Clerise always acted like he was a walking nuclear disaster as soon as Mimsy entered the conversation. It was less about Mimsy and more about the implication that he was in some way generally unworthy and just had a knack for selecting women that Clerise had no personal investment in so that she could watch them burn from the sidelines.

He opted to talk about the dress instead, attempting unsuccessfully to erase the wounded look from his face.

"I can't bang a woman who attends formal events in a suit, it says things about me. Go trade clothes with Reid." A pause, a snort. "Reid looks more at home in that dress than you would, but at least you'd fill it out."

Good work, Clerise: you have successfully erased the injured look right off Taym's face. At the mention of "b stuff" he calmly stubbed out his cigarette and began to climb onto the balcony railing in an exaggerated show of pseuicide while she rambled, although his progress was arrested by something more pressing and he paused, halfway over, to climb back.

"Watching you eat is like watching one of those Nature specials with the jackals and lions and s**t at a carcass. That s**t is why I can't take you seriously when you say nice things about my cooking." He indicated a random heap of something. "How much mayonnaise do you think is in that? That's disgusting. I bet there's garlic powder in it." He said "garlic powder" like someone might say "rat droppings." He did allow himself an aside, apologetically backtracking: "Also heels do not make a suit into a ballgown. Even nice ones. Those are good. Did you pick those out or did she?" Because Clarice required no introductions, and never had. Taym had no delusions about his place on the totem pole of Clerise's affections.

He discreetly flinched when she laughed. He always did. It never stopped him from trying to make her laugh anyway.

"That was cruel. It's gonna take her twenty minutes to get you out of that thing." A pause, and a self-satisfied, lazy: "I could do it in three. Not that I will, after seeing that." He gestured at the spot recently occupied by a pile of deviled eggs. "This is why the marriage wouldn't work out," he deadpanned. It was not the first time he'd said that to her; probably not even the first time that week. His affection--to anyone, Clerise included--nearly always came under the guise of straight-faced derision. It was only when the mockery went airy, went viciously cheerful, that Taym was deploying any actual insult.

He smiled the secretive, downcast, lip-bitten smile he did when he was trying not to laugh--he mostly saved his laughs, like his cheer, for when he wanted to injure--and pushed his hands into his pockets, eyes wandering back to the milling people on the other side of the glass. "I'd have known beforehand, to save us both the shame. Spoon privileges are going straight into the pre-nup. I think these things through. Not that I've ever had that problem with anyone but you. Most people would consider me a blessing. I mean, more than you do."

He made a sly grab for a promising looking tidbit on the edge of the nearest plate, something that hadn't been overly contaminated by proximity to inferior foodstuffs.