Welcome to Gaia! ::

"It's open," was the barked reply from inside.

He was shrugging into his coat when he glanced up as the door opened, and minor irritation at being interrupted was replaced instantly with frigid lack of expression. He didn't ask Kostya to take a seat, didn't perform his usual ritual of putting his feet up and lighting a cigarette and gesturing at the edge of the bed. He didn't do anything, really: just turned back to his desk, on which was a frankly-enormous stack of books bristling with careful post-it flags. A row of photocopied diagrams and field sketches of sparse-looking plants marched across the front of the desk, next to a conspicuously-empty ashtray and a room that smelled even less like smoke than it normally did.

His restless hands drummed the end of a pen against one of the pages. He didn't say anything.

The tap-tap-tap of the pen ceased for a few seconds, only to resume at exactly the same pace.

"Might want to go look up the word 'apology,'" he suggested without looking up, "since you appear to have misunderstood the definition."

He'd gone still again when Kostya had taken it upon himself to prod him like he was a sullen child, and slowly he put the pen down, and then, as Kostya continued speaking, almost absently squared it with the edge of the closest piece of paper. Neat and tidy.

He'd told himself he'd never live in a mess again, if he could help it.

"Firstly," he said calmly into the long pause he'd allowed himself after Kostya was done, breathing in, breathing out, don't get pissed don't lose your temper not right now, "Graham by all appearances went for the same reason I am." Or ended up there, anyway--he wasn't sure which. He thought about the sort of people who ate a slice of a strawberry instead of a strawberry, and he knew dimly, past the strange taboo that had gathered around food for him in the past several months, that this was not normal. "Secondly, you presume a hell of a lot to assume that I have nothing to lose, and America presumes a hell of a lot to think that I have so little to come back to that you being a d**k more or less makes a dent in it. I have a life beyond the two of you, even if it was my intention to--I didn't mean to get any personal involvement here. All right? So I ******** admit that. But I did. And I don't mean you two."

A tiny hesitation before he continued.

("AMERICA JONES @******** dont want you to go.)

"And for the rest of it," he finished tiredly, fishing in his pockets and then stopping to put his hands back on the desk, "people ******** die here. If people dying breaks down your machine, it's not a good machine. It's being used for the wrong job. But you're wrong about it--America's not going to break and neither are you. Someone you care about dies, you brush it off, maybe you mourn, I don't know--" because the idea of being mourned here still felt strange and unworthy and perversely thrilling "--and then you get back to work. That's what everyone does. And anyway--"

He paused, trying desperately to fit words around the idea, but he'd said more than he was used to saying anyway and nothing happened.

His eyes wandered over to the cage, to the creatures inside it that were not, no matter what he told himself, cats. He'd always had dogs, had cats, and Kostya knew exactly why, apparently.

He wondered whether Mal had taken Grim or if he still lived in his mother's house with Tuesday. Grim had been a gift in recognition of the fact that he'd cleaned up his act, was settling down. He'd always wanted a Great Dane, big and dumb and placid and unflaggingly loyal. Too much faith too soon. He'd loved that dog. It was this thought, more than anything that Kostya had said, that made his voice thin and strained and unsteady around the edges when he answered. What he wouldn't give for a little blind, undeserved affection right now.

"You say fifteen things and maybe two of them aren't incredibly insulting," he managed. "But whatever. I'll take those two. I don't need any help." I don't trust your help. "I have a--I have a ******** goal. I have a thing to work towards and I like it, OK? Orders," he finished bitterly, a word he felt that Kostya might appreciate. "Tell America you finished your little errand so she can pat you on the head for it."

A hollow little laugh. "My duty," he repeated sarcastically, hazarding a glance at him, finally, and aimlessly pushing the photocopies into a painstakingly neat stack. "That's so many kinds of ******** up I don't even know where to start." A pause, and then, grudgingly: "Congratulations. Not on the transfer--I think you're ******** crazy--but on the promotion, anyway."

Another empty little laugh. "I'll let America know," he said quietly, "that she isn't exempt from being thought of as a means to an end for you. Stay out of trouble, Bashmet," he added cryptically.